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www.INSIDERADIO.com Thursday, May 8, 2008
Disneyworld-Area Dandy Difficult To Duplicate
Considering more than a staggering 52 million people visit greater Orlando eac
h year, a small early-
1990s blip provided by radio owners, managers and programmers would hardly be noticed.
This, of course, was far in advance of web
streaming so industry executives had to
drive or fly to O-Town to hear firsthand the
phenomenon created by Rock AC WMMO.
In the second of an ongoing series of
“Inside Story” features dealing with unique hard-to-pigeonhole stations, we focus on the Central
Florida facility that, in its full debut book (Fall 1990), instantly ruled the market in first
-place
rankings among 18-34s, 18-49s and 25-
54s and placed third 12+ (7.2).
Exceeding Expectations
An exhaustive format study was conducted prior to sign-
on because as original WMMO
PD Cary Pall recalls, “As far as anyone could understand everything had been
covered in the market.”
Numerous noteworthy nuggets emerged from that research project, including the fact
that about 20% of Orlando’s 25-54 population didn’t really listen to radio.
Approximately 40% in that coveted demo who did use the medium didn’t name a “favorite” radio
station. “When we quizzed them further, these were people [who] had grown up listening to Album
Rock in the 1970s,” Pall explains. “When Album Rock changed in the early-1980s, they were left by
the side of the road. No one was doing that kind of radio anymore. Rock radio had become very
loud and in
-your-face. These guys were running promos `dissing’ the other stations.”
It was pretty much a wall of Guns N’ Roses, Poison and assorted hair-bands in the late
-1980s/early-
1990s, but as Pall remembers these particular listeners weren’t interested in that. “They’d listen for
a Bob Seger song and when [Guns N’ Roses’] Sweet Child O’ Mine would come on, they were out of
there. They’d punch over to the AC station, which would be okay for one or two records but they’d
hit the button again when they heard [songs like Barbra Streisand & Neil Diamond’s] `You Don’t
Bring Me Flowers Anymore.’ You had many people bouncing back and forth between the AC and
Rock ends of the dial. No one was playing their stack of songs.”
Amazing ratings results WMMO instantly racked up far exceeded management’s expectations.
“Everyone involved would’ve been thrilled if we cracked the top five 25
-54 in the first two years,”
Pall declares. “We were very fortunate to have a very big television budget to get the station off the
ground. This was when television was having a hard time. There was an economic slump going on
that summer and fall [1990], leading up to the first Gulf War.”
Television time WMMO purchased was through the company later known as Shark TV, which
basically secured last-minute avails and gave WMMO some unbelievable ad placements. “We
probably got twice what we paid for,” Pall comments. “That certainly helped get the word out but I
don’t care how much marketing you have. If the product isn’t right, you’re not going to hold
[people] and we were able to [retain audience].”
An Easy Call
Highly noteworthy is WMMO didn’t really seem to completely knock off any one station, although
Capitol Broadcasting Adult
Contemporary “Star 101” (WSTF) probably experienced the most
significant long term effect. “They signed on in a similar way,” Pall notes of what is now Clear
Channel Alternative WJRR. “They had this group of people for about a minute and then drove them
away. We took some of [Oldies WOCL’s] younger end and certainly took cume from both rockers
[WDIZ and WHTQ] and the Hot AC [WOMX - `Mix’].”
Over time, WMMO began sharing audience with WHTQ more so than with any other station because
Pall comments, “It adjusted its programming to sound more like [we did]. About six months after
we came on, it [lowered] intensity quite a bit and began playing some of the same titles we were.
WHTQ did its best to throw a monkey wrench in the works and share some of our cume.”
One reason - and one reason only - explains the station’s call letters. “We wanted something we
could say without having to spell it,” Pall reveals. “It sounds funny to me because the people
running the station today [Cox] are spelling the call letters. We went out of our way to find calls
that would come out smoothly and were easy to understand. We wanted it to sound more
conversational like [Cleveland’s] WMMS and [Philadelphia’s] WMMR. There’s an ease in saying it and
in having it being understood.”
Abs
ence of hype kept coming back in WMMO’s research as something people wanted from a radio
station. “You could listen to `Star 101’ and they’d do a station promo for one of their giveaways
over the last 30 seconds [of a song fade],” recalls Pall. “They talked all over the music – up one end
and down the other. People felt radio was totally commercialized to the point they just couldn’t
listen to it anymore.”
Elements of several stations around the country and morsels from past outlets were used as WMMO
models, but there was no one particular standout. “True pioneers of the format were some Bob
Henabery 1970s’ Soft Rock stations and the old KNX-FM/Los Angeles [now Adult Hits KCBS-FM
-
`Jack’],” Pall notes. “If they had more songs to choose from in their day they would’ve been even
more successful than they were. We had the benefit of another 15 years of music to wade through.”
Fact Versus Fiction
Several great myths surrounded WMMO in its debut days, including that it boasted an incredibly
large base library.
In reality though, 85% of the music it played consisted of 500 of the best-testing songs Pall put in
the field. “I was lucky because we had plenty of money budgeted for music research,” he states. “In
any given year, we tested about 1,600 titles so I
had good information about a lot of music. The
other 15% didn’t test as well or songs we didn’t test at all. I wasn’t going to waste a space in the
test on something I knew wouldn’t have any familiarity. We sought out music that fit with the bulk
of the library and we’d run with it.”
Albeit in small doses, current tunes were integrated and Pall points out many traditional Adult
Contemporary stations at that time weren’t playing much current music at all. “It was all-library.
Classic Rock stations certainly wouldn’t do it unless it was a new song by [a core artist]. You’d never
hear a [Fred Jacobs-consulted] Classic Rock station play a new song by an unknown artist. That just
would not happen [but] it happened with us. The key was it had to sound like the rest of our
station.”
Expansive playlists – or at least the perception of such –
immediately prompts a comparison to
“Play Anything” Adult Hits formats. “We stressed we were responding to the listener, while the
whole marketing of `Jack’ is very tongue
-in-cheek and pretty much the opposite of that,” Pall
remarks. “I’ve always struggled with radio stations that are top
-down rather than bottom-up. It has
to come from listeners to the speakers. It won’t always work if it happens the other way. One of the
fell
ows [who] put the original [`Jack’] web stream in New York [Famous Amos] was a fan of ours
and would always call the station.”
Intrigued by KINK/Portland’s “true to the music” phrase, WMMO latched onto it “for about five
minutes” until KINK management called WMMO management informing them it was service marked.
“We also liked the general feel of [stations such as] KBCO/Denver,” Pall remarks. “It was a
throwback to what Album Rock sounded like in the mid-
1970s. That’s where we went in our heads.
Top
-of-mind stations for me that sounded like this were KWK/St. Louis, where I’d worked for a brief
time, and WPLJ/New York during the Larry Berger Album Rock days. We focused on the quality of
the music rather than the trappings of radio.”
Lotto Fever
When it came to handling music information, WMMO always gave title/artist for every song.
Rather than back-
selling 30 minutes of music though, the structure called for stopping after every
three songs. “We’d back-sell two and front
-sell the next so we weren’t reading a laundry list of
titles,” Pall explains. “That gets pretty old. We always gave [the personalities] license to find some
information about one of those songs. We didn’t want to have overkill but [hoped] people felt we
were their music information tour guide. Our floating stop-set clock allowed for 11 commercial-free,
hour-long music sweeps which we offered for sponsorship.”
Under the general “no hype” heading, General Manager Bob Poe was adamant the station refrain
from doing any on
-air contests. “We had long conversations before the station went on the air
whether that would be a good idea,” recalls Pall. “We felt, in the end, it would be best to just not do
them. Bob came up with a great line: `If you want to win money – play the lottery.’ We used that
for years and I still use it [on the Savannah, GA station I consult].”
The slippery slope of promoting a station that didn’t do promotions fell to Marketing & Promotion
Director Jim Stout, now in charge of Universal/Orlando talent booking. “He was the force behind the
WMMO Downtown Concert Series and became one of the best talent agents and booking experts
anywhere,” Pall proclaims. “We brought 32 acts to Orlando's downtown Church Street Market area.
They were all free shows we paid for through major and
minor sponsorships. One afternoon, we
stopped I-
4 for a mile in both directions as people poured in for a free concert with Peter
Frampton.”
It was inevitable several copycats would pop up following WMMO’s instant success. “I’m proud to
say a few called to ask how I did it and I was able to help them out a little bit,” beams Pall. “Many
people listened and thought they had it [figured out]. The only ones I felt really got it were the
people at Dame Media, who signed on stations in Harrisburg [WRVV, now Clear Channel-owned] and
Albany [WRVE, also Clear Channel-owned]. To this day [WRVV] still pretty much follows the
template and does a good job with it.”
Extended Honeymoon
A get together three summers ago noting WMMO’s 15th anniversary afforded Pall the opportunity to
renew friendships with staffers like GM Bob Poe, who went on to become the Florida Chairman of
the Democratic Party and is now President of CodeRED.
Cincinnati-
based Pall consults several stations and hasn’t listened to WMMO in quite some time. “I
know the station has had to change with the times and maintain corporate obligations. Cox has a
good historical grasp on what was trying to be done. When you look at one hour of music on ‘MMO
today, it isn’t radically different [from] an hour on the station 15 years ago. There’s a difference
when you look horizontally at their repetition factor.”
If the partnership that owned WMMO hadn’t sold the Rock AC, Pall emphatically and emotionally
asserts, “I’d still be there today. The thing that made WMMO important to me was that everyone
said it would never work. The first book came out and people said it was a honeymoon and it
couldn’t last - it was #1 a year later. There was always something where people thought it would be
impossible for that station
to survive. It became a brand very few people were able to copy. It’s like
my second child and it really does sometimes bring a tear to my eye that I’m not involved with it
anymore.”
Ratings Overview
This mini-edition Inside the Numbers ratings synopsis
provides an idea of the way Orlando’s
WMMO has performed since its 0.6 appearance (Summer 1990).
Arbitron figures indicated are 12+, unless where otherwise noted.
Fall 1990
7.2
#3
#1, 18-34, 18-49 & 25-
54
Winter 1991
6.2
#5
Spring 1991
7.2
#3
#1, 18-34, 18-49 & 25-
54
Summer 1991
6.8
#4
Fall 1991
6.1
#4
#2, 18-34 & 25-54
Winter 1992
5.0
#8
Spring 1992
5.9
#6
#2, 25-54
Summer 1992
4.8
#9
Fall 1992
4.6
#8
#5, 18-49
Winter 1993
5.6
#7
Spring 1993
5.9
#7
#3, 25-54
Summer 1993
5.0
#9
Fall 1993
3.7
#11
Winter 1994
3.2
#12
Spring 1994
4.4
#9
Summer 1994
4.1
#11
Fall 1994
4.2
#11
#5, 25-54
Winter 1995
5.6
#8
Spring 1995
5.3
#10
#2, 25-54
Summer 1995
Unavailable
Fall 1995
3.4
#13
Winter 1996
3.9
#13
Spring 1996
3.8
#13
Summer 1996
3.4
#12
Fall 1996
3.3
#13
Winter 1997
3.9
#11
Spring 1997
4.1
#12
#5, 25-54
Summer 1997
4.8
#9
Fall 1997
3.8
#12
Winter 1998
4.9
#9
Spring 1998
3.3
#12
Summer 1998
4.5
#8
Fall 1998
4.6
#11
#4, 25-54
Winter 1999
5.5
#7
Spring 1999
5.3
#7
#3, 25-54 & 35-64
Summer 1999
4.3
#10
Fall 1999
4.3
#12
#5, 25-54
Winter 2000
4.3
#10
Spring 2000
4.4
#10
Summer 2000
3.5
#14
Fall 2000
3.8
#12
Winter 2001
4.5
#10
Spring 2001
5.1
#7
#3, 18-49, 25-54 & 35-
64
Summer 2001
3.5
#12
Fall 2001
4.5
#8
#4, 25-54
Winter 2002
Unavailable
Spring 2002
Unavailable
Summer 2002
Unavailable
Fall 2002
Unavailable
Winter 2003
Unavailable
Spring 2003
3.8
#11
Summer 2003
3.6
#10
Fall 2003
3.9
#8
Wi
nter 2004
4.6
#8
Spring 2004
3.5
#13
Summer 2004
3.7
#10
Fall 2004
3.1
#13
Winter 2005
5.0
#7
Spring 2005
5.6
#4
#1, 25-54
Summer 2005
4.9
#6
Fall 2005
5.5
#4
Winter 2006
5.3
#5
Spring 2006
4.4
#10
#4, 35-64
Summer 2006
4.2
#7
Fall 2006
4.4
#7
Winter 2007
3.7
#12
Spring 2007
4.8
#4
#2, 35-64
Summer 2007
4.5
#7
Fall 2007
4.0
#9
WMMO – Then
The following representative WMMO/Orlando music-intensive hour is of the Rock AC circa 1991.
DOOBIE BROTHERS “Takin' It To The Streets”
BOB SEGER “The Real Love”
STEALERS WHEEL “Stuck In The Middle With You”
JOHN MELLENCAMP “Cherry Bomb”
DUANE EDDY “The Trembler”
ELTON JOHN “Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy”
BONNIE RAITT “Something To Talk About”
PHIL COLLINS “In The Air Tonight”
CHRIS REA “Texas”
JIMMY BUFFETT
“Floridays”
BILLY JOEL “The Entertainer”
GARY MOORE “Still Got The Blues”
STEELY DAN “Do It Again”
PRETENDERS “Brass In Pocket (I'm Special)”
MICHAEL McDERMOTT
“A Wall I Must Climb”
BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD “Bluebird”
WMMO – Now
A late-afternoon/early-evening hour this week featured the following music mix.
EXILE “Kiss You All Over”
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN “Dancing In The Dark”
ELTON JOHN “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”
ALANIS MORISSETTE “You Learn”
THE FIXX
“One Thing Leads To Another”
WINGS “Silly Love Songs”
TRACY CHAPMAN “Fast Car”
POLICE “Message In A Bottle”
HUEY LEWIS & THE NEWS “Do You Believe In Love?”
EAGLES “In The City”
NICKELBACK “Photograph”
by Mike Kinosian
The first part of our “Unique Station” series dealt with KINK/Portland (6
-29-2006) and is archived
here in “The Inside Story with Mike Kinosian.”
www.INSIDERADIO.com Thursday, May 8, 2008
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