New Gannett WCZY Station Manager Hails from Storz’s St. Louis KXOK
DETROIT — After five years in every capacity short of engineer at KXOK St. Louis, Lee Douglas, who assumed the GM position at the Storz outlet 16 months ago, has resigned to become station manager of Gannett’s WCZY here.
“It’s the number two position at the station,” says Douglas, a former air personality and programmer of several well-known top 40 outlets, including New York’s 99X and Miami’s WMYQ. “I’ll be primarily functioning to head up the programming effort, but I’ll be involved with every aspect of the station.”
With the announcement of Douglas’ arrival, GM Jim Mulla also promoted WCZY operations manager Dave Shafer to the post of operations director for WCZY and its AM counterpart WLQV.
Describing the AC-formatted ‘CZY, home of several longtime Detroit personalities, including highly paid morning. man Dick Purtan, Douglas says, “We’ll continue in an adult contemporary direction. Gannett is prepared to do whatever is necessary to really win, and I’ve never had that opportunity before.”
Since Douglas’ arrival at KXOK nearly six years ago, the station has shifted from top 40 to AC to, as of this spring, an all-talk direction. “We doubled our audience after eight weeks with the format and re- established the station. Talk was the one void in the market. Everybody thinks of KMOX, but they’re talking only four hours a day. The rest of the time they’re news or sports,” Douglas says.
“I think KXOK will be successful It’s a slow growth format, but they should have a good fall book. I’ve done as much as I could to position the station, so the offer from Gannett really came at the right time,” he continues.
At this point KXOK has neither an official GM nor a PD. Morning personality Gary King has been programming the station on an interim basis, but no decision from Storz’ Omaha headquarters has been announced. END
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Information credit and news source: Billboard; August 20, 1983
