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TWO JACKPOTS THE SAME DAY
I owned
a consulting company (Burkhart/Abrams and others) until
1995. We consulted about one thousand stations and three
networks over twenty-two years. This is about one of those
networks called The Source.
About
two decades ago I received a phone call from Dick Verne who
was one of the big chiefs of NBC Radio. He wanted to create
a new radio network designed to attract 18-34’s. He had done
his homework and knew our consulting group programmed a great
number of successful 18-34 stations. I told him we certainly
would like to talk to him about his network project.
We
arranged for a meeting at our Atlanta office. Dick brought
a number of his executives with him for the daylong
meeting. Dick had an excellent reputation; however I had
not met him. Thus, to break the ice, our people and his
gathered in our conference room and began “small talk” about
radio before getting down to the new network business.
One of
the “small talk” items turned out to be very large. It had
to do with the Arbitron ratings for New York City which were
to be released within hours. Dick and his group were very
hopeful that their NYC FM station would increase in ratings.
They thought their programming had kicked in.
Dick was
also aware that we consulted a NYC competitor WKTU Disco 92
(the first WKTU). We were just as hopeful that WKTU would
reflect growth after our very recent format change to
disco.
About
two hours into the meeting I was handed a note that David
Rappaport, general manager of WKTU, was calling. I excused
myself and took the call.
David
never sounded too excited, and as I said “hello” to him that
same lack of excitement was in his voice as he stated “I
have the ratings”. I replied “how did we do”. He said
“well, we are in double digits 12 plus”.
I said,
“David, I think you are reading the cume column and not that
for AQH.” He said “Nope, it is the AQH”. After two minutes
of quizzing him I realized it WAS indeed AQH, and as I
recall it WKTU was number one in every demo in each daypart.
Since
the people from NBC were in the next room, I asked Dave for
their ratings which were about the same…in the 2 to 3 share
range. I hung up the phone walked back to the conference
room and detailed the ratings to our visitors.
They
were visibly shocked and upset. Pale is the word that comes
to mind. I seized the moment and said “Well, let us do for
this new network of yours what we just did for WKTU!” They
smiled…or tried to smile and agreed.
What a
day!!! JACKPOT NUMBER ONE was the wonderful WKTU rating
success. JACKPOT NUMBER TWO was the HUGE six figure NBC
contract we shook hands on that day…the largest ever for our
consulting company. As someone said, “Timing is everything”
-- and it certainly was that memorable day.
I know
because I WAS THERE.
Next
week: I was elected as a trustee of NARAS -- the Grammy
Awards -- as the only radio guy with a lot of music moguls.
e-mail Kent
kent@kentburkhart.com
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