Longevity and Radio; an Oxymoron!

Last Wednesday afternoon the sale of yet another local radio station was announced. WZMJ-FM, Z93 'The Lake' has been sold to Midlands Media Group, the folks that own WWNQ-FM ‘The Dude’. Normally announcements of the sale of a radio station means that a local owner has sold to one of the conglomerates but happily in this case the sale was from one group of my radio buddies to another group of radio friends, so ownership stays in the community.

The new owners have not said if they will change the programming of their acquisition so we don’t know what will happen with the announcers and staff of the station that was sold. I’ve known many of them for over 40 years. I wish them the best of luck in the world in this transition. At the same time, I am grateful for the commitment of the new owners to the local community.

I am very fortunate in that I have never had to face this kind of change during my long career in radio and television. Although with the exception on one station, every one of my former radio stations has changed hands at least once: more than once, really. The turmoil started in the 80s when stations, announcers, formats and staffs started jumping all over the dial. By that time, I had just started my longest continuous broadcast gig at SC Educational Television. I watched in horror from the sidelines as many very good announcers and DJs got tired of the Whack-A-Mole game and left the business altogether. Some of these guys and gals were great at what they did and the American Experience is much poorer with their departure.

But business forces being what they were; focused on the bottom line, that is about the only thing that could happen. One of the biggest line items of radio stations’ budgets back in the day was the air talent. Unfortunately the solution for that was more and more automation, which negatively affected stations’ revenues which put more pressure on the bottom line and so the spiral begins to tighten.

I know that I’m in a diminishing demographic (read that as “crusty old curmudgeon”) but I love to sweep the dial until I hear a live high energy DJ (or more likely these days, a DJ Team) pursuing their craft complete with “walking up the record and hitting the post.” If I had my preference they are doing this while playing oldies but even some of the newer genres sound pretty good when presented well. One caveat; there are a number of “DJ Teams” that are syndicated on several stations that provide “content free chatter.” That’s definitely not what I’m talking about. Instead, live DJs who are into the local community, take requests and interact with their audience is what floats my boat.

I used to think that if I won the lottery, I would purchase a local station and program it with oldies and all the old DJs who still want to throw open the microphone switch and rock and roll. But I realize that option is not really open to me. Running a successful radio station is a lot of hard work. But if there were a band of brothers and sisters out there with similar ambitions, I’d throw my hat into the ring without hesitation.

Earlier, I mentioned that there was one radio station where I have worked that has not changed hands since it was put on the air. When I worked for it the first time, WUSC was an AM carrier current station that had a very limited range around the campus. It was in its 17th year of existence. Today, 55 years after my first radio show, I’m back on the air on WUSC-FM now a Class “A” FM station that reaches four counties in the Central Midlands of South Carolina. WUSC has not changed ownership for over 72 years. That is the record holder for Columbia, and may be for the entire state of South Carolina. I have tried searching for that but alas Google itself doesn’t know!

WUSC, however has a higher staff turnover than most stations because it is run primarily by students whose tenure is usually less than four years. So the sound of the station is constantly changing as playlist rules are updated by the students currently working there. There are a few voices that have been around longer; the students have help from some University of South Carolina staff, faculty and alumni. Some of the alumni have been there longer than most other local stations have been under their current ownership.

Radio has come full circle for me, beginning and ending at WUSC. I became re-involved with the station in the mid 90s doing a show on Homecoming weekends as a member of the WUSC Alumni Organization. In 2009, I began filling in during the Spring, Winter and Fall breaks and during the summer months. In 2010 I began my current weekly schedule year round by doing the last show every Monday morning; 10 – Noon during the Spring and Fall semesters and 9 – Noon other times of the year.

As I said earlier, I’ve been lucky in that I’ve not had to face the sale of a station from under my feet. I’m also very fortunate that the folks who run WUSC allow me to ply my craft on their air. Aside from some song restrictions on my playlist, they let me pretty much do my thing. I am forever grateful they give me that opportunity. You can be assured that my shows are a bit different then the college radio scene today. More like it was back in the distant past. Oh MY!