Post by jimsumpter on Sept 13, 2010 0:55:28 GMT -5
I apologize in advance for the length of this post, and if it's not interesting, feel free to delete it, but I was reading Lynn Arave's column and he was talking about a 'Donald Trump' on Q99.5 from ten years ago, and how that came about is a pretty colorful story - one that could never happen in today's world of corporate radio. In the hopes you'll enjoy it, I've posted my letter to Mr. Arave below... (and again, I apologize if it's just too boring and again state to the admin - feel free to delete it).
Hi Lynn…
Saw your column and your reference to ‘Donald Trump’. The way you wrote about it, led me to believe you may not know who that was, or the story behind it, and how it happened.
So here’s another ‘storied story’ about Utah radio…
Summertime, 1990.
Starley Bush, owner of KLVV-FM called and asked if I could meet him for lunch in about an hour at the Sizzler near 33rd South (aren’t all big deals cut at Sizzler?).
I had left my general manager position at KMGR-FM (“Magic 107.5") a few months earlier to focus on a software company I had started that served the broadcast industry. Starley called me at my office with the lunch invitation.
When I got there, he told me he just got word that KCPX was going to change its format from Top 40/CHR to Adult Contemporary and asked what I thought he could do to thwart their move into his AC format on Love 99. During the course of the lunch, the conversation turned to the Salt Lake metro being the youngest in the country and with KCPX’s move to AC, and with KISN in that arena, as well as KSFI, and KMGR-FM, it was a pretty crowded field that would be an expensive format to compete in. The only mainstream youth-based station in the market following KCPX’s flip would be KZHT, which had a less than ideally competitive signal in the metro, coming off Lake Mountain. Starley’s 99.5 frequency enjoyed signal superiority and I asked if he were opposed to a format flip rather than trying to compete with another half-dozen stations for a dramatically divided and diminished slice of the AC listening pie.
I was surprised at how quickly Starley embraced the concept. He was ready to move, but was concerned that he didn’t have the financial resources to be able to get the immediate attention needed to make the audience aware of the format change. It was then that Starley said flipping to Top 40/CHR was what he really wanted to do and asked if I would oversee its implementation in exchange for an ownership position in the station.
The project excited me. I knew how fast teens and young adults can be moved to forge new ‘favorites’, so we began strategizing immediately. My software company also did music testing for radio stations nationwide, and I shared with Starley that the MC Hammer song “Can’t Touch This” was the top testing song in the country with teens and 18-34 adults. It was a sound 180 degrees away from Starley’s presently aired ‘love songs’ format. I suggested we just play the song over and over again for a couple of weeks and in the meantime I could get to work on format clocks, get the air talent lined up, and get the music together. There was a station with a ‘Z’ (obviously, KZHT) in the market already, so ‘Q’ was the next logical letter to be frequency-connected that would brand a Top 40/CHR station. While we were having lunch, Starley called his DC law firm, found out that the KUTQ-FM call letters were available (we had come up with the moniker “Utah’s new Q…” at the salad bar), and had them start the paperwork on the call letter change.
And the very next day at 3pm we started pounding “You Can’t Touch This”!
While it’s a ‘stunt’ that has been eagerly and frequently copied, at the time I don’t know of any station in Utah that had done something so ‘dumb’, although it worked. Just about every TV newscast covered what we were doing after the police came by the studio to see if everything was OK because the Love 99 audience was calling aghast at the thump-thump music that kept playing over and over and over again - that had replaced their lovely long songs.
After a couple of days, I added another programming element. We had no money for a BIG VOICE guy, so I whispered into the microphone in the production studio…”Utah’s New Q is coming…” and played it between the ending and beginning of every play of “You Can’t Touch This”. No commercials. No DJs (this was way before the ‘Jack’ format craze). Nothing but “Utah’s New Q is coming…” and “You Can’t Touch This”.
Over and over and over.
Incredibly, it caught on. I remember Starley and I stopping in at a 7-11 about 10 o’clock one night as we were working on getting everything ready for the live launch, and the clerk had the station on. We asked him about it as though we were just a couple of dummies wondering why anyone would listen to the same song being played over and over again. I’ll never forget his answer: “I think they’re going to play a different song soon and I don’t want to miss it.”
Starley and I got back in the car, knowing we had something happening.
There was a great talent (and I’m sorry, but I just can’t remember his name) on the Love Songs formatted KLVV whom I tried to talk into staying on to do the morning show for us, but the day before we went live as Q99.5, he decided he didn’t want to do a Top 40 morning show.
We were scrambling. No money and no way to get someone right away.
So, I decided to do mornings until we found someone and in an effort to cause talk, because we couldn’t afford to buy attention, went on with the air name ‘Donald Trump’. I had done mornings before on K-96 in Provo back in 1979-1980 (owned by the Marriott Family as corporate entity First Media Corporation) before they promoted me to be program director of a station in Houston, TX; so while I hadn’t been on the air for several years (having moved into management), I figured I’d be able to do an OK job until we found the ‘right’ talent. I was doing the show until I suffered a stroke in July of 1991.
I was supposed to be a 10% owner in Q99.5, but it all fell apart after the stroke. And things got really tough after that. Hey, stuff happens.
So, if the story has any worth, now you have it.
Even though I now live in Florida, I read your column regularly and miss the Salt Lake area tremendously.
But not the Winters. And not the state income tax.
Sincerely,
Jim Sumpter
Hi Lynn…
Saw your column and your reference to ‘Donald Trump’. The way you wrote about it, led me to believe you may not know who that was, or the story behind it, and how it happened.
So here’s another ‘storied story’ about Utah radio…
Summertime, 1990.
Starley Bush, owner of KLVV-FM called and asked if I could meet him for lunch in about an hour at the Sizzler near 33rd South (aren’t all big deals cut at Sizzler?).
I had left my general manager position at KMGR-FM (“Magic 107.5") a few months earlier to focus on a software company I had started that served the broadcast industry. Starley called me at my office with the lunch invitation.
When I got there, he told me he just got word that KCPX was going to change its format from Top 40/CHR to Adult Contemporary and asked what I thought he could do to thwart their move into his AC format on Love 99. During the course of the lunch, the conversation turned to the Salt Lake metro being the youngest in the country and with KCPX’s move to AC, and with KISN in that arena, as well as KSFI, and KMGR-FM, it was a pretty crowded field that would be an expensive format to compete in. The only mainstream youth-based station in the market following KCPX’s flip would be KZHT, which had a less than ideally competitive signal in the metro, coming off Lake Mountain. Starley’s 99.5 frequency enjoyed signal superiority and I asked if he were opposed to a format flip rather than trying to compete with another half-dozen stations for a dramatically divided and diminished slice of the AC listening pie.
I was surprised at how quickly Starley embraced the concept. He was ready to move, but was concerned that he didn’t have the financial resources to be able to get the immediate attention needed to make the audience aware of the format change. It was then that Starley said flipping to Top 40/CHR was what he really wanted to do and asked if I would oversee its implementation in exchange for an ownership position in the station.
The project excited me. I knew how fast teens and young adults can be moved to forge new ‘favorites’, so we began strategizing immediately. My software company also did music testing for radio stations nationwide, and I shared with Starley that the MC Hammer song “Can’t Touch This” was the top testing song in the country with teens and 18-34 adults. It was a sound 180 degrees away from Starley’s presently aired ‘love songs’ format. I suggested we just play the song over and over again for a couple of weeks and in the meantime I could get to work on format clocks, get the air talent lined up, and get the music together. There was a station with a ‘Z’ (obviously, KZHT) in the market already, so ‘Q’ was the next logical letter to be frequency-connected that would brand a Top 40/CHR station. While we were having lunch, Starley called his DC law firm, found out that the KUTQ-FM call letters were available (we had come up with the moniker “Utah’s new Q…” at the salad bar), and had them start the paperwork on the call letter change.
And the very next day at 3pm we started pounding “You Can’t Touch This”!
While it’s a ‘stunt’ that has been eagerly and frequently copied, at the time I don’t know of any station in Utah that had done something so ‘dumb’, although it worked. Just about every TV newscast covered what we were doing after the police came by the studio to see if everything was OK because the Love 99 audience was calling aghast at the thump-thump music that kept playing over and over and over again - that had replaced their lovely long songs.
After a couple of days, I added another programming element. We had no money for a BIG VOICE guy, so I whispered into the microphone in the production studio…”Utah’s New Q is coming…” and played it between the ending and beginning of every play of “You Can’t Touch This”. No commercials. No DJs (this was way before the ‘Jack’ format craze). Nothing but “Utah’s New Q is coming…” and “You Can’t Touch This”.
Over and over and over.
Incredibly, it caught on. I remember Starley and I stopping in at a 7-11 about 10 o’clock one night as we were working on getting everything ready for the live launch, and the clerk had the station on. We asked him about it as though we were just a couple of dummies wondering why anyone would listen to the same song being played over and over again. I’ll never forget his answer: “I think they’re going to play a different song soon and I don’t want to miss it.”
Starley and I got back in the car, knowing we had something happening.
There was a great talent (and I’m sorry, but I just can’t remember his name) on the Love Songs formatted KLVV whom I tried to talk into staying on to do the morning show for us, but the day before we went live as Q99.5, he decided he didn’t want to do a Top 40 morning show.
We were scrambling. No money and no way to get someone right away.
So, I decided to do mornings until we found someone and in an effort to cause talk, because we couldn’t afford to buy attention, went on with the air name ‘Donald Trump’. I had done mornings before on K-96 in Provo back in 1979-1980 (owned by the Marriott Family as corporate entity First Media Corporation) before they promoted me to be program director of a station in Houston, TX; so while I hadn’t been on the air for several years (having moved into management), I figured I’d be able to do an OK job until we found the ‘right’ talent. I was doing the show until I suffered a stroke in July of 1991.
I was supposed to be a 10% owner in Q99.5, but it all fell apart after the stroke. And things got really tough after that. Hey, stuff happens.
So, if the story has any worth, now you have it.
Even though I now live in Florida, I read your column regularly and miss the Salt Lake area tremendously.
But not the Winters. And not the state income tax.
Sincerely,
Jim Sumpter
