Robby Bridges is Vice President of Programming for Press Communications in Monmouth Ocean, New Jersey. His day-to-day responsibilities include programming and morning show co-host for 107.1/99.7 The Boss, which is today’s featured brand.
I started by asking Bridges to give me some background on the station’s building blocks.
“The Boss signed on before I got here a couple of years ago with the idea that we would be a modernized Classic Rock. An 80s-focused MTV, Bruce Springsteen ‘Dancing In The Dark,’ Bon Jovi Classic Rock station. Then it evolved into more traditional Classic Rock Station, and then when I took over, we hadn’t ever quite gotten to where we wanted to be.”
“The thought was to do a Classic Rock with a classic Top 40 presentation. Play songs that would be palatable to the Classic Rock listener, but also were hits on pop radio. And over time, we’ve evolved into more of a traditional Classic Hits, or you might even call us an Adult Hits station. Because our focus, our bread and butter, is very much the 80s.”
“But as we continue to evolve and the years continue to pass, and 25 – 54 continues to be people born in the ‘70s, which is insane. We’re moving more into the ‘90s and 2K. So, you’re hearing more current stuff, no different than what’s happening on CBS-FM and K-Earth.”
In addition to the music, there is another vital ingredient.
“I would also add the other part of our gumbo, which is very important, is that we’re super hyper local. We’ve got live and local people. There’s no syndication on the station at all. Except for the show that I host, but the audience doesn’t know that it’s not just here with me here. We also have a real commitment to local news, traffic, weather, and sports. We do reports all through the day, Monday through Friday, and in the morning shifts on the weekends.”
Bridges and his wife host “Robby & Rochelle In The Morning.” They openly embrace the idea on air that they are husband and wife.
“We do. I think there are some shows where they define it. They say we’re a married couple who do the show, and we do. We’re certainly up front about it, but it doesn’t define the show. Sometimes it comes up and sometimes it doesn’t is the way I would say it.”
“So it’s the two of us. We’ve got news. Valerie Seagrams, who’s a longtime New York veteran, and Joe Nolan, who was with Dan Ingram at WABC, that’s how far back he goes. And then we’ve got a weather guy, and a kid named Kermit who was Shannon’s producer at CBS FM. We’ve got a big crew of people, and it’s very personality heavy.”
How does The Boss carve out and maintain an identity in the shadow of New York City?
“I think all the time that if New York wasn’t right there, this is still market 52 all by itself. Our primary market is Monmouth Ocean, even though we show up in the Atlantic City book and the Middlesex Somerset book, into the New York City book itself.”
“We think of ourselves as a major radio station and don’t worry about what New York is doing. You’ve got to have a product that stands up to some of the biggest brands in their formats in the world. Whether it’s CBS FM, Z100, or Q1043.”
“I think by the imaging we put out there, the quality of the contests, and the consistency that we do it. By the people we’ve hired here, who are all major market veterans, most of them New York City major market veterans. I’ll put this station up against any of the stations in the city.”
“There are stations in the city that are running sweepers, and that’s where we’re at, as an industry, I guess. We haven’t done that. If you’re somebody who lives in this area and flips between one of those stations and us, you wouldn’t think, oh, they’re a New Jersey station.”
“And to some degree, there are stations here where they sound very small-town, and there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that. But that’s not the approach we wanted to take. We wanted to sound right at home with the big boys, although we don’t pretend to be anything we’re not.”
With a mostly gold-based format, how does Bridges keep it sounding fresh?
“You hear people say this, Jeff, I think, to some degree. These format things and what songs are appropriate for the formats are radio babble, and regular people don’t think that way. The research that we do here shows that people come back and have perceptions of things and songs that they like, which might not match up with what your Classic Hits radio consultant might think would be safe. We’ve evolved. I think that’s probably the most obvious way in which we keep it fresh.”
“It’s important that while younger people still have passion for a lot of those big songs, we have to continue being contemporary. I think the oldies format took too long to evolve. In 2005, there were a lot of stations that were still playing Bill Haley and the Comets. I think that was a mistake.”
“They needed to evolve faster, and so we’re attempting to be at the forefront of that. I’m glad to play a song that’s only a couple of years old. We’ve got some Maroon 5 and Kelly Clarkson and stuff like that.”
Bridges recently launched “Robby’s Top 20 Countdown,” and I offered the opportunity to plug the new program.
“I wanted to do a countdown show, and we just had a three-hour Sunday morning slot, and it’s like, do I really need to have somebody go in there for three hours? Maybe I’ll play around and do a countdown show. I’ve always wanted to do it. I toyed around with the idea for a long time. I finally put it together, and was pretty proud of it.”
“So, I just started reaching out to some contacts and friends and saying I’m doing this. It’s for my station, but I can just send it out to you. Getting two sets of call letters that I think are pretty strong on it, I started pitching it around and trying to blow it up a little bigger. Just this week, I signed a couple more.”
A closing thought?
“I think our station, every station, ought to be very cognizant of not overdoing the commercial loads. We think about it a lot. I wish all my brothers and sisters out there in programming land would do the same. Having too long a spot load is going to be the biggest thing that challenges radio in the immediate future. We need to work on it if we’re going to hold on to radio in the immediate future. And that we need to work on if we’re going to hold on to the audience in these competitive times.”
Reach out to Robby Bridges about “Robby’s Top 20 Countdown” or to share thoughts by email here.
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Jeff Lynn serves as Editor of Barrett Media’s Music Radio coverage. Prior to joining Barrett Media, Jeff spent time programming in Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Madison for multiple radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Townsquare Media, NRG Media, and Entercom (now Audacy). He also worked as a Country Format Editor for All Access until the outlet shut down in August 2023.
To get in touch with Jeff by email, reach him at Jeff@BarrettMedia.com.
