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assume you can't go on forever avoiding any forward action because of fear of breaking the
back of your station's roots. What kind of research do you plan to try and determine which
is baby and which is bathwater? A We've done market studies since I've been here in an effort to understand the community perception of the station and our competitors, just to get a feel for what is and what should be. Q And from those studies you found what? A We found that people were essentially happy with K-Lite, had perhaps a tendency to take it a bit for granted, a little bit of concern over repetition of music and a lack of variety in the depth of our artists. Q To which he reacted by broadening the music and highlighting the personalities, as you mentioned earlier. Let's do some vital statistics on you--age, where you're from and so forth. A I'm 37, from Hartford, Connecticut. My first job was at WINR, Binghamton
in 1968 when I was a junior at Ithica College. I graduated college and went to WHYN in
Springfield, Massachusetts where I worked for a year and a half as a jock. From WHYN I
went to WCCC in Hartford and worked weekends at the same time at WBZ in Boston under the
name "Ed Mitchell." Then from there, Charlie Parker at WDRC, Hartford hired me
and I worked there from 1973-76. From WDRC I went to KSD in St. Louis, spent three years
there, then it was sold to what was then Combined Communications-now Gannett and they
converted it to a news station. I found myself as Music Director of an all-news radio
station and thought I'd better try moving on-so I went over to KMOX-FM in St. Louis. I was
Morning talent for KMOX-FM and then some other shifts over about a year and a half period
there, then about that time Bob Hyland took over the group from New York and Bob
Vanderheyden became VP/ Programming for the CBS FM Group and they came to St. Louis and
sought out opinions-including mine-and a decision was then made to promote me and
give me a shot at programming the radio station. I took it over as KMOX-FM, an A/C for
about two books, changed call letters to KHTR and evolved to Top 40 and the rest is
history-it just exploded. A No, that decision came later with CBS-FM stations in Philadelphia and Chicago exploding for us. Ironically I argued against the switch to Top 40. I felt there was only one other A/C in the market-KS-94, and my concern was that if we dropped out of the A/C ballgame, we'd be handing over one huge piece of pie to KS-94. Shows you what I know.
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Then I was transferred to Los Angeles, KKHR,
in 1983 after taking KHTR from a 3.4 to a 6.9 to an 8.8 to a 10.6, then I left to go to
L.A. QWhy didn't KKHR in Los Angeles work, as you look at it in retrospect? A You know, I don't know that it didn't work. I think that unfortunately KIIS in Los Angeles is and was such a monster radio station that it overshadowed the accomplishments of KKHR. Let's not forget that KKHR did break into the top 10 in the marketplace and had a cume of well over a million people per week and was one of the top seven or eight cuming radio stations in America. We accomplished a great deal there, but unfortunately for the big picture it wasn't enough for the long run. The biggest problem KKHR continually faced was market awareness-seven out of ten people perhaps didn't even know we were on the air, and you just can't win when that much of the marketplace doesn't know you're there. Q While you were at KKHR, did you give serious thought to going urban? I know it was pitched to you by Don Kelly. A We beefed up our urban mix, and we toyed with turning it over to an urban format-thought about it a lot. For a variety of reasons-and sound reasons-we passed up that alternative. We didn't think it was the right thing for that particular radio station to do considering the heritage of CHR background in CBS and the sales staff was scaled to sell CHR. Q
Do you miss being on the air? You were an air talent for so long. Q But you like what you're doing overall?
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