Back To The Future

5/23/1997

A funny thing happened in San Diego last week.  According to one programmer, a Jacor power play prevented an act from participating in his promotion.  The PD, who doesn’t work for Jacor, had contacted a record company and made a deal for an act to perform for the station.  The record company first agreed, then cancelled after Jacor threatened to drop the artist…and other artists on the label…from not only the Jacor station in a competitive format…but from any or all of the six Jacor stations in the market.

All of this information was given by the PD at the competing station.  I didn’t contact anyone with Jacor to see if the story was true.  It isn’t important for this Editorial.  The point is, the general scenario will be.

Welcome to promotion and programming in the ’90s.  Promotion executives are going to have to get used to dealing with radio chains.  PDs are going to have to get used to programming within the framework of a chain…or against the strength of a chain.

You will see more chains flexing their collective muscles.  Whether or not the story about Jacor in San Diego actually happened doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that this will happen in the future…by any or all of the major chains.

I had the opportunity to work for the greatest radio chain in history…RKO.  (I know what you’re saying: “Oh, no… here he goes again, down memory lane…I don’t know if I can stand another story about the good old days.”)  This isn’t a story about how it used to be so much as it is an example of how it will be in the future.

RKO owned and/or consulted top-rated stations in 12 large markets.  Because the company chose to operate the stations as a chain, a record couldn’t break into the top 10 without airplay on the RKO chain.

This gave RKO unbelievable power.

Many of the stations were programmed identically.  The Top 40s in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Detroit, San Francisco, San Diego and Memphis ran basically the same clocks, jingles and stopsets.  The same IDs and voicers were used on all.  Chain promotions were done at least once each quarter with identical elements on all stations.

Because the programming was similar, if not identical, every station shared research.  On Mondays, sales, request, call-out and other research were reviewed and a music conference call took place between all PDs.  This was after each PD met with the individual music directors to prepare their music suggestions.  And you needed to be prepared!  After the national picture was given, each PD “suggested” records to add to their stations.  Then the music call ended.

Tuesday morning, the RKO music coordinator would tell each PD what records would be added to the chain.  PDs could pitch for specific records for their stations…and often you could win, but chain adds were played by every station…no exception.

The RKO chain got every exclusive…every promotion…every concert…and anything else record companies could come up with.  If you were a PD in the RKO chain, you had your pick of everything record companies had to offer.

If, however, you were on the other side, the opposite was true.  Everything was brought to the RKO chain first.

Bill Drake, and later Paul Drew, the VPs of Programming for the chain, were both honorable.  If a record company offered a promotion and RKO passed, the company was free to offer the promotion to competing stations. What happened when this protocol wasn’t followed?

Now, it’s storytime.

After I left KHJ Los Angeles and the comfort of the RKO chain, I consulted KYA San Francisco…the direct competitor of RKO’s KFRC.  I came up with a fantastic promotion based around a new release by Chicago, “Another Rainy Day In New York City.”  You’ve never heard of it?  I wonder why.

Bob Sherwood, then VP promotion for Columbia, respected the idea, gave me the promotion and I jammed it up KFRC’S call letters.  Paul Drew was not amused.  He gave Sherwood the opportunity to pull the promotion and give it to RKO, or the record would never be added to the chain.

Sherwood held strong.  He said the promotion was my idea, not Columbia’s…RKO had no right to ask for it.

Drew accepted Sherwood’s answer.  The RKO chain didn’t add the record.  It peaked at #64 on the charts.

Did the power of the RKO chain keep the record from being successful?  Who knows?  Maybe it wasn’t a hit.  It certainly didn’t get a lot of airplay…none in most major markets.

The singles released before and directly after “Another Rainy Day In New York City.”  (with promotions gladly given by Columbia) and played by the RKO chain peaked at #5 and #1 respectively.  Coincidence?  Right…

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Bob Sherwood…or any other Sr. VP Promotion…never gave RKO’s competition a promotion again. Who wants to find out the hard way your record won’t be a hit?

This power is too much for radio companies to ignore.  Companies are now buying multiple stations in the same market to dominate local sales.  It’s only a matter of time before a chain makes the decision to program many of its stations (in multiple markets) in identical formats to dominate sales and promotions nationally.  With the ownership limits greatly relaxed, a chain today can be even more dominant than RKO.

Strap yourself in.  It’s going to be a wild ride as we go back to the future.