With Mark Adams riding Wild 94.9 to the top rank in San Francisco, and watching yet another failed station launch last week (“We’re going to play 10,000 songs with no commercials or DJ’s!”), I thought it would be fun to boast a little. And also remind you that:
1. Great stations usually had great launches.
2. We’re in Show Business. If you’d asked Monty Hall to launch a station or asked Steven Spielberg to rebrand a station, they probably would not have gone into spots playing Kenny Chesney and come out playing Ludacris and hoped that people would magically discover it. (Citadel in Memphis in 2004. It was so successful that they were out of the format in 10 months)
3. The first five hours are the most important fives hours in the life of a station.
In Fall of 1991 I was the Director of Fun ‘N Games at WCKZ/Kiss 102 in Charlotte. It was maybe one of the greatest “sounding” stations anywhere. Jo Jo Wright, at one point, had something like a 28 share at night. But my spidey senses were on high alert and when Jerry Clifton reached out and said “We need someone who is nuts to be the Promotion Director at KSOL in San Francisco” it seemed like the right fit.
I loaded a truck, towed my car and headed west. Read more…