This WCXI Deano Day audio file, in it’s archived, original and unrestored form was selected for today’s special aircheck “restoration” presentation.
_______________
Newly restored! This selected audio recording was digitally remastered by Motor City Radio Flashbacks.
Both AOR and Country Stations Draws Extreme Ratings Share in Motor City
DETROIT — The two big winners in this market in the October /November Arbitron ratings are country-formatted WCXI-AM and AOR outlet WRIF-FM.
The country Golden West station is benefiting from the fact that WDEE-AM abandoned the format early this year, leaving a clear field for WCXI. WDEE is now known as WCZY and plays beautiful music.
Although the Golden West chain is owned by Gene Autry, this is the first station of the chain that has moved into the country format. Program director Bill Ford is making the most of the situation and includes a number of old Autry records in the format. The DJs make frequent remarks about playing records made by the “boss.”
WCXI switched from a contemporary format in February, but it was not until this latest Arbitron book that the ratings substantially improved. The station climbed from a 2.0 share in the July /August book to a current 5.6.
Morning man Deano Day, who was hired from WDEE climbed in ratings from a 1.8 to a 6.3. R.T. Griffin, who has been in country radio for 20 years climbed from 2.6 to 7.1.
Ford says the station’s success is due to attention to country music’s roots. “Too many programmers cut off their library at 1965.” Ford says. He also has increased visibility of the station by having the DJs make 400 local public appearances in the past 10 months.
The ‘Riff
Over at ABC’s WRIF-FM program director Tom Bender has achieved an overall growth in share from 4.8 to 6.3 by playing “a purer form of AOR (album-oriented rock). We play many more new wave acts and have purged the Top 40 crossover acts such as Cat Stevens, Paul Simon and Al Stewart,” he says.
Bender explains, “Detroit is more hard rock-oriented than either coast. For example Jimi Hendrix is more important here.
Bender has also assembled a lineup of the market’s top rock DJs. He hired WWWW-FM’s morning team Jim Johnson and George Beier just before the rating period. As a result Johnson and Buyer delivered a 6.0 share in morning drive up from 3.9 in July /August while the Burkhart /Abrams Super Star W-4 fell from 4.0 to 3.2.
Bender also hired Karen Savelly away from WABX-FM and installed her in the 6 to 10 p.m. slot. The station’s share in that time period climbed from 6.0 to 10.0. Bender wooed CBS promotion man Ken Calvert back into radio and placed him in the midday period. Calvert registered a 6.8, up from 5.0.
Some of Bender’s success, as seen by the competition, is the result of an Arbitron book that does not favor adult radio. “It’s just not a good book for adult radio,” says CKLW-AM program director Bill Gable.
Gable’s formerly rocking outlet that now is adult contemporary beams a signal into Detroit from nearby Windsor, Ont. Gable points out that the latest Arbitron is the first to use Extended Sample Frame in this market. The audience measurement system has been in use in larger markets for more than a year.
It is a method to include listeners without listed phones in the survey. Some critics claim this. technology skews Arbitron’s figures to a younger and often non-white listenership. Most unlisted numbers are not held by up-scale people who pay to be unlisted, but by lower income people who move so much they just get left out of the phone book.
CKLW fell from a 5.5 share in the summer and a year ago to 4.4. The old-line MOR (middle of road) giant in the market, WJR-AM also had a bad book. The station fell from 14.1 to 10.0 overall and in the 7 p.m. to midnight slot from 22.6 to 5.0, a reflection that Detroit Tigers play-by-play added a substantial summer audience.
WJR program director Jim Long says the new numbers have forced him to take a hard look at what the station is doing. One thing he did was to hire Jim Davis away from WOMC-FM to be afternoon drive man. Davis registered a 6.6, down from a summer rating of 10.2 when Marc Avery was in that slot.
Avery was deemed to have “too old an image” to continue on WJR, so he was snapped up by WOMC program director Dave Shafer, who installed him in morning drive on the Metromedia MOR outlet.
Avery delivered a 4.3 share, up from the 3.1 the station had in the summer. Shafer also hired Tom Dean, who has been at ABC’s WXYZ-AM and WDEE, at the start of the rating period to handle afternoon drive. Dean came through with a 5.0 share, up from a summer’s share of 3.1.
Shafer also hired Steve Peck from WABX to be music director so that Jim Scollin can put down that second hat and concentrate on his mid-day jock duties.
WNIC-FM’s adult contemporary format held its own overall with a 3.5 share in both the summer and fall books, but morning drive climbed from 2.3 and 3.3 reflecting a new morning drive team of program director Jim Harper and Jerry St. James. END
_______________
Information credit and news source: Billboard; February 2, 1980
From the MCRFB news archives:
DEANO DAY OF WCXI DETROIT IS BILLBOARD’S COUNTRY AIR PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR FOR 1983 — MAJOR MARKET OUTLET
DETROIT / NEW YORK — Not long after he took his first radio job in 1957 at tiny KROX Crockston, Minnesota, Deano Day got a chance to move in a slightly larger station in Fargo, North Dakota. The reigning jock at the station over there was not encouraging, however. “I don’t think you should come to Fargo,” he told the young hopeful. “It’s a big town, and you don’t have the voice for it.” Day’s 26-year career in radio — including his present stint in Detroit’s WCXI — suggests a glaring deficiency in that particular comment assessment.
In an age where personality has left much of radio, “Uncle Deano” continues to be a slightly larger-than-life figure in every market he works. He achieves this not just by programming words and talking well, but by applying himself as the personality that he is which in turn, the station serves it listeners.
During his 11 years in Detroit, for example, he has visited his listeners in hospitals, acted as best man at some of their weddings and even occasionally served as pallbearer at their request. He estimates that he has autographed more than 200,000 pictures for his fans in the Motor City alone.
Day tells his listeners that there is a country song for every situation in life. So when listeners call him (or he in turn calls them) on this or that matter, he tapes the calls and replays them — linked to the “right” country song.
“Sometimes the calls (are delayed) for replay for three minutes — sometimes for a day.,” he explains. Ultimately, they all get played on the air, accompanied by the music they inspire on Day’s encyclopedia (music) memory.
Although he does not have a set playlist to follow, Day says he tries to get at least four of the current “hot hits” on his show each hour. “Management gives me pretty much of a free hand,” he notes.
Growing up on a small Minnesota farm, Day came of age listening to country music. But he says he had to work as a rock and pop DJ to make a living until he was offered a country post at KLAC in Los Angeles. He admits his own musical taste is for “harder country,” but adds even modern country sits fairly well with him compared to the rock and pop he used to play. He says he doesn’t believe that any jock has to alter his or her personality when moving from one format to another. “I do basically the same in country as I did in rock.”
Day explains that he got his “Uncle Deano” tag as a result of filling in at a father-and-son banquet for a young listener whose father had recently died. “I told him he could just introduce me as his uncle, and eventually it just stuck.”
Day’s reputation and enthusiasm for his work has also stuck. In spite of the fact that he lives 60 miles from Detroit, he swears he enjoys getting up in the morning and making that long daily drive into Detroit. END.
Addendum: Former Detroit jock Deano Day dies at age 70 —
Detroit country great and radio legend Deano Day passed away, Friday, April 10, 2009. For more on this story, see Mike Austerman’s obit reference at michiguide.com.
(Information and news source: Billboard; February 19, 1983).
From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1981
WWWW-FM RUNNING ‘100 MPH’ AGAINST WCXI-AM TO WIN COUNTRY RACE IN DETROIT
DETROIT — Dene Hallam, program director at WWWW-FM Country 106 claims the station is making strides in the latest Detroit radio ratings, and going against the competition in the market WWWW seemingly “always goes 100 miles per hour,” he says. That was just about fast enough to earn WWWW a 4.4 share in the latest Arbitron report, up from an invisible share, following a surprise format switch to country in January, 1981.
Hallam sees his station pulling an upset over WCXI-AM, an established country station, as more significant than just an upstart beating the competition at its own game. “I think ‘adult 25 to 54’ more than ‘country’ in programming the station. We’ve actually increased the country share of the market, rather than just take away listeners from ‘CXI,” Hallam claims.
“The country share of the Detroit market has traditionally hovered around 5.0. Now country stations have about an 8.4 share of the Motown market. When ‘CXI came on the scene, it devoured WDEE (now a religious station). We not only beat WCXI, we expanded the market share.”
The strategy appeared to be working, since WWWW rated no. 2 overall in Detroit among adults 25-54, beaten only by giant WJR-AM.
Workaholism is Hallam’s secret method to rocket to the top of the ratings. It’s not unusual for him to work 12-hour days, and he hopes the rest of the staff keeps up individually in attaining higher status and recognition where the station has been heading overall. He visits Nashville periodically, calling on artists, publishers, record companies and media reps. Locally, Hallam pays calls on retailers, scoping out the country singles section, even talking to customers, seeing what sells.
“Country never sold that well in Detroit, now its starting to sell. The other country stations have been basically MOR personality stations. My big question is, ‘Can I induce my audience to buy? That’s what we’re here for,” Hallam claims.
Hallam, in stating, claims he always had the bottom line in mind when he’s programming the station, and “it’s producing results for clients already.” Good thing, too, since WWWW lost almost all of its advertisers in the format switch.
Some critics cite the lack of commercials as one reason WWWW trampled the competition in the ratings this time out. “Our commercial load was light,” Hallam admits. “But the music we play keeps people listening. Some critics say country music is doing well because it’s on FM. I feel it’s a hindrance rather than an advantage. In the North, in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Cleveland, AM bested FM in country. FM started to beat AM in the South two or three years ago.”
Subtle differences give a station the edge over competition, Hallam’s convinced. Updating spots, making them sound immediate, encouraging deejays to talk conversationally, and convincing listeners that the station has a family orientation are some of the things that give him that edge.
Hallam feels the evolution of a new artists should be through small and medium stations, with little or no competition. “In a big city station, you’ve got competition. People would rather hear Kenny Rogers than some Joe Blow. We play the hits. We make the hits, too. Because WWWW played it, Joe Dolce’s ‘Shaddap Your Face’ sold over 400 copies at one Harmony House outlet. We watch smaller markets, sales, make call outs. Sylvia, Charly McClain, Freddie Raven were added because they were doing so well wherever they played.”
Promotion, both on the air and through concert tie-ins, is a big element in WWWW’s sudden success. Hallam tries to get a guest deejay appearance anytime somebody comes to town.
“Last week we had Alabama, Charly McClain and Ronnie McDowell. I try to get ’em to sound like real DJs — so if people don’t like a particular artist, they’ll listen anyhow. The guest artists talk right up to the lyric, play music beside their own. We try to get a taped promo from everyone who’s coming to town. I’ll go just about any length to get it, too. For Razzy Bailey, we had to set up a three-way conference call at 3:30 in the morning. But we got it.”
On the air promotions include concert ticket giveaways, prize-contests, many tied in to Pine Knob and Meadowbrook concerts. “We try to think of the whole family,” Hallam says. “We’re in the middle of of ‘106 Days of Summer’ right now. If you win a pair of tickets in a giveaway, the DJ will ask if you got kids. If you do, you don’t have to hire a sitter. . . . we’ll throw in the extra tickets so you can take them too.”
“The twang’s out of country. The western’s out of country and western. There’s no similarity between Eddie Rabbit and Hank Williams, Jr., only an evolutionary tie. WWWW doesn’t play much music older than the ’70s. Music wasn’t that well recorded before then, and especially when it comes to country music from decades ago, and stereo makes it sound even worse.”
“We try to play what people would like us to play for them. I don’t kid myself that WWWW is the only station our listeners tune in. I want to get more service on the air, increase our library, get out in the community more. Right now, I’m programming totally on gut feel. If the announcers can’t execute, the ideas are wasted. The jock is the liaison between listeners and the program director. The jock’s job is to entice the listeners to listen a little bit more than they would left to themselves.”
“I’ve never worked at any station that’s adult targeted, that’s as busy with requests as WWWW,” Hallam claims. “We went on Joe Dolce’s new single, ‘Ain’t No UFO Gonna Catch My Diesel’ right out of the box and the phones are just burning up with requests.”
“I change the rotation weekly, and rest a song when it comes off the playlist rotation. The entire staff here is dedicated in going the extra yard. There are too many 9 to 5 program directors (and other radio people) in the world. The answer to our hard work is in the ratings.” END
___
(Information and news source: Billboard; August 22, 1981)
A MCRFB Note: According to the Country Radio Broadcasters website (www.crb.org/), Dene Hallam began his country radio career as program director on Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s WFEC in 1977. His country radio resume reflects he made stellar career advances while programming New York’s first Country station, WKHK, as well as WWWW in Detroit, New York’s WHN, KKBQ in Houston, San Francisco’s KYCY, WKHX in Atlanta and WDAF in Kansas City. Hallam returned to Atlanta in 2007, serving as program director for the ‘Moby in the Morning’ network until his death in 2009. He was 54.
Dene Hallam held the distinction being one of only two programmers to win Billboard’s Program Director of the Year in two different formats, Country and Top 40. While at KKBQ in Houston in 1995, Hallam won the coveted Billboard PD of the year award for Country. For more information on Dene Hallam’s passing, go here.
