Lazer Media has spun the format wheel in Reno and has debuted Rhythmic AC KZTI (Jammin 105.3).
The flip from Spanish Rhythmic “Kalor 105.3” comes after just over a year in the format and marks Lazer Media’s first English-language brand.
The station is launching with 10,000 songs in a row.
Listen here.
As WCBS 880 enters its final week, many long-established anchors are saying their farewells from the venerable all-news outlet. Michael Wallace and Steve Scott did just that Friday.
The anchors, who now appear in different dayparts, were partners for seven years at the Audacy New York station. So, it was fitting at the end of Scott’s final shift that Wallace would join him to reminisce.
Wallace admitted he had been struggling with the station’s demise, which Scott agreed with.
“This whole week I’ve been numb,” Wallace said. “I hate to use the phrase ‘dead man walking,’ but my wife keeps asking me ‘How are you? You’re not really showing any emotion. I don’t know. I’m just numb. I can’t really believe it.”
“I think the first day or so there was that shock, gut punch that none of us saw coming,” said Scott. “But now it’s kind of morphing into reality. We spent seven great years together sitting in the seats were in right now. We found pretty early on that we were compatible because there are some things that we liked. Like when a commercial jingle starts playing.”
As the former duo discussed some of their biggest and most important moments working together — like covering Superstorm Sandy — the WCBS 880 anchors closed out the segment by sharing their admiration for one another.
“I’m glad that you were able to come in because you have meant a lot to me not only personally, but professionally,” said Scott.
“I love you like a brother, man,” Wallace said. “Thanks for all the great years. Good luck.”
“You bet,” Scott succinctly replied.
Marlon “DJ Thump” Rice is out at Beasley’s Adult R&B KOAS (Jammin 105.7)/Dolan Springs, AZ-Las Vegas.
Rice announced the news on his Facebook page on Friday.
The 2019 Nevada Broadcasters Hall of Fame inductee started with KOAS in 2018 as Music Coordinator and PM driver before moving to mornings in June 2022.
After 97 years on the air on AM radio, CHML in Hamilton, Ontario unceremoniously shut down last Wednesday, and by “unceremoniously” I mean that one minute the station was broadcasting as usual and then, at noon, after two hours during which the national Alex Pierson show aired without human intervention, owner Corus just announced that the station was shutting down. The whole statement took 25 seconds, then dead air. The end. That’s all, folks.
It’s a shame, of course, and it’s terrible for those who will lose their jobs and for listeners who depended on the station for local news and information. CHML was the heritage local broadcast news operation, and the city is poorer for its demise. Radio is, however, a business, and it needs an audience in sufficient numbers concentrated in demographics attractive to advertisers. As with most of the sudden station format changes and shutdowns, the cold business calculation was that the station would never get back to profitability and was worth more coming off the books and maybe selling the real estate under its towers than as a going concern. Corus was looking to make severe cuts in its operation and had already shut down AMs in Vancouver and Edmonton. AM radio is not a core part of Corus’ future plans, it’s apparent, and if I was on staff at another Corus AM, I’d be making contingency plans right now.
That, as you surely know, is AM radio in 2024: less a growth vehicle than a burden. In major markets, the number of heritage, successful AMs is shrinking. The programming can’t overcome the technical issues, nor the general move of audience away from broadcast radio. (Corus also blamed “the increased and unregulated presence of foreign owned media platforms,” which means Spotify.) The demographics for AM just keep getting older, and you can’t convince anyone under 55 to listen to most AM stations. Even the small-market mom and pop full-service AMs aren’t immune, with some just handing in their licenses. FM translator simulcasts won’t save all of them. Most aren’t going to find anyone to lease their airtime like WCBS New York is doing (and that’s another issue for another column, isn’t it?). There’s always brokered religious and foreign language programming, but there are other (and better) ways to deliver that stuff without paying for the time.
It’s not only AM radio. Broadcast TV, despite a small increase in over-the-air viewing by cord-cutters, is hurting, too. Newspapers… you know what happened there. And the Internet is not immune, either. Let me note that it was one year ago on August 15th that the largest radio trade site, AllAccess.com, shut down, which made a lot of industry people sad and left me unemployed. A year later, this website you’re reading right now has at least partially filled that gap, and the other trade sites have continued to do what they do, but for everyone who says they miss All Access, life went on. You can miss something and get along without it. You’ll get over it.
I used to think that the key was to establish your brand as more than just a radio station. That way, you could deliver what you do on any platform – streaming, podcasts, social media, YouTube – and remain viable. Maybe that’s still true but monetizing that is still hard and nowhere near what traditional media used to generate. If CHML went to a streaming-only model, could it have made the kind of revenue that would support local talk programming and a full newsroom? Probably not. Could Corus have tried to create paid subscription content? We’ll never know if that would have worked.
Mistakes were made. In each medium, you can go back and see how management missed the boat and why. Nobody wanted to upset their apple carts and endanger their revenue streams by making hard decisions and the right investments in new media and in personnel. They had to meet their revenue and profit goals to satisfy their investors, and they couldn’t justify putting something speculative in their budgets. Besides, that would be something their successors would deal with, because everyone thought broadcast radio wouldn’t encounter internet-delivered competition until much later than it did, and they didn’t anticipate that consumers would value on-demand programming more than “it’s free.”
That’s water under the bridge, and now comes the assessment of damage and the clean-up. The damage is that an increasing number of stations are either gone or a shadow of what they used to be. (And it’s not just AM. FM is next.) The damage is that the public has less local service. The damage is that a lot of people who are very good at their jobs are being let go and most of them will end up in other industries or just “on the beach.” And when that happens, there’ll be a few news stories about it and some wailing on radio message boards for a few weeks, and we’ll all move on. I don’t know what we can do about that, and how we’ll be combating misinformation on social media when there aren’t as many reputable and financially viable news sources, but we kinda have to figure that out soon. What I do know is that if radio is left with nothing but linear FM stations playing the same music you can get on Spotify and Apple Music, the trouble is just going to get deeper.
Jared got into the backseat, and he smelled by his admission. I was taking a break between Zoom meetings and decided to use my Rideshare talents to clear my brain and find a story.
I found one during this eight-minute ride when Jared shared his daily living arrangements. It triggered a memory about one of my favorite radio station Promotions Department/Street Team tactics: The Alice Ambulance.
“Hey, man. We all smell. It’s August in Middle Tennessee! That’s why I carry this in the car,” I replied when he apologized about his scent. I held up a can of Old Spice Swagger spray, and he chuckled as he suddenly felt more comfortable.
“In a van down by the river!”
He told me about the limited parking around the Airbnb, and I assumed he was visiting Nashville. “So, where’s home?” I asked. “Oh, I live here when I’m not on the road. I’m going to take a shower,” he replied. Now I was confused, and he could tell. “My home is where you picked me up. The ambulance parked on the street,” he said.
Jared lives in a truck/van formerly used as an ambulance to transport health-related emergencies. I was taking him to Planet Fitness to shower because his house, the ambulance, lacked modern conveniences.
I would’ve told him about the Alice Ambulance if we had more time. It was part of the street fleet for Alice 106/KALC Denver, now branded as Alice 105.9. I worked across the hall at the sister station. When the idea to purchase a used ambulance was presented in the department head meeting in the mid-90s, I’m sure my reaction was something like, “That’s really cool.”
The D.O.C
Years later, I had to present a budget to a CEO at a different company in a different market. When we got down to the staffing section, there was an entry called “D.O.C.” I didn’t say anything, hoping he wouldn’t notice. He did. That’s why they’re CEOs.
“What is this D.O.C.?” he asked. I explained it was the Director of Cool, a full-time employee with no other duties—no air shift, music scheduling, production, or marketing/promotions responsibilities—nothing. The successful candidate would walk around saying, “You know what would be cool?” Their thoughts and ideas for the cluster of stations would be their job. Our job was to disapprove or approve and make those ideas a reality.
This idea germinated because the person I envisioned for the title already worked for me. When I entered his studio to discuss spot production, Marc Mitchell’s conversation often transitioned to, “You know what would be cool?”
Mitchell had a solid on-air background with Top 40 stations in Washington D.C., Boston, and Detroit during the glory wars days of the format. He rarely talked about those experiences unless I led him down that road. He wanted to discuss today any ideas we could execute now to enhance the brand.
This fantasy job idea would work if their only job were to think and create nonsense and brilliance. The position was DOA and an easy casualty during the budget review. Some would say I put it in there as a budget tactic to keep something else I wanted. Not really. I was sincere about the power this position could create if properly managed.
It Wasn’t Always Better
The state of the radio industry in 2024 is dramatic, odd, confusing, and sometimes dull. Before you roll your eyes, this isn’t a piece about ‘how it used to be.’ Let me go on record and say not every station was better 20 or 30 years ago. There were bad products and brands on the AM/FM frequencies.
How many well-programmed and well-marketed stations failed back in the day? There’s a who’s-who list of those ventures…competing only against other radio stations in the audience acquisition and retention game.
Today, we battle for the attention of a person exposed to FB, TikTok, IG, Threads, X, YouTube, smart speakers, and the rabbit holes of Google and Bing, all available on the same device where we hope to get their attention with our station or company app.
We need stickier on-air and streaming content, whackier promotions, ridiculous street team antics, and adventurous formats staffed by people willing to put something on the air that gets our attention.
Oh, and I’m well aware of the industry’s fractured economic state: the recent RIFs at iHeart, the rumors about more bankruptcies, the mid-size companies struggling with low-performing stocks, and the delistings. That is above most of our pay grades, and it can be demoralizing when we read too much.
Revival Time
This is why I’m reviving the fantasy idea of the Director of Cool job. But this time, it’s different. This time, it’s me and you adding this task to our burdened titles. Who is thinking about a different station vehicle? I’m sure someone has priced a vehicle wrap for the Tesla truck.
Who is resurrecting old radio stunts like living on a billboard until your team wins or until the labor strike ends? Important distinction: we’re not doing it because it worked 25 years ago. We’re doing it with the goal of ‘what would be cool, now?’
However, the staff and budget are smaller and sometimes non-existent. So, the team must think, try, fail, and try again. We need champions in the hallways and the Zoom meetings, encouraging the nonsense in search of brilliance.
The Power of Radio
Last week, Steve Allan, of Research Director, Inc., blogged about his company’s focus on The Power of Radio. “Yes, we are still The Ratings Experts but, being industry advocates, we believe we can help restore the perception that radio has value. That radio has life. And more importantly – that radio has a future,” said Allan. You can check out his blog here.
Radio is powerful in 2024. Those annoying spot loads continue to bring value to the clients. Ask the non-com stations if radio is powerful. Those stations stay on the air because listeners give money to a free medium. It’s crazy, but it’s the power of connection through music, news, sports, fun and games, and a voice.
When I delivered Jared to Planet Fitness, he said, “Maybe I’ll get you on the way back, and we can finish the conversation.” The opportunity to connect with listeners hasn’t changed; only the conditions have. Let’s create more cool ways to make those engagements.
This week, I’ll get a little personal and look back. If you’re reading this week’s column on the day of publication, today (August 19) is my 70th birthday. Prior to Joe Biden dropping out of the election, I would have said I’m getting close to the age when I can run for president, but instead, I’ll accept that the moniker of “old fart” is appropriate.
I was 14 when I decided to get in the broadcasting business, talking myself into it while meeting with a guidance counselor who was working on a doctorate at the University of Rochester. They needed real high school kids to talk with as part of their curriculum and a friend suggested I try it. One night, he asked me what I wanted to do for a living. Fifty-six years later, I’m still doing it, just not on a full-time basis anymore. Listening to radio was a joy when I was a kid, whether it was the local Top 40 stations, listening to big AMs on the skip at night, or discovering the FM band.
While I didn’t crack a mic until I got to Michigan State as a freshman in 1972, I studied the industry all I could. My mom worked at Kodak and because TV stations still used film in those days, the company advertised in Broadcasting magazine. She would get her hands on a copy of Broadcasting each week and bring it home. The highlight was the Broadcasting Yearbook, which I would read cover-to-cover. Yes, that’s a textbook definition of “nerd”.
That memory leads to the recent sad news that after 93 years, Broadcasting, now Broadcasting and Cable, will be shut down very soon. All that will be left is an annual awards ceremony. I was recently going through some of my “detritus” in our attic here in Bowling Green and found my copy of Broadcasting’s 50th anniversary issue, dated October 12, 1981. The headline was “On the Road to 2001”. The issue contained a lot of thoughts about where the business was headed, but as Yogi Berra said, “it’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.”
In 1981, the industry was just getting used to the idea of cable, fiber optics, and satellites. There were a few predictions about what became SiriusXM (which started just about 20 years later) and everyone figured there would be more choice for consumers. Not everything came true. The late Bob Coen, who forecast advertising revenue during his 67 years(!) at McCann-Erickson, figured radio revenue would hit $28 billion by 2001. It’s 2024 and we’re still well short of that number.
I’ve never regretted getting into broadcasting. Radio was always a first love even though I spent some time on the TV side in the ‘90s. Realizing that while I probably could have done on-air and programming roles, the ratings world hooked me when I was operations manager at WSPA-FM in Spartanburg, South Carolina many years ago. Jim Duncan’s American Radio compilation of all the Arbitron Ratings was required reading for me (always the numbers nerd) and eventually, I went back to school at Michigan State and completed a doctorate in Mass Media, thinking I would learn about survey methodology and how ratings work. I started at the National Association of Broadcasters in 1987 and except for one short detour to teach at Michigan State for a year, I’ve managed to have an entire career in the business.
While I don’t think I ever had any true “mentors “in the business, I have had the pleasure of working for and learning from a lot of good bosses over the years. The late Larry Alverson at WSPA-FM, Rick Ducey at NAB, Bill Engel at Birch/Scarborough, Howard Zeiden at WPXI-TV, Mark Mays at Clear Channel, David Lapovsky at Arbitron, and Mike McVay at Cumulus were all crazy enough to hire me and generally let me do whatever it was that needed to be done and sometimes more when I had an idea or two. Ask Fred and Paul Jacobs about how “The Bedroom Project” and “Goin’ Mobile” came to pass.
You don’t need me to spout bromides about “change” in the media. The radio subset of media, now often referred to as “audio”, has morphed from what we loved in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. Consumers have lots of choices from the launch of Sirius and XM, to streaming and podcasts. Broadcast radio is still vibrant and can be profitable, albeit with fewer staff and a lot more technology.
This is not a valedictory for either the industry or me. And while the past had some “good old days” that are fun to chat about over a beer, we have to focus on the future. When I taught during my graduate school time at MSU, I used to tell students that the media business is fun. If you want to play it safe, change your major to accounting and assuming you’re at least marginally competent, you’ll always have a job, but it probably won’t be fun or fulfilling. My brother majored in accounting and was eventually a CFO but it never sounded like he had fun at work even though he made some good money.
With all that said, I’ll celebrate the day with Felecia, my wonderful girlfriend here in BG. Tomorrow, I’ll keep following the industry and audience measurement and commenting about how you and the industry can both do better.
Thanks for letting me reminisce and let’s meet again next week.
Dan “Bass” Levy is a voice actor whose website describes as “[t]he range and ability to smoothly transition between roles requiring a big thunderous sound to those that specify the voice of Middle America.”
Continuing, “Dan specializes in speaking the language of Corporate America. Displaying an exceptional ability to work well with individuals and groups at all organizational levels.”
Dan Levy is today’s featured voice actor.
Jeff Lynn: You’ve been around radio and media for a minute. What is your background?
Dan Levy: I’ve been working in Chicago radio/media for over 20 years. Doing everything from co-hosting a national radio show for the Howard Stern Channel, traffic, news, and sports reporting to imaging Chicago’s biggest radio stations.
In 2015, I started taking on freelance clients to voice and do production for. Now, I service clients nationwide and continue to voice and audition for several agents and managers.
JL: How do you manage your workload and keep everyone straight? I once had a voice actor send me someone else’s scripts with my call letters. And I have to say it was better than what I wrote.
DL: I now work with several stations and networks nationwide. When it comes to this and all of my gigs, I am EXTREMELY organized (Which is cloud-based), so I can access it anywhere. Everything gets put into an Excel sheet with due dates. It’s extremely helpful to see what I need to do and when everything is due.
JL: I love the character voices on your demo. Is there a client you don’t have that you want?
DL: It sounds cliche, but I want them all. But if you had to tie me down, I was close a few times to becoming the voice of Tony the Tiger. I am the only one who can say I got the audition from the voice of the Pillsbury Doughboy. It would be a dream come true to say I’m the voice of Frosted Flakes! It would be pretty GRRRRRRRRREAT!
JL: Are you using AI?
DL: AI has been pretty helpful for me. I use it to help organize things and bounce some ideas off of it. I don’t see any issues with AI, nor do I fear it. If we learn to use it to our benefit, it becomes just another useful tool.
JL: With Chicago winters, the famous wind, and lake effect snow, do you live in fear of getting a cold or sore throat? When I worked there, I had a sinus infection once a month.
DL: I don’t think it’s possible to be in this business and NOT be in fear of getting sick, sore throats, or, dare if I say it, “LOST VOICE” NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
All I can do is be proactive. I wake up and take a very hot shower with essential oils to clear out my nose. Take my vitamins, drink tea with honey, and hope for the best. Especially since I have a 9-year-old who always manages to bring home ALL the viruses.
JL: Tell me three things about you that people may not know.
DL: I once competed in a pierogi eating contest in 2011 just to see how hungry I was. I took 3rd place! 🙂
I once was a bodyguard for Sylvester Stallone. He came into a radio show that I was producing, and because of all of the people who came out to get autographs, he asked if I could protect him. He also told me I do one of the best impressions of him that he’d ever heard!
I host a very popular podcast called; “Barguments.” It’s part interview and part silly topics that you’d have with your buds at a bar, BBQ, and/or Barbershop! Check it out here.
Hoss Management represents Dan, and he is available for barter with Benztown.
Check out Dan’s demo here.
Connect with Dan here.
Doug Gottlieb has been hosting his afternoon drive radio program from his office at the University of Green Bay Wisconsin over the last several months. The rationale for being outside of a traditional radio studio is that he is taking on a unique venture within the sports media business in which he needs to balance two distinctive roles. This past May, Gottlieb was named the new head coach of the Green Bay Phoenix Division I men’s basketball team, actualizing an endeavor that he yearned to attain for many years.
In fact, he estimates to have been speaking with athletic directors for Division I head coaching jobs since 2008 and remembers his first genuine interview from the Final Four in San Antonio. The athletic director wanted to hire him for the job but suggested that he should be an assistant for a year. Shortly after the meeting, Gottlieb recognized the benefit to continue covering the college game for a media network instead of being in a pool among 5,000 assistant coaches.
Even though Gottlieb is approaching the new season with palpable excitement and anticipation, he comes without Division I head coaching experience. Over the years, he has been on the sidelines leading Team USA at the Maccabiah Games and runs Branch West Basketball, an Amateur Athletic Union program. His father, Bob Gottlieb, started the youth developmental basketball program and also served as the head coach of the Milwaukee Panthers men’s basketball team.
“Covering college basketball allows me to understand the landscape and learn from some of the best coaches in the country, and then when you’re a solo host, you have to be a great communicator, so everybody understands your thoughts,” Gottlieb said. “Well, that’s coaching, that’s recruiting, that’s selling people on your ideas and your dreams, and I think it kind of all works together.”
The arrangement, although it is being evaluated, is something that he feels benefits the school in the promotion it receives and the listeners receiving candid opinions from someone working as a coach on a daily basis. Moreover, FOX Sports Radio has benefitted in the listenership, evidenced by augmented consumption on radio and increased engagement on YouTube.
Being able to do this comes in maintaining a strong relationship with Don Martin and Scott Shapiro, both of whom oversee the national radio network managed by FOX Sports, Premiere Networks and iHeartMedia. Gottlieb respected everything Martin was doing working locally in Los Angeles on AM 570 LA Sports, and he had the chance to collaborate with Shapiro as a producer when guest hosting Mike & Mike on ESPN Radio.
The Green Bay Phoenix organization secured its first winning record in four seasons last year but has not played in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament since 1996. As the Phoenix aspire to take part in March Madness, Gottlieb wants his team to exhibit chemistry, cohesiveness and commitment by adopting effective processes. Although there is no universal metric from which to adjudicate the overall success of radio programs, he wants listeners not to realize that there is anything going on outside of the show and discern his energy.
“I have a really, really young, inexperienced team, so I feel like we’re going to be damn good by the end of the year, and we’re building something, because I want to build a program to where I don’t have to, every year, fix it and rebuild it and tinker with it,” Gottlieb said. “I just want to add to [it] every season. With radio, it’s perception based. I just wish there was a scoreboard that [indicated], ‘Hey, we won today. We won the next day.’”
Having been a presence in sports media for over two decades, Gottlieb conveyed an overall advantage in being more familiar to the players. On top of that, he approximates having coached 1,000 games over the last four or five years and avers that the collegiate game more closely resembles AAU basketball than the NBA. That being said, he is cognizant of the inherent difficulties within the transition, but as it pertains to in-game reactions and communications, he feels comfortable and surmises many factors working in his favor.
“This has been a very, very fulfilling first three months, really emotionally fulfilling,” Gottlieb said. “I have no impostor syndrome, nothing. I feel like I was meant to do this, this is completely normal and exactly what I’ve always wanted, and I’m also not a complainer. You can’t say something’s your dream scenario, your dream job, and then you get [and] you’re like, ‘Yeah, well this sucks.’ Okay, but that’s the job.”
The challenge within this new arrangement is finding time for respite to safeguard against fatigue affecting his performance. Following a week in which he felt he outworked himself, he sat down with his basketball staff and radio producer. Gottlieb has an open-door policy in his office, but there were moments when people were entering too much during breaks.
As a result, he informed his staff to let him get through the three-hour show and enter if there is an emergency. Moreover, he and his radio producer altered their schedule to allow for a 30-minute buffer before recording the podcast and hosting the show. At this point, he feels that all parties have reached a destination at which they are satisfied with the overall situation.
“The great thing about it is I have a much clearer sense of schedule now than I even did then just because you get late-minute asks and ads for games when you’re doing radio and TV that you don’t get here, right?,” Gottlieb said. “I have my schedule, I know where I got to be and the only thing that can screw it up is the weather, and I’m more convinced than ever it’s going to work and work for me, work for FOX [and] definitely work for Green Bay.”
As an active head coach, Gottlieb presumes there is more resonance in his statements, but he recognizes that some of his opinions have been the subjects of controversy. Throughout his time on the air, he does not intentionally asseverate points for effect but has seen the impact his commentary can have nonetheless. Part of the reason Gottlieb has flourished at FOX Sports Radio, he hypothesizes, is because the network views the reactions to his statements as a strength.
“I’m not the first one to have said an opinion and not even the first one with the megaphone of media to have an opinion, but people do react to my opinions sometimes more negatively so than others, and I’m okay with that; I’m built for that,” Gottlieb said. “There can be times where it can feel negative and it can be a heavy weight on you, but for the most part, it’s when people stop reacting to interesting, kind of controversial takes if you will – that’s when you’re like, ‘Okay, my time here is done.’”
Following approximately a decade at ESPN where he helped launch its ESPNU vertical, began appearing on SportsCenter and hosted on radio in afternoon drive, Gottlieb moved to CBS Sports in a new, multifaceted role. Bringing his eponymous radio show to the network airwaves, along with partaking in coverage of March Madness and hosting a television show, titled Leadoff, with Allie LaForce provided him a variety of platforms through which to reach an audience. Yet in a position where he intended to have more time at home, taking on myriad enterprises is something he views as probably being a mistake.
“The thing that Scott Van Pelt told me, which is totally true, before I took the job was, ‘Hey, if you’re going to do a radio show and a TV show in the same day and then do something else, your brain will never be off of your shows,’” Gottlieb explained, “and that’s really what happened.”
Despite enjoying his time with CBS Sports, making the move to FOX Sports and FS1 granted him a more optimal schedule and the ability to reunite with former colleagues at ESPN. In addition to his afternoon radio program and basketball analysis, Gottlieb was also supposed to be part of a television show; however, those plans changed when FOX Sports president Jamie Horowitz was fired one month later. As he assimilated into FOX Sports Radio, he felt the trust that Shapiro had extended to him and became comfortable with his role.
“When you have a segment and you’re like, ‘That wasn’t great,’ it’s okay,” Gottlieb said. “He treats me with the proper amount of respect but also tutelage, so he knows he can call me on the carpet and he also knows when he can send me a little bit of tape that he likes, so we have a really kind of great relationship there.”
Gottlieb is introduced twice per show as the head coach of Green Bay, providing the program another avenue of promotion at the national level. As he executes both of these distinctive roles rooted in sports, he tries to stay focused on each day and getting through the first year. Compartmentalizing his jobs is essential in achieving the desired outcome, an understanding of which he attributes to personal growth. At the same time, he stays mindful of current events across professional and collegiate sports, which can make it difficult to disconnect completely. Interwoven in the fabric of these occupations is the ability to communicate, something that is key with his audience and team personnel.
“I do feel like being a communicator as a radio host and as a basketball analyst and even as a TV host, I think that prepares you for it – and also having teenage kids where they kind of explain to you what rizz is, what aura is, what all the current terms are – and you have to do that with your players as well,” Gottlieb said. “So, I think it makes you much more relatable to them because you understand what they’re talking about [and] what they’re going through.”
Gottlieb has been waiting to check off the box of serving as a Division I head coach for many years and is finally receiving the opportunity with a program striving for a championship. Rather than working in the role without serious intent or a will to win, he is approaching the job looking to foster a winning culture under his leadership while garnering persistent victories in radio. While he is ostensibly busier than ever, he is awaiting his first season on the bench as he guides his team towards success and remains an informative and entertaining listen in afternoon drive, driven by external incredulity and internal fervor.
“What motivates me though is also just kind of emotional fulfillment,” Gottlieb said. “It fulfills me, and COVID, personal life stuff, things have been hard, and this is the first time probably in the last four or five years or so that I’ve really felt [that] I got an intentionality with every day I wake up and a purpose, and I feel emotionally and mentally fulfilled.”
Memphis is a very unique sports town. While home to the Memphis Grizzlies and the University of Memphis, sports fans in the area have several different college teams they root for (mostly in addition to Memphis), several different NFL teams they might root for and the market probably talks more basketball than most other markets in the country. It is home to multiple sports radio stations including Sports 56 WHBQ on the AM side and 92.9 FM ESPN, the station which airs the show I chose to eavesdrop on this week, Jason & John.
Two things most Memphians can agree is that they all care deeply about Memphis, and they also care how people outside of Memphis view the city.
On the Friday August 16th edition of Jason & John, hosts Jason Smith and John Martin hit on some of that almost right away. One of the stories of the day was the national TV schedule for the NBA coming out and the Grizzlies have a total of nine nationally televised games. Many Grizzlies fans had expressed disappointment with that number, despite the team having a 27-55 record a season ago. With that said, expectations are very high for this year’s team as they expect to get back on track to where they were prior to last season when they had back-to-back 50-win seasons.
Martin had the best take about the schedule release as a whole, which was to ask what the big deal was. “41 home games, 41 away games,” he said as he noted there aren’t that many games that really stand out when the schedule first comes out. A handful of games are of note for one reason or another, but he wasn’t buying into the hype of the discussion.
Both Smith and Martin have writing backgrounds. Martin is a college sports columnist for the Daily Memphian who previously spent time at The Commercial Appeal covering recruiting. Smith is the son of Memphis broadcasting legend Les Smith who retired several years ago after more than three decades in various capacities on Memphis television as well as print. Jason Smith grew up following his dad to various Memphis sporting events and spent 13 years at The Commercial Appeal, starting out covering high school sports and then advancing to one of the most coveted positions in Memphis media – beat writer for the Memphis Tigers basketball team.
The two have been together on the radio for the last eight years and have been a very successful duo on a station that has been dominant since it started on the FM signal in 2009. The station has been nominated multiple times for a Marconi Award as Sports Station of the Year.
A few things stand out when the show first comes on. One is the chemistry Smith and Martin share, which also includes the ‘third voice’ on the show, station Brand & Operations Manager and show Executive Producer Brad Carson. Another thing that stands out is Smith’s voice. If you’ve never heard it before you may wonder when Barry White started to do sports talk radio. Silky smooth with a deep base.
It doesn’t take long to realize both hosts are very smart, have a lot of passion and really think about the subjects and topics they are talking about. Like sportswriters. And it isn’t limited to sports, music is a frequent topic, and as mentioned before, Memphis, the city and its successes and failures are discussed as well.
This was evident again when Bluff City Media’s Anthony Sain came on as a guest. While there mainly to promote a local wrestling promotion, Sain gave takes on some of the main topics. Another Grizzlies topic that has come up recently, in addition to the schedule, was that they were having part of their training camp in Nashville. In somewhat standard Memphis sports fan fashion, this has led to some saying this must be a part of the team’s eventual plan to move out of Memphis for the larger city.
Sain said, “We are in a ‘woe is me’ city and we entertain a lot of ‘woe is me’ conversation.” That sums it up pretty well. Sain also made another good point later when he gave his thoughts on the number of national TV games for the Grizzlies. “Get in the playoffs, all the games are on national TV,” he said.
This particular week, the city is at the center of the golf world as it hosts the FedEx St. Jude Classic at TPC Southwind, which awards a $3.6 million check to its winner. The weather has stolen a lot of the headlines thus far as there was an excessive heat warning with a heat index of 112. The world’s best golfer, Scottie Scheffler, however, was climbing the leaderboard and at one point Carson noted how good it would sound to have “Scottie Scheffler win Memphis.”
While the show had a regular feature, ‘The Rundown,’ it wasn’t overrun with segments. There were multiple guests on the show, including the Memphis women’s soccer coach who had just picked up win No. 300. Additionally, Gabe Kuhn, former standout lineman at Memphis who hosts the afternoon show for the station, popped on to talk about Memphis football and construction happening at their home field, the Liberty Bowl.
I have often noted through social media posts how good of a job the station does at making their own hosts the experts on other shows to talk about a particular topic. They of course have other people that will come on to analyze something like University of Memphis football, but when you have someone like Kuhn already on staff, it makes a lot of sense to use him as often as possible when other shows want to talk college football.
Kuhn is very good on the air. He was excellent on this guest hit as he showed his wealth of knowledge of the Tigers’ football team, the AAC conference and the rest of the top college football teams in the country. Expectations are extremely high for this year’s team. “AAC Championship or bust,” Smith said at one point.
Kuhn pointed out that ultimately it may come down to how the Memphis football team handles the pressure and you really don’t know about that until it happens. The talent is there, but the rest will have to play out.
The three hosts also talked about the demolition of the press box and section of The Liberty Bowl which will make this year tough to navigate around. The capacity will be down, the traffic will be a problem and visually it will not look good. The hosts noted, however, that “there’s a price to progress.” Kuhn later added, “They need this stadium done if they ever want to get where they want to go as an athletic department in general.”
Again, smart, solid sports conversation that always seem to come back to how the city can either come together, grow or both with sports as the catalyst.
No matter if it was one of the main subjects of the day or whether they were talking about if Serena or Venus was better looking, how the rookie NFL quarterbacks have looked in training camp, wagering on preseason games (John, seriously?) or how the NBA can expand upon the In Season Tournament to include different locations and new rules, Jason & John is a good listen that makes you think and keeps you entertained.
For the third year in a row, Minnesota Star Tribune readers have voted WCCO morning host Vineeta Sawkar ‘Best Radio Personality.’ Her incredible career has touched print, TV, and radio. She even went to the dark side and dabbled in PR, but it all started as a childhood dream in suburban Kansas. “Ever since I was in fifth grade, I wanted to be a television reporter and anchor, that was my goal,” Sawkar told Barrett Media. “I was in speech tournaments, I loved doing interviews, and I loved video.”
Sawkar double majored at Boston University in Broadcast Journalism and Political Science before sending out her first tape. “I sent out hundreds and got tons of rejections,” she said. Finally, a news director in Fargo, North Dakota, said, ‘All right, I have a job for you if you want to be a weekend weather anchor and be a reporter three days a week.’ I knew nothing about weather, but I wanted to be a reporter, so I said, I’d do it. I’d learn.”
For two years she learned the ropes, then moved to Omaha, Nebraska before moving to Fargo, North Dakota. “I had met my now husband, who I’ve been married to almost 28 years, in Fargo. He was from Minnesota. So, I was trying really hard. I wanted to get to a big market, and I loved Minnesota.”
She used her pester power and landed a job at KSTP. For 18 years Sawkar graced the screen of the ABC affiliate and did “everything.” “I was a weekend reporter, weekend anchor, weekday reporter, fill in weeknight anchor,” she said. “In my last eight years there, I was a morning anchor. I did everything. It was great. And I pretty much consider myself a Minnesotan now.”
Sawkar lived her childhood dream until her world came crashing down. “The News Director and General Manager called me in and said, ‘we want to let you go,’ she said. “It’s kind of the way the business is. You have to be ready for it. I was in the middle of a contract, so it surprised me. They didn’t just say go away and we’ll pay you off. They said, ‘We’ll give you a year. You can find another job, we’ll let you go, and you can leave whenever. But you have to still smile and come to work with a good attitude. So, I did, and I stayed that full year. I looked for all sorts of jobs outside of the business.”
She called the year painful but landed on her feet at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I joined the Star Tribune, and I kind of pioneered a role there. They hadn’t had someone from the broadcast industry come in. They’ve been doing video very well. They had good documentary style video, but not interview style video news segments. They didn’t really have anyone with broadcasting experience. So, I came in their digital news cut ins on their website, did intros and tags for the different videos they had, and it was just kind of a new role there.”
After three years of crafting the role, Sawkar decided to get out of the business and, “Go to the evil side, Public Relations, as many journalists call it.” She calls her time in PR “lovely” but noted how different it was from journalism. “I felt like I approached it differently than other PR people because I knew the other side. So, I left there after two years. I got a job at a local college, University of Saint Thomas, and I was there almost four years.”
Just when Sawker believed her time in media was done, they pulled her back in. “All of a sudden, the news director, excuse me, program manager, brand manager at WCCO radio reached out to me and said, ‘hey, would you want to get back in the business?’ And I was like, wow! It’s nice to know that I’m still on the radar and that someone would still want to reach out.”
Despite not having experience in radio she said, “I’m going to give this a shot. What is the worst that can happen to me? I fail and I go back to doing something else?’ Once you’ve been let go from a job, especially a career that I loved as much as I did in television, you lose that fear of losing a job. It would still hurt, but I just thought, why not give it a shot?”
Sawkar is loving her fast-paced three-hour morning show. While she humbly believes, “I’m not a legend like the people who preceded me,” what she doesn’t realize is her pending legendary status is not up to her. It is instead up to time and her listeners.
However, she does have a measurement for success. “When I’m out and about and someone says, ‘oh, I heard on the radio this thing…’ and I think that was us! We were talking about that’. I’ve had that a few times where people don’t know it’s our show and I’m like, we were talking about that. You were listening to us!”
Another notable measurement of success for Sawkar, comes from politicos. “When local leaders really want to be on our show, we have a demand with people knowing that we have a very engaged audience that tunes in to us region wide. So that to me is a success.”
For those looking to follow in her footsteps, Sawkar has a few notes. “First of all, don’t take things personally, because even back in the day when I was sending out all those videotapes, I got so many rejections, [there were] so many people along the way who didn’t believe in me or didn’t think I could do what I’m doing. Perseverance is huge and belief in yourself…and find the people who believe in you.”
Secondly, Sawkar said, “I would highly recommend business classes. I wish I would have taken a few more business and economics classes. There’s so much that drives what we [in the media] do as far as business reporting and the economy. I’ve learned along the way, but I still think I could have benefited from taking some business classes. Also, it can help you pivot if you realize that journalism isn’t your jam, or you don’t want to deal with working weekends and holidays and getting in at 4:30 in the morning. Business classes are good, so I’d highly recommend that just for the knowledge or for a future pivot if you decide to do something else.”
Last, and perhaps most notably, the five-time Emmy award winning journalist said, “There may be something you may have your mind on, but if you can’t quite get to it, see what else is out there and be flexible with it.”
