WBAP host James Parker is back home in Texas doing what he always dreamed of. “A lot of people are converted from either other professions or other formats before they get to talk radio. But this is what I’ve always wanted to do, and I knew it,” Parker said.
Parker’s journey began as an intern at 105.3. “I started as an intern, and I had to follow around the station I wanted to intern for a year, going to all of their live events around town,” Parker said. “They had all kinds of [events] like ‘meet us at the bar on Wednesday’ or they started playing dodgeball with some of their listeners.”
While playing dodgeball with listeners “started off almost as a goof,” it soon exploded into something more. “After three years of doing it, [the event] got so big, there wasn’t really a venue to hold it,” he said. “Like 2,000 people would come out on a Wednesday to play dodgeball. Yeah, it got out of hand. But we had to stop it because it got out of hand. We were having to rent fences to fence off the lot where we were having it. It became an insurance hazard.”
It’s through events like these Parker also was able to get his foot in the door. “I won a trip with the show to Cancun. It was one of those where you enter to win and put it in the box. I’ve done that so many times because I followed them for over a year. So, I went to Cancun with the show and at the same time, I was applying to be an intern for the third time. After that I finally got the job. So that was just my foot in the door.” Once his internship finished Parker became an overnight board op.
These lessons from his internship were not lost on Parker, who believes creating and attending events for your listeners is a way for the person behind the microphone to become real. “That’s kind of the school of radio I come from, because then it becomes real,” he said. “You know, once you become tangible, you’re not just a voice coming out of the radio. And so live events and promotions and going to other people’s events was a big part of what we did at my first job and something I have carried through.”
Today, he tries to make everything an event for his afternoon drive show. “If there’s going to be a presidential debate, we’re not just going to talk about it, we’re going to meet at Bottle Rockets and the Shops at Legacy. Then we’re going to watch it on the big screen, and I’ll make bingo cards and hand it out to you. If you can’t make it out to Bottle Rockets, I will email you a PDF of our bingo cards so you can play at home.”
It doesn’t matter to Parker how many people show up, but it is the connection he has to the community. While his opinions might not be for everyone, he still encourages his ‘haters’ to give him a call. “I love it,” he said. “I would rather [critics] call rather than comment. There’s nothing more boring than a bunch of people who are sitting in a circle agreeing with each other, like, ‘oh, no, you’re the best!’ ‘No, you’re the best.’ That’s boring. I like the people that say, ‘you suck.’ And I say, why? And then we have to talk about it.”
Another way Parker believes is a good way to connect with listeners is talking to people wherever you may be, “For 95, maybe even 99% of people, no matter what event you have, they’re not going to come out. So, going out and getting audio of other listeners and playing it, I think that’s a way to connect because they kind of see that as an avatar to themselves. Sometimes they do it at radio station events… Talking to people on the street, going to other events, like if someone’s having an event and you were going anyway, just pull out your phone and get some audio and play that back. So, when people hear non broadcasters on the show, I think that that could be a point of connection.”
While his internships showed him some unconventional ways to connect with listeners, Parker still rates his success in a more traditional way. “Ratings and revenue, that’s it,” he said. “The number of calls you get doesn’t matter the number of emails or likes that you get on Facebook or retweets or whatever. I mean, you want that and it’s nice, but we have two grades on our report card. Ratings and revenue.”
To push the envelope and increase his ratings and revenue, Parker said, “I try and be really funny with commercials, or at least somewhat entertaining, or make it something different. When I have the creative leeway to make my own runs of commercials instead of just making like four that rotate, I’ll make like 30 that rotate and try to put a punchline in them or something funny or something weird or make it a series. A lot of the other stuff I do, a bunch of other people do, but the commercials are probably different. You know, if you make your commercials interesting enough, people actually listen to them. And that seems to be pretty effective.”
If you are looking to follow in Parker’s footsteps he says, “Don’t follow in my footsteps. This is a contracting business. So, you have to realize that if you’re chasing the radio platform, it’s going to be a lot smaller by the time you get on board. I don’t know what platform is going to take its place because we we’re all still consuming audio content and there is a place for podcast, but there’s also a place for live streaming stuff.”
He additionally noted, “The live events and live commentary serves a purpose, and it can’t be disposed of. Now, will it still be over radio waves that come from a giant tower and a transmitter? I don’t know, maybe. Probably not. We thought radio would go away when TV came around. We thought radio would go away when cell phones came around. So maybe the music stuff will all migrate to digital platforms. There’s still a place for live commentary.”
Krystina Alarcon Carroll contributes features and columns for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
