A Peak Behind the Curtain at WOWO and Federated Media

I work in show business.  Local radio personalities are the celebrities. Early in my radio career, I was one of those voices behind the microphone in the studio and up on stage at events.  That is the public side of radio.  There is also a business side that supports what you hear, the advertising side.  When I was in Detroit, I made the switch to the advertising side. and transitioned between both the programming and advertising side in the 1980’s and 90’s.

Jump ahead to 2003.

I have worked for 3 radio station companies in Fort Wayne in the past dozen years.

I spent 8 years working for a group of stations that had some niche music formats but were never leaders when compared to other stations in town for listenership.

Next I worked for a couple of stations that were a bit better as far as number of listeners, but a lot worse in how they treated their advertisers.  I left them pretty quickly.

Finally I joined the staff of the most listened to radio station in Fort Wayne, WOWO.

While it has the largest adult audience, not everyone listens.  According to the rating information we get, about 1/3 of Fort Wayne radio listeners listen to WOWO every week.  Not bad when you have 20 other stations in town.

But while being the most listened to radio station is valuable, especially when you sell advertising programs on that station, there is something else that is important and adds even more value.

The way I do business. And the support staff that I have working with me.  The people that you never see and rarely talk to who work with me at Federated Media are exceptional.  I’ve worked with some exceptional folks in my past, but there was always someone who didn’t understand the concept that we are a team serving our advertising partners who in turn do their best to serve our listeners that we send them from the ads we air on the radio.

My business manager, Sharon has been with the company for 30+ years and despite having 25 to 30 radio sales people to deal with and stacks of papers in her office that represent work to be done or filed away… Sharon is calm, cool and collected.  Earlier this week she stepped in to take care of something for me with her usual pleasant attitude.

Kelley is my sales resource coordinator. Not just mine but for the other 25 to 30 radio sales people in our Fort Wayne office.  She is my usual go to person and can take care of many of the details that need to be handled and keeps us current with reminders so we don’t have to worry about certain events that need our attention each month.  She became my teacher when I joined WOWO last year on how to use some of the systems that were new to me.

Cliff is our production manager and has created a system of efficiency that is continually being tweaked to make everything easier for him and us. Cliff is responsible for getting the commercials into the right programs and scripts to the right people so all of our radio ads air properly on all of our stations.  Unfortunately there are style some software systems that don’t talk directly with each other so Cliff has to manually copy and paste a bunch of stuff too.  Every radio station group has a “Cliff” and it is rare to find someone who can do all he does without screaming at one of us for not doing what we as salespeople should do.  When Cliff is in the house, all is good.

Then there is my boss. Ben.  Ben worked with me until he was hired away by WOWO over 5 years ago.  When Ben joined the stations he and I worked for previously, I was told to mentor him by our boss Vori.  Ben was a star student.  When I moved into management and I had new sales people, one of the assignments I gave them was to pick Ben’s brain, because Ben was one of the few that rose to the top.  He learned how to overcome obstacles and stand apart from the rest of the pack.  Fast forward a few years and Ben and I talk on occasion but it wasn’t until this time a year ago that we talked about my joining his sales team at WOWO. While Ben and I have had a working relationship in the past, this time the tables are turned and he is my coach and manager and it’s a very good fit.

You’ve noticed that I’ve mentioned there are 25 to 30 radio sales people in our Fort Wayne office.  Each station has a handful and we work both independent and interdependent with each other.  While I represent WOWO and I can also include our ESPN sports stations, if a client wants to include one of our music stations, I will partner with a salesperson from the appropriate station.

I have learned to appreciate some of those 25 to 30 radio sales people because I have seen how they work.  Others are too new or I have not worked with them yet for me to have an opinion.  However the ones that come to mind as top notch representatives for their stations are usually the ones that have a few years experience and enjoy their work.

And that’s our peek behind the curtain at Federated Media and the people I work with at WOWO radio in Fort Wayne.