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Danny Ocean Had Something to Prove
He had been making a living away from the mic in the radio industry for more than twenty years. Once his kids were grown, Danny Ocean wondered whether he still had the chops to be on the radio full-time, as he had been for eighteen years all over the U.S. in his younger years.
Danny made some calls, including to his former colleague Jim Loftus at 7 Mountains Media (he’s now at Shamrock), and expressed his interest.
When an opening for Program Director and afternoon drive personality became available at WSBG in Pennsylvania’s Pocono mountains many months later, Danny jumped at the chance.
“There’s a great staff at SBG in Stroudsburg. I’m really lucky to have live talent from 5 am to 7 o’clock at night.” Veterans like Chuck Seese in mornings and Karen Stone in middays. They’re all veterans who’ve hosted their shows for many years in the market.
“We’ve got a great staff and company support for promotions and sales. They go out and sell Main Street because that’s what it is. We are a heritage Hot AC station for the people in the Poconos.”
It all starts with our VP/Market Manager Pat Lincoln, who has worked in the area for decades and brings the winner culture to our building.
Relationships, says Danny, are the key to radio success, and his previous work relationship with Loftus was “100 percent responsible” for getting a shot with 7 Mountains Media, where he’s been for almost a year.
Weekend Rock Jock
Even while working in writing, advertising, and affiliate relations for two decades, Danny kept his programming skills fresh and his foot in the door in radio with weekend on-air shifts at various Philly radio stations.
“In 2011, Chuck Knight, who was the Program Director at B101, the dominant Adult Contemporary station in Philly for decades, invited me to come do weekends and I was thrilled. I spent nearly ten years there. When the pandemic hit, Entercom had purchased the station and put all the part-time people on the shelf. I then reached out to Bill Weston at Beasley’s Classic Rock 102.9 MGK. Beasley has a gold mine in Philly largely due to their heritage station brands and their talent,” Danny explains.
“The MGK On Air hosts are people who have been there for twenty years or more, and the talent is incredibly entrenched in the market. Listeners live for them; they are like rock stars, so to go on there was a real dream. I’m playing the music I love, and it’s a complete 180 from the other work I’m doing right now.”
He’s on every other weekend from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Saturday and 8 to 10 p.m. on Sunday, with features like “Philly’s Top 500 Songs” and Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” around Thanksgiving.
Radio Roots
The classic rock format harkens back to his very first days in radio, which began for Danny at PA’s Haverford High School. WHHS is the oldest high school-run radio station in the country.
“We were only 10 watts, but it was the experience of being in the room and picking the songs and playing the vinyl. You could play what you wanted. It really lit the flame for me. There was no way I was going to be doing anything else after having that experience.”
Naturally he joined his college radio station at American University in Washington, DC, and was something of a sensation as “Dr. Rock,” on WAMU’s AM free-form Friday evenings. He was also a fixture at frat parties and local clubs DJing three nights a week.
Anything and Everything
After “leaving college with his hair on fire,” he started his first radio job in DC in 1986 at EZ Communications Inc.’s WBMW-FM B106, where he “did anything and everything ever asked of me and loved it.”
Miami Overnights
A prior professional relationship would lead to Danny’s first full-time on-air job at Hot 105 in Miami.
“The Program Director had been the APD at B106 in Washington and I was hired for overnights. I slept all day. I was on my own trying to get good and it wasn’t easy.
“We were a hybrid CHR station before Miami Beach was built up, and the market exploded. Even though we had the right attitude, we were not successful in the ratings, and the company flipped the format to Urban in late 1988, and that’s where it’s remained as a dominant station for the past 34 years.”
He would then do weekends in Philly and work at NY’s Z100 as assistant promotions director and weekend host and crisscross the country with stints as APD/MD at JAM’N 94.5 in Boston, Z95.7 in San Francisco, and Hot 97 (WBHT) in Wilkes-Barre, PA, where he would work with Jim Loftus and his lifelong friend and radio host Kid Kelly.
Ramped Up the Ratings
One of Danny’s career highlights was his time as Program Director and afternoon host on New Haven’s KC101 from 2000-2003, where he increased ratings at the Clear Channel station by a full share (5.9 – 6.9) in the first year.
“I spent a lot of time listening to the market and assessing the music, air talent, and promotions. We didn’t have a ton of turnover there, but being a heritage CHR station between Boston, Hartford, and New York, it needed attention. I focused the music and developed larger than life style promotions and helped generate revenue non-traditional revenue at the same time,” he recalls.
9/11 Hits Home
Danny says being on air after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, is one of his proudest moments.
“When we came back to regular programming, we were a different-sounding radio station. New Haven is only ninety minutes from NY, and people commute. We had families that were affected immediately. We needed to reflect exactly how people were feeling, so we came back with uplifting music that sounded like America. I got calls from people, including a guy who was so moved that he had to pull over and weep on the side of the road.
“It made me feel like we stepped up and were doing what we were supposed to be doing. The job is to protect the license and serve the community.”
Danny and KC101 would go on to win the 2001 Gavin Magazine Small Market CHR Radio Station of the Year and Small Market CHR Operations Manager/Program Director of the Year awards, as well as 2002 FMQB Promising Manager/Program Director of the Year and more.
Budget cuts led to a layoff in 2003. Danny would move on to Memphis for a job at CBS Radio’s FM 100/WMC-FM.
He had a young family in PA, so he flew home every weekend and lived in Memphis’ Peabody Hotel. “It was a difficult time. The ground beneath my feet was unstable, and after three months on the job, CBS Radio sold the station to Entercom and I felt it was time for a change, and that’s when I stepped away.”
He continued to work off the air and was more financially secure in his positions in writing, advertising, promotions, and direct mail at companies including Friday Morning Quarterback and Radio Direct Response/RDR Promotions.
Affiliate Relations/Doc Rock Media
An ad on All Access in 2012 would change the course of Danny’s career.
He had no sales experience but knew radio inside and out and was hired as an affiliate relations director at Sheet Happens Prep Service. He worked as an independent contractor under the company name Doc Rock Media (an homage to his college radio handle) and grew the company’s client base from approximately 160 stations to nearly 400 in just over four years.
“In 2017, I got a call from United Stations in NY, who said, ‘We’re going to be very blunt with you. You have been killing our company by putting Sheet Happens Prep all over America. Would you consider coming to work for us?’”
Astounded and flattered, he took the job, which, he says, was completely different because he went from selling one product on his own to selling 50 products along with a staff. He stayed for four years.
“It was a lot of fun. I probably would have been there longer,” he says, but he was offered a gig he couldn’t refuse.
Kid Kelly Called
“(Radio host) Kid Kelly hired me twice,” says Danny. The two first worked together in 1994 with Jim Loftus at WBHT in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
“We made so much noise and caused so much havoc for the competition back then. We succeeded in becoming a viable player in the market for a station with a limited signal.”
“Then, in 2021, Kid called me and asked me to do affiliate relations for a new syndicated show he was launching. It was a tremendous opportunity. We launched the show, and within three months, we landed our flagship on WLS-FM in Chicago every weeknight. From there, it grew, and fifteen months into the job, the syndication company said they couldn’t sell it, and they pulled the plug, and I was out of work, and it started a two-year struggle.
Kid Kelly Cancelled
“So, I took some jobs that were not ideal and worked myself back to a better place, and last year 93 5 SBG Stroudsburg happened,” he says.
WOWY Radio
Danny also hosts middays on WOWY radio in State College, PA. It’s heard all over the state. “It’s on so many stations they don’t even say the frequency; they just call it WOW WEE Radio!
“We play songs from the late ‘60s through the ‘90s, and it’s really unique and fun for a kid who grew up on Top 40 radio. It takes me an hour and a half to prep it every day and about an hour to voice, so my days are long. I’m in at 7:30 in the morning, and I usually don’t leave until 7:30 at night.”
Larger Than Life Promotions
“We just put the wraps on a Taylor Swift promotion that we did for fifteen weeks this summer. We gave away her catalog and merchandise three times a day and we gave away tickets to a show in Miami to a 43-year-old woman who is surprising her 14-year-old niece with her first concert ever. There is nothing bigger for our Hot AC format right now than Taylor Swift.
“I’m so happy that we were able to award a prize like that to somebody who’s going to have the experience of their life. We had over 200 on-air winners, plus we took the promotion on the street. We let people come by remotes and register to win, so we had well over 1000 people who participated.”
Big promotions and generating revenue are a hallmark of his career.
“My experience at Z100 taught me to do larger-than-life promotions. I don’t care what size market it is. It’s what you do, not where you are. I took the long-standing relationships that I have with artists and management companies, and I made the promotion work.”
He strives to “give the listener a once-in-a-lifetime experience that they can’t buy or get anywhere else” while generating money for the company.
In addition to elevating promotions, Danny created benchmark features like “93 Minutes Commercial Free at 3” and the station now features the 90s at 9, an hour of ‘90’s music at 9 a.m. every weekday, and they’re both sponsored segments.
“When you don’t have the benefit of looking at the ratings, you have to look at other areas. How’s our advertising, our requests, do people come out to our appearances and it was a yes in all areas, so I believe we’re doing good work,” he says of his first year on the job. “We are all very proud of our success.
At 60, Danny says, “I’m probably working harder now than I’ve ever worked,” but he’s content.
Amy Snider is a music features reporter for Barrett Media specializing on stories involving radio professionals working in Adult Contemporary/CHR/Top 40 formats. She brings over twenty-five years of media experience to the outlet. Based in St. Petersburg, FL, Amy works for iHeartMedia and the Total Traffic and Weather Network as an on-air reporter, appearing on dozens of radio stations including 98 Rock, Mix 100.7, 95.3 WDAE, and Newsradio WFLA. She has also reported and anchored in the Tampa market at Fox 13, News Channel 8, WMNF Community Radio and WUSF-FM, the NPR affiliate.
Amy is a music fanatic. She hosted a drive-time rock and roll radio show for 20 years on WMNF-FM and is known as a tastemaker in the music and arts community. She booked, hosted, emceed and promoted a wildly popular weekly live music event in Tampa’s Ybor City featuring original music with performers from all over the world. Her free time is often spent at concerts and music festivals. To get in touch, find her on X @AmySnider4.
