Rowdy Yates didn’t wait for syndication to find him. He went and got it. Today, he hosts, writes and owns The Original Country Gold, a weekend show approaching 200 affiliates. He’s also one of the shareholders of SuiteRadio, where his weekday and weekend shows live and where part of his job is recruiting new talent. And for young jocks dreaming of going national, he has a clear message. “Be prepared to go it alone for a while,” Yates said.
Yates grew up the son of a radio news director, spinning 45s on his parents’ Magnavox cabinet stereo and talking into his father’s green hairbrush like it was an RCA 44-BX microphone. At 15, he ran the Sunday church tapes at KDNT AM 1440 in Denton, Texas. He started afternoons in Decatur the Monday after high school graduation. He was just 17.
His biggest local stop was KILT in Houston, where he did afternoons for 14 years in one of the most competitive markets in the country. “We were a market leading show for a lot of those years, and without a doubt had the largest audience on that signal,” he said.
Getting Discovered
But Yates always had bigger dreams. “I always wanting to be Casey Kasem or somebody like Casey Kasem, I always had interest in coast-to-coast work,” he said.
So he made a decision. “If no one’s going to discover me, I need to get discovered,” he said.
He started calling people. His first call went to Bob Kingsley. Because KILT was one of American Country Countdown’s biggest affiliates, Kingsley let him fill in around 2000.
That one fill-in opened every door. Westwood One (then owned by KILT’s sister company) noticed that someone loosely connected to them was working for another syndicator, and they called. Specials and album premieres followed. “Back then, working for a network was everything you thought it was,” Yates said. Westwood One was top-flight.
Then came his big swing. Westwood One’s Country Gold, hosted by John Howell, had lost clearances and audience. Howell was also leaving the show. The network planned to kill it. Yates, who had a successful classic country show locally, asked for a shot.
“I said, ‘Let me have it. Let me have the show for one year. If you give it to me for one year, I guarantee we can turn it around,'” he recalled. Within a couple of years, the show had 138 affiliates.
Going Independent
Yates rode that wave for about eight years. Then network mergers made things “a little fuzzy,” and he chose to go out on his own. His thinking was simple. With a solid syndication and sales partner, “the sky would be the limit.” Compass Media filled that role for years.
A few months ago, he amicably split with Compass to bring everything under the SuiteRadio umbrella. “There were tears. I owe those guys so much,” he said.
His weekend show stands out by leaning on the phones, with winners and requests every hour. “They are the stars of this thing,” he said. “I’m just kind of ushering everything in between them.”
Be Prepared to Go It Alone
Here’s the good news for young talent. Yates believes launching a syndicated show is easier now than ever. However, there’s a catch.
“I’ve noticed with a lot of syndicators, they will say, ‘Hey, Jock, whatever your name is, I love your show. I love your concept. I love your tenacity,'” he said. “‘But don’t call us back until you yourself get on 35 radio stations, and then if you get on 35 stations, then we can go out and sell it.'”
That’s why he tells new talent to expect a stretch on their own. “So much of this can be done with sweat,” he said.
He points to Robbie Bridges and Robbie’s Top 20 Countdown as proof. Bridges didn’t wait to be picked up. He built the show, cleared it on a handful of stations — including a couple of respectable big signals — and went quite some time without representation. Then Compass Media came knocking. “I think a lot of that has to do with his drive and work ethic,” Yates said.
Throw Everything at the Demo
Yates says you’ll get a fair hearing if you pitch. Someone from iHeart will call back. Someone from Compass will call back. “I know SuiteRadio will. Part of my job is talent recruitment. I will call you back,” he said.
But don’t show up with an outline and a promise. “Throw everything at the demo,” he said. “Don’t begin with, ‘Well, here’s the basic outline of it, and as soon as we’re making money, then we’re going to buy the jingle package.'”
Instead, call in favors. Ask the voice guy you want to do a package on spec, and pay him if it comes together. Those people are hustling too, and many will bet on the come.
Jingle producer John Hooper at Radioscape Music did exactly that for Yates on concept shows that never launched. The payoff came later. “Every time I need a jingle package and I had a big budget to throw at someone, guess who got all my money? It’s John Hooper,” he said.
Build the Relationships Now
Yates says there’s plenty of goodwill in the business right now, given the state of the industry. And it’s a small business. “We all know everyone, and if we don’t know them, we know someone and can get their cell number really, really fast,” he said.
So reach out, even with nothing to pitch. “Just thought I’d let you know I’m thinking about moving into this space. Just wanted to get your contact information,” he said. “That’s really all it has to be.”
Independent creators like him are happy to help, he added, “because we didn’t have these opportunities ourselves.”
Developing the Next Voice
Yates practices what he preaches. He calls Kadie Daye his greatest hire ever, even though many were surprised a syndicator would put a virtual unknown on the air. She had no big-market résumé. Yet when her name was on everyone’s lips at CRS, he wanted to know why.
They worked together for about six months on dry runs and coaching before launch. “Once she got it, she got it,” he said. He expects to celebrate her 20th affiliate before year’s end.
Another daypart show launches with SuiteRadio after the first of the year, and that seat is wide open. “I just kind of have a format genre in mind and know that’s the way we are headed,” he said.
Syndicated Can Still Sound Local
Yates pushes back on the idea that syndication means giving up local flavor. Done right, he argues, stations get the best of both worlds.
He tells programmers and GMs almost daily that “you get out of it what you put into it.” Daye, for example, just this week cut a heavy load of localizers and station IDs, with some stations asking for material almost daily.
When an owner like Brian Fowler does his job, “it does sound like Rowdy Yates is doing morning drive in Waverly, Tennessee,” Yates said, because he’s talking about the Air Force base, Friday night football and the county fair bake sale.
For Yates, helping the next wave isn’t just good business. It’s a family tradition. His father spent decades quietly connecting out-of-work broadcasters with jobs, and Yates recently helped a talented young jock who lost his job in Houston land a new gig.
He knows the favor could come back around someday.
“I want to think that eventually I would ride off into the sunset after a very successful career in local radio and syndicated radio,” Yates said. “But you never know. I could wind up on the radio in Muleshoe, Texas one day, and I would hope that I had helped somebody there along the way.”
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