Radio is not an easy business to build a career in. It requires fortitude, adaptability, motivation, and a willingness to grow and change with the times. Looking back across his career, which just reached its 50-year anniversary, Doug Podell, known as the Doc of Rock, has shown all those traits and more.
“My first job in 1975 was at WABX in Detroit,” Podell says. “And now, here we are 50 years later, and I’ve really had almost no down time along the way.”
Across those five decades, Podell has worked at many of the biggest Rock and Classic Rock stations in the Midwest, been part of memorable format battles and legendary stunts, and, the entire time, one thing has been consistent across his career: his nickname, the Doc of Rock.
Podell explains the name was born at a crucial time early in his career. He had left WABX for full-time work at another legendary Detroit Rock station, WWWW, better known as W4. The station was programmed by Sky Daniels, another famous Rock radio host known for his time at WLUP in Chicago.
While the full-time opportunity was great, Podell knew he was having a hard time cutting through with the audience. What he didn’t know was that there were discussions behind the scenes about whether he was going to cut it at the station.
The Birth of “Doc of Rock”
That’s when Daniels set out to help Podell find his identity. “He said to me, ‘Doug, we got to do something to spice you up,’” and asked Podell if he had a nickname. In college, some friends had called him the Doctor, and the rest is history. “The next Monday I’m coming in, and out front is a big sign that says, ‘The Good Doctor Doug Podell 10 to 2,’ and then I hear Sky say, ‘Coming up next will be the Good Doctor.’”
Creating that on-air persona was what Podell needed. “It gave me an opportunity to hide behind the name and open up my personality, and that’s when things started to take off.” Over the years, the way Podell has used the Doc of Rock persona has gone from very foreground to more subdued and back again.
“It developed into the Mad Doc of Rock because I really went overboard with it at some points, and then it was just the Doc of Rock, and now it’s just kind of the Doc.”
Regardless of which doctor is in the studio, Podell says it’s still how the listeners greet him.
Country… Gone
Since the day when the Doc of Rock was born, Podell has been involved in several seminal moments in Rock radio history. The first was when W4 shocked Detroit by changing from Rock to Country, which was memorialized in Howard Stern’s book and movie, Private Parts.
“I was on at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning and was greeted at the door by the General Manager with a cowboy hat,” Podell says. “They offered me the chance to stay on, and I thought, ‘Well, I do have to eat tomorrow,’ so I hung around for 30 days until I landed a job at KQRS in Minneapolis as Music Director, which was my first management position.”
Working together at W4, Podell became good friends with Stern. Down the road, that led him to Cleveland, where he programmed Classic Rock WNCX and launched Stern’s third syndicated market.
“That may be the biggest nuclear bomb ever dropped in radio,” Podell says. “We took out America’s Rock station, WMMS.”
Podell had already proven his ability to lead a station to battle in the eighties when he had programmed the original WLLZ and taken on Detroit’s biggest rock station, WRIF. Now in Cleveland, the battle was on again.
“Everybody told me we could never win, but we did.” That included holding a “funeral” for WMMS’ morning host when Stern’s ratings exploded. The broadcast was famously interrupted when one of WMMS’ engineers cut the line for the satellite feed. “I might have to write a book about those days,” says Podell. “I think there’s a book and a movie of what went down.”
Adapting to a New Generation
Today, due to many factors including consolidation, lack of resources, and changing music tastes, format battles like the ones Podell fought in are almost unheard of. But there are lessons from those days that Podell still swears by.
“You have to be more engaged with your airstaff. Whether they are in the market or not, you can’t just let them fend for themselves. You need to keep everybody focused, engaged, and on track with what the mission is.” He knows it’s hard, but thinks it’s something Program Directors today should strive for. “Despite all the meetings, the sales, and the promotions, always make time for your personalities. Don’t think of them as jocks; think of them as generals out there on the streets.”
And he adds that the lack of direct, overt competitors doesn’t mean there isn’t competition.
“The war isn’t necessarily on the street anymore, but I’ve still got to do more than the next afternoon guy across the street. You got to be smarter than them, faster than them, and get your information out quicker.” That hustle includes a healthy embrace of social media, something not every veteran radio personality is comfortable doing.
“I do more social media every day than I do content on the radio,” Podell explains. The hustle that has driven him throughout his career is still in high gear. “You can’t be complacent and do the same video every day. You’ve got to be creative and get outside your usual box.”
He jumped on social media early and thinks it’s been greatly beneficial. “It’s one of the reasons I’m still around. A lot of the people who didn’t embrace it aren’t.”
But extending his brand onto other platforms is something Podell understood the value of long before social media came about. Back in the late ‘seventies, before the debut of MTV, Podell hosted a weekly show called The Beat on cable TV in the Detroit area that played music in this new format called videos.
“To this day, people still recognize me from the TV show, which aired for seven years,” noted Podell.
While he might talk about the wars he fought as Program Director of WLLZ or WNCX, when you get right down to it, one of the accomplishments he is most proud of is the time Podell spent running WRIF, Detroit’s longest-standing Rock station.
“Never had any idea whatsoever I would ever work there. I’m humbled by it because it was always such a great station; it was where you wanted to be.” He continues, “I looked up to it, you know, and to then be asked to run it and be there for 18 years—that’s very gratifying.”
And while he says he could have walked away from his career after that and been satisfied, he didn’t. The Doc is still on the air today, administering Rock to his patients across the motor city.
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Mike Stern is a Classic Rock columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. He has been with Jacobs Media consulting stations in the Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative and AAA world for more than a decade. Prior to that he programmed stations in Chicago, Detroit, Denver Las Vegas and other markets. He also worked as News/Talk Editor for Radio and Records, wrote about Top 40 Radio for Billboard Magazine and had his own radio talent coaching business called Talent Mechanic.
