June 14, 2025 • 38 mins
The Broadcasters Podcast welcomes Joe Pardavila, Director of Podcasts for Advantage Media | Forbes Books And Host of the Good Listen Podcast
Joe is a seasoned media professional, discusses his radio career, from interning at WPLJ to becoming a producer for Scott Shannon and Todd Pettengill, highlighting the vital role of a producer and the unique skills required for radio.
Joe discussed how the shift from diary-based ratings to PPM (Personal People Meter) data led to radio stations prioritizing "less talk, more music," often at the expense of live personalities and engaging content.
Joe contrasted radio and podcasting, noting the shift to video in podcasting and the impact of metrics on content. Pardavila emphasized balancing analytics with intuition in podcasting and building an audience through good content. He also shared details about his book and podcast, "Good Listen," which focuses on storytelling.
Joe also explains how his book stemmed from anecdotes shared while coaching podcast clients and contains life lessons learned in radio, applicable to communication in various contexts. The "Good Listen" podcast he hosts serves as an extension of the book, focusing on people's stories.
Contact KOP for professional podcast production, imaging, and web design services at http://www.kingofpodcasts.comSupport KOP by subscribing to his YouTube channel and search for King Of PodcastsFollow KOP on Twitter or X and TikTok @kingofpodcastsListen to KOP’s other programs, Podcasters Row… and the Wrestling is Real Wrestling Podcast and The Broadcasters Podcast.Buy KOP a Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/kingofpodcastsDrop KOP a PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=3TAB983ZQPNVLDrop KOP a CashApp https://cash.app/$kingofallpodcasts
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-broadcasters-podcast--3684131/support.
Contact KOP for professional podcast production, imaging, and web design services at http://www.kingofpodcasts.com
Support KOP by subscribing to his YouTube channel and search for King Of Podcasts
Follow KOP on X and TikTok @kingofpodcasts (F Meta!)
Listen to KOP’s other programs, Podcasters Row… and the Wrestling is Real Wrestling Podcast and The Broadcasters Podcast.
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Joe is a seasoned media professional, discusses his radio career, from interning at WPLJ to becoming a producer for Scott Shannon and Todd Pettengill, highlighting the vital role of a producer and the unique skills required for radio.
Joe discussed how the shift from diary-based ratings to PPM (Personal People Meter) data led to radio stations prioritizing "less talk, more music," often at the expense of live personalities and engaging content.
Joe contrasted radio and podcasting, noting the shift to video in podcasting and the impact of metrics on content. Pardavila emphasized balancing analytics with intuition in podcasting and building an audience through good content. He also shared details about his book and podcast, "Good Listen," which focuses on storytelling.
Joe also explains how his book stemmed from anecdotes shared while coaching podcast clients and contains life lessons learned in radio, applicable to communication in various contexts. The "Good Listen" podcast he hosts serves as an extension of the book, focusing on people's stories.
Contact KOP for professional podcast production, imaging, and web design services at http://www.kingofpodcasts.comSupport KOP by subscribing to his YouTube channel and search for King Of PodcastsFollow KOP on Twitter or X and TikTok @kingofpodcastsListen to KOP’s other programs, Podcasters Row… and the Wrestling is Real Wrestling Podcast and The Broadcasters Podcast.Buy KOP a Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/kingofpodcastsDrop KOP a PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=3TAB983ZQPNVLDrop KOP a CashApp https://cash.app/$kingofallpodcasts
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-broadcasters-podcast--3684131/support.
Contact KOP for professional podcast production, imaging, and web design services at http://www.kingofpodcasts.com
Support KOP by subscribing to his YouTube channel and search for King Of Podcasts
Follow KOP on X and TikTok @kingofpodcasts (F Meta!)
Listen to KOP’s other programs, Podcasters Row… and the Wrestling is Real Wrestling Podcast and The Broadcasters Podcast.
Buy KOP a Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/kingofpodcasts
Drop KOP a PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=3TAB983ZQPNVL
Drop KOP a Venmo https://account.venmo.com/u/kingofpodcasts
Drop KOP a CashApp https://cash.app/$kingofallpodcasts
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My guest today has spent decades mastering the art of audio,
storytelling and effective communication, and he's a New York City
media veteran. Trust me, when I say and I tell
you the accolades, you'll realize why it was well Now
producer at Scott and Todd in the Morning, ninety five
point five, the p l J and New York. He's
used that wisdom to his best selling book, Good Listen,
and now leads the podcasting charge as director podcasts for
(00:23):
Advantage Media and Forbes Books, helping others create contentent deeply
resonates Joe. Part of you lives with me and think
you'll be on with me.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Joe, Oh, you're very welcome. This is now.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
This is gonna be odd for now, you will tell you
because usually I'm not on the question asking end of things,
so it's always weird when I'm on the receiving end.
So bear with me, uh during this, because I'm used
to one, you know, being the captain, so it it
almost feels like some of the captain phillips, like, now
you're the captain, so I'm just gonna have to just
like just ride your coat tails and see how this
goes well.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I'll try to produce this best I can. Now, it
was two thousand and nine that you joined with ABC
Radio or was cumulat to media at the time.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
It's actually Disney. Oh that's right.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Okay, Yeah, So WPLJ was for many many years owned
by Capital Cities ABC, and then the merger of ABC
and Disney, Disney took on all those radio stations and.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Then that was Michael Isiser's dream.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Michael Eiser loved having like being involved with radio and TV.
And then Robert Iiger took over. He said, what are
we doing in the radio business? We got to get
rid of these things. We're a theme park and a
movie and a television company.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
We're not a radio station company.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
We see, there were a wrong about that, you know,
because ABC for so many years, i mean, going from
the seventies into the eighties. Are you in the sixties,
let's just talk about the WABC before all this came around,
they ran great radio stations. They actually had really good, great,
great radio programming. Even syndicated was really well done. And
from there you come in and you were what was
the role you had ascon Ton and issue? Was it
producing already or was it uh tell me where you
(01:54):
what was initially the direction to what? What was your
hierarchy from the time you were there up until the end?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yes, So I was.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I was going to college at William Patterson College in
New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Uh, I find state school. But I was one of
these kids.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I always wanted to get into media, but my my
parents were immigrants. We didn't have any connections or know anybody.
So while I was going to school, I said, you know,
I don't even know if I'm gonna like this radio thing.
I mean, I know I was a fan of it,
but can I make a career out of it? So
I applied to h w PLJ for an internship during
the and I don't know, for whatever reason, I had
(02:29):
more I didn't realize I had this much self awareness
as a young person. But I was like most people
don't get internships till much later in their college years,
Like they wait till maybe their senior year. But I
was doing it as a sophomore. So I go for
my spring semester and I interned at WPLJ and it
was fun. I like thoroughly enjoyed it. And as people
may know, if they get their foot in, you know,
(02:50):
in the radio door. Essentially, you start in promotions driving
around van, handing out T shirts, all that kind of things.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
So I did that for the span of the semester.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
The summer break comes and the promotion department says, hey, listen,
we're gonna bind. We have to fill a position for
one of our full time promotion coordinators. Would you be
willing to leave school and join the company. I'm like, hell, yeah,
I'm not a fan of school.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Let's let me go do it.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
So in the meantime, as I'm working in promotions, I'm
doing like a lot of them. Seeing I'm doing a
lot of public facing stuff for the for the radio station,
and lo and behold, I didn't realize the host of
the morning show noticed who I was, like they would
see me hosting events. So it was at the time
it was Scott Shannon and.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Scott Shannon, Oh my god, yeah, Scott Shannon.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Obviously the let's take away talk about Scott Cannon. All right,
so I know, well from originally for the fact I
did watch this one hundred or worse, the first documentary,
and I'm very well familiar with what he did in Tampa,
and well people are going to do there making his
way to New York because what a what a sea
change for him to go and go into that climate
(03:54):
and do what he tried to do, and then also
being very ambitious when it comes to like going to
Los Angeles, trying to go ahead and do the replicate
the same coming back to New York and now what
he does with the oldiest channel and and just the
it's consistently been prominent in the space. So for him
to go and tap it to you, you gotta I
mean all, let's put there with all together. You're interning
in the number one market. You're not even going to
(04:15):
like okay, you're in New Jersey. You could have gone
to like a lower market and worked your way up.
You went right to number one. I don't know if
you were paying attention to that when you did that.
And Scott Shannon catches your eye. Tell me about the
fact of what was your initial reaction when you got
the work with Scotschien and when he started talking to
you about like you saw I saw your potential bringing
you on board to his morning show.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, So what happened was so you you got the
chronic ledge Qarder perfectly. So he started in Florida, or
actually kind of started in smaller stations, but he broke
out in Tampa, right. Yeah, in the early eighties, Top
forty radio in New York was dead people taking for
granted now that D one hundreds here and then there
were several other AC hot AC Top forty stations there,
(04:56):
but in the early eighties there was no Time forty
radio in here. It was basically like rock and like
their vasions of any kind of urban just everything but
pop music. So he came in and essentially took the
city by storm. You mentioned the documentary that that was
released a few years ago about taking the station Worse first,
and it literally was the worst station on the planet.
(05:19):
They brought him to just raise from the dead, and
because of him tapping into that need and also the
timing of it, because remember this early this is like
Michael Jackson, Madonna, Cindi Laupper, Bruce Spray, this is when
all these pop acts are blowing up. So it was
the perfect time in the perfect city to launch this station.
And they Lumbold went first from Worse to first in
(05:41):
a matter of months, and it was a sensation like
there are stories of people like driving around New York
City with their windows down looking at each other like, oh, you're.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Listening to ZE one hundred, Yeah yeah, I'm listening to
yeah yeah. And so it was huge.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
So at the time, the station has taken off and
then Scott's like, you know what, what's So he goes
to the Bostons Z one hundred like, hey, give me
more money or I'm gonna go see what's out there, right,
and he wants it, and he wants to see if
he could replicate that model, goes to LA It doesn't
work out. He's told me this story several times, but
a lot of it was just like bad ownership really,
(06:16):
just that they put too much money up front, so
they were losing money. So the station that was Station
one could put and PLJ at the time was sort
of one of these middling New York City radio stations.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Everyone kind of knew it from its rock and roll.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Days and such, but it was still just one of
those things, the station that was always playing catch up
to Z one hundred.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
So they brought on Scott.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Scott then brought on a partner, Todd Pettentil, who was
He was his morning show host for twenty plus years
and sort of the rest is history with Scott. So meanwhile,
I'm like this young intern. And what's funny too, is
I would I would have a lot of conversations with
Scott where he would be like, hey, you remember when
I used to do the Z one hundred.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I'm like, nope, I was too young, Like it was.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I was like when he was when he was at
Z one hundred, I was like maybe like seven or
eight or not.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Like, so, I I was.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Like really young, And I was never like a Scott
Shannon fanboy. I knew the name obviously, Like if you
lived in New York scen area, everyone knew who Scott
Shannon was, which is kind of crazy to think now
in this world of radio. But yeah, so he would
always say like, do you remember this moment? Like Nope,
never had it. But I've always had a huge respect
for him. So when they brought me on, they were
looking to sort of like freshen up the show because
(07:22):
the show had kind of inherited older producers from the
previous morning show, so they wanted some fresh voices, some
really more like younger energy, and My Star was essentially
as a phone op for many people like that transition
is usually working in promotions as an intern.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And then going to become the phone op is like.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And basically what that meant was you were taking the requests,
you were taking questions from the audience, and the phone
op was situated in the phone pit, which was essentially
a windowless room right outside the studio. And then again
this is I think timing has always been sort of
like my calling card. At the time, there were really
(08:02):
it was just sort of the beginning of the Internet,
so you couldn't google answers, you couldn't like find so
I was like a pop culture junkie as a little kid.
So I knew who was who was like the fourth
lead in a movie. I knew who wrote a song.
I knew all these little factoids. And so as they
were doing the show and they were doing live morning shows,
they would look at you other like, hey, do you
know who that is? And I would always kind of
know who they're talking about. And eventually, after like a
(08:25):
month or two in the phone op room, they said,
you gotta stand in the studio with us. So I
essentially then from that moment on stood in between Scott
and Todd for the next twenty three years.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Like I would stand in between the two of them.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
My entire that was like my situation, like I never
I never sat. I just stood in between the two
of them, either shouting out like an answer or writing
it down for them, coming up with a joke and
writing it down a punchlining and handing up.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
To one of the hosts.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
So yeah, and so it was just incredibly fortunate that
they needed to have someone fill that hole of like
the young quirky kid who just had a lot of
energy but had a lot of knowledge, and they just
saw that as an asset. At the time, again, there
was no Internet, no social media that they could go
to and be.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Like, oh, what is that answer?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Like, no, they needed a human to be able to
bring that And that's sort of how my career started.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Well, some of the best producers out there are the
ones that can fill the gaps and the ones that
are in tuitor the know and understand because those guys
who listen, you know, for them to get up what
like two three in the morning to go and do
a show at five or six in the morning, and also,
you know, being older, they're not going to be in
the know of everything that's said. They have to rely
on you to go ahead, be the one that's like
absorbing all the pop culture, absorbing all the content that
(09:35):
the audience is going to go ahead and be listening to.
So you've got to fill in that gap. And that's
what's important. I think that's it's a missing art for
that now because I don't think you get a lot
of hosts that are able to go and do that.
Because even now when I listen to the morning shows today,
I don't listen to much anymore. I'll listen. For me,
being a radio fan for all my life, I barely
even touch the AMFM dial. It's it's a shame to
(09:55):
go to that. But even if I try to go
to morning shows now, if I even want to go
listen to themercials, which is a gargange at best, it's
the point is like I don't feel like I'm moving forward,
and I you know, it's like you want to be
in the audience. You want to go reach back out,
like you're answering the answer that somebody else preyed on
the radio is pray yelling in their car as it's
happening to kind of feel in like okay, move the
(10:17):
conversation going, don what the answer is and then go
forward and as you feel smart about it because you
had somebody's going there and that pretty that nucleus of
the producer right there, and what you're going to do
to kind of move the show forward so important, so crucial.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
No, And the great thing about it too, And I
think the reason I was able to succeed is even
though I'm confident in having an ego, just like anybody,
I didn't really feel like I needed the accolades or
the adoration from the fan base or anything like that
to get me going to me, I got the instant
gratification of knowing that, oh shoot, like the hosts were
(10:51):
in a bind and I helped them out and they
and to them, I was like a security blanket. I
went from being locked into a little phone pit to
like never be able to go anywhere without them because
they liked the idea of me being in the room.
Like I know, you've done a lot of board opping
in your career, Like board operas, usually when there's a remote,
there's someone back in the studio hitting all the buttons.
(11:11):
And when I first started with the team, I was
doing the board opping. But after a while they're like, no, no, no, no, no,
you need to come on site with us. We need
your energy, we need your information, we need all that there.
So it was one of those things where I used
my skill set to sort of shine through and become successful.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
And then from that point forward my role just started growing.
It started, like.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I think my title was like associate producer, but eventually
elevated to executive producer, which I had that title.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
For god fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
That was eping the morning show, which was it was
a remarkable run. But then it all came to an
end in twenty nineteen when our radio station, Cumulus Media,
sold us to a Christian broadcasting company. So in essence,
I was fired by Jesus and then just started my
next career full time in podcasting.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Kay Love. Yeah, what a crazy thing. But now when
it comes down to it was there you were doing
into the morning show environment, and I just want to
get also the fact that it wasn't your part of
what the music format really was because there wasn't much
being played during that time slot. But like the thing was,
you were just into the morning show format. It was
more of just like you wanted to be in that
realm of radio, not necessarily in anything else you never
(12:21):
wanted to spread into becoming a jock. And you know,
was there anything you took away from many of the
other folks that you got to work with within that
building because or at least from the people that Scott
Shannon knew in his purview, because the one thing I
would think of is that he procured so much talent.
And I think Hollywood Hamilton still works out there today,
Wendy Williams still works out there, and you know what
(12:43):
was out there for so many years, unfortunately with all
her things, but had a lengthy radio career before getting
the television. And that's the thing, is like, there was
just so much talent that came through. And what was
it about you, Sandy Gun just stay in that role
and what kept you kept an bitius, kept it fresh,
kept it interesting the whole time.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Well, first and foremost, you mentioned earlier about the fact
of New York. The pay in New York was good,
and so the idea of I mean, and you.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Kind mentioned it earlier too as well, like I.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Started at number one, so for me to have to
lead I was literally would have had to left the
market all together to go find an opportunity to start
from scratch, essentially in a smaller market.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
And to me, I was born and raised in the
New York City area.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
I was born like ten miles from Manhattan, lived within
ten miles of Manhattan my entire life.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
That so the idea of leaving was never on my mind.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
But I will say the reason I did stay was
not just because the pay and obviously geography.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It was really because I loved the job.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Like it was amazing to be able to again starting
in a world pre Internet, where if I had an
idea for something and I wanted to share it with
an audience, I just crack a mic and I do it,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
So the ability to.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Create content before the Internet age and in a way
and so that it's always funny too because like when
I don't know if you get this, when you buy
a service or something, they'll say, hey, write a Google review.
I'm like, I don't write reviews for anything, because my
entire life was always like if I had something to
say about something, I'd just say it on the air
right So at to the day it's like I rarely
(14:23):
ever write a review for anything. It's just because it's
always been not something I normally did. When I had
something to say, I would just say it on the radio.
So I think that part of it, having the creativity
and the openness, Like even though we were in New
York essentially between six and ten, it was our ballgame,
like we can do whatever we want. Like if I
woke up that morning and had an idea for a
(14:44):
parody song, Todd and I would go into his office
bang out a song. Like we would start writing a
song at like five o'clock and then within like forty
five minutes it be written, recorded, and produced. And just
that the ability to do that was just like there
was such a high from that, like the pressure like,
oh man, we got to get this some before six o'clock.
And so that was sort of like my drug. I
(15:05):
was never into drugs. Yeah, my drug was like that
live radio aspect of you know, whatever you say, you say,
it goes out.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
There's no take backs. You know.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Scott had this line is that he always used that.
He said that, you know, you have to be like
a goal goalie in hockey. You can't you know, once
the puck goes in the net, you can't take it out.
It is what it is so embracing that of just
really enjoying and living in that moment and just like
being or surrounded by super talented people that could help
bring my.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Ideas to life.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
It was just it was too good to give up
at any point during my career.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I want to ask you now when it comes to
what when you branch out of radio into other media.
The one thing I've always noticed that if you look
at I mean various talent that's on television. If you
need a master's ceremonies, you need someone to host the
game show, you need to host the reality show, whatever
there is, there are still people that are in radio
that continue today that are thriving in television. You think
(15:56):
of Steve Harvey, this has his run in radio, Ryan
Steve Chris has had his long running radio and I
think of so many other talents going back, you know,
forever that were a game show hosts, that all got
their breaks in radio. That was always a great recruitments
and always a great place to really break open talent
so that you could do just about anything. But I
(16:18):
don't think the people that you know. Unfortunately, there's a
lot of corporations now that on stations and now of
course I don't even know they're not even radio people anymore.
They don't necessarily operate from an advantage point where you know,
they really don't want to do anything more creative or help,
you know, use the use radio as the tool can
be right now to create new talent and to create
great create programming. They don't want to do it anymore,
(16:41):
so they've suffocated all that out. But they used to
be a place where if you wanted to find great talent,
you could start in radio and take them into other channels.
And that's why people like yourself from the background you've
got in the radio, that's where you're able to go
and thrive in podcasting or into various areas you've wanted
to do in media. What is it about the experience
of being in radio itself and what it how it
(17:02):
challenges you to be able to brand yourself off and
be able to be adaptable to any other media.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, I think the the ability to communicate without pictures
and video and drawings any kind of the mind right,
it's it's all in your mind and being able to
execute that. It's it's a talent that is something that
you really kind of have to refine. You just don't
wake up being able to do that. So it takes
years semester and you mentioned it like there are a
(17:28):
lot of people like uh that you also like.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Pats Ay Jack started in radio, Harlight that into a three.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Mondo just passed away was a radio guy. Before you
think of when I think of like Alex tra beckining
you're starting in radio, and I think Bob Barker actually
started in radio. It was all these people that got
all their their bones from that. And actually when you
think about with top Hell, it was like partly was
radio intellivision. He worked in the w wf's like he
also was able to work on on camera roll. There's
(17:55):
that point where adaptable, you're able to go and just
move whatever you know.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
It's I don't think it happens the other way around,
because you probably know this as well as I do.
When you see people who are either non radio people
whether they were in television or music, try to make
the jump to radio.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
They fail all the time. I mean Whoopy Goldberg is
a prime example of this.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I mean she has an egot like she has an Emmy,
a Grammy and Oscar and a Tony and when she
went to do morning radio New York City.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
She failed famously.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
David Lee ro Oh my god, that was amazing.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
If people don't remember, when Howard Stern jumped from terrestial
to satellite, they they chose David Lee Roth to take
over for him, and it was a disaster, like an
unmitigated disaster.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
So I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I think the people who are able to refine their
talents on radio can can work in any meetingment. I've
always felt like radio was especially for me in the
way I worked, Like networking has always been a big
part of my career, and when you're in radio, you
can network easily with other mediums without any fear of jealousy.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Because I think if you.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
See like someone trying to jump from TV to film,
like oh, who the hell are you to to try
to do film? But like radio, no one's offended by
They're like, oh, okay. So I've worked with people in film,
I work with people in television, I work with people
in print, and so I think it's it's always been
one of those friendly mediums where people got to know
who you are and you know you've prior heard this before.
It's the most intimate medium there that's ever been created.
(19:21):
You know, people are listening either locked in their cars,
you know, doing shores around their house. You know, it's
a very private direct and it's something you kind of
have to do actively, whereas I think a lot of
the other mediums are pretty passive, Like you can have
the TV on.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
And do seven different things.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
You know, you could have a movie on and do
like your homework, or do like you know, or write
a book while you're watching a movie. Radio you have
to be one hundred percent engage to really get it
because if you if you're not paying attention, like wait,
what was that?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
What did that person say?
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So it is one of those things where it's intimate,
but it's also a very active medium that kind of
forces people to really be locked in and the saying
goes for the people doing it. Like you know, if
you're on TV and you know the camera's not on you, you
could pretty much like you know, you could have a
sandwich while the cameras on you. In radio, you have
to be ready for anything at all times. So yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
No, no, I think it's a great example.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
And I remember many many years ago, you know, you
brought up the example of like you know, creating the
next like next generation of radio starsmember. And it was
like ten or fifteen years ago someone said, you know,
who's the next big radio star because at the time
it was essentially like the Elvis Duranz Ryan Secret. So
there was all people getting up in age, you know,
late thirties, forties, fifties, and I said, they're already here.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
They're just on YouTube, like they they the people that.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Are YouTube stars in the two thousand's, twenty twenties.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
If it was rewind the clock forty years, those people probably.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Would be morning radio hosts, you know, they would probably
be or a TV talk show host. I think that's
just that's just the evolution of technology.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And so when we were.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Growing up, it was either be on the radio or
be on television. Nowadays it's like be on radio, maybe
television not so important, but social media, TikTok, YouTube, it's
all there for them now.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Without we have to make mention of the fact that
one of those people we didn't make mention of that
made the transition rate to the television. Howard Stern doing
going to America's got talent, and you know, if the
money will still there, he probably will still do it.
But the either or he could have always gone to
a TV talk show format and do an interview format
for himself, which I wish you would have done ten
years ago instead of stating serious but which.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I think that's Howard's one drawback that he was never
able to pull off the transition of a radio show
to a TV show. And it's just because of I
think that the medium is really hard to translate from
one from one to the other because of the like
even like think about like podcast, how you could have
like a thirty to two hour podcast. You can't do
(21:50):
that in television. You can't have like and you if
you ever hear like the late night talk show hosts
they say they're one brother of doing interviews on their show,
is like, oh, I only have six minutes with Tom Cruise,
whereas a podcast host, well have sixty minutes with Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Right. So, And I think Howard it was really tough
for him. He tried a lot.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
There were several attempts for him to make the jump
and just wasn't able to pull off like the radio
to TV. He was able to succeed being a TV personality.
Like I said, America's got talent, but he was never
able to make that jump, and I think just because
it's they're just too different and just people don't watch
TV like they consume radio.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
But what he did do, which is I'm gonna still
give him credit for this. Wherever his team was, they're
responsible for the YouTube podcast format week more one of
the types of podcasting setups we see today. Yeah, because
everybody has a microphone in front of them on a
lot of YouTube shows because of Howard. He's the first
one that had on the E channel to do that.
(22:48):
And one of the things you may mentioned most recently
is a story that you put out and You're good
listen letter about how if you're not on YouTube doing
your podcast, you're doing something wrong that you really need
to be out there prominent video content. And he was
not even much so that people were watching the video.
Is that people are just watching it on YouTube because
that's the platform to go. One of there is is
that you were in in a variation of that, because
(23:10):
after Howard went away and moved the series and then
you don't really see everything was behind a paywall for
his content, there was still that kind of room of creating,
getting in out of the radio studio and watching things
as happened. So you were part of the initial start
of the dish Nation series, which ran for several seasons syndicated,
and it's the same idea, but what has was the
idea was that you had several different warning shows several
(23:32):
different markets, and then they were just going through the
gossip of whatever or whatever the stories that they were
and that's something you did with and it was with
Todd when he was doing the show, and I forget
who was a co host of the.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Time, Todd. We're both on it.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
And it's funny too because I think looking back at
it now and now that we have context for it,
I feel like dish Nation was essentially TikTok, but it
was a scrolling content wheel of like here's what these
day in New York. Oh, here's what they say in Atlanta.
Oh here's what they say in Dallas. Here's what they
say in Detroit. So it was very fast paced. It
(24:06):
was not long segments. It was just really bite sized
pieces of information that was used into a TV show.
And I did that show for a year plus. It
was a blast, But that was one of those things
where it was out of our control, Like we had
a production team that would say, hey, do these stories.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
We would do them, and then we'd be.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Like, Okay, I don't know if they're gonna you're gonna
use any of that tonight, but we'll see and then
we turn on the TV. It was on seven o'clock
local time in New New York, and then we'd pop
it on and like, oh, okay, that's.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
What they chose or that's what they didn't choose. So yeah.
But going back to your point about the video.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
YouTube, I, as me being an old school radio guy,
I resisted for the longest time integrating.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Video into podcasts. And you know you.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Mentioned I worked for Advantage Force Books, a publishing company
in Carlso, South Carolina, where we produce content for entrepreneurs.
And when I first started, I was like, the questions
came up, Oh should we do Video'm like no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Know, audio only. And part of it was the barrier
of entry.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
When you're doing a video podcast, and especially if you're
say you're like an entrepreneur trying to build your thought leadership,
the last thing you want to do is like look
like you're doing a podcast from your from your parents'
basement with like terrible lighting and the sound. Look at
and you've got like, you know, a picture of like
a horse behind you. Like there's more to getting it
right with video than audio. And I've always been, well,
(25:28):
i'n't always been, but I've I'm really good.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
At editing audio.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
So and I've jokingly said to anyone, I can make
anybody sound good with audio.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Video it's a lot harder. But as time went on,
Covid has changed it all.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Covid actually was the barrier that said it's okay, it's
acceptable to go and see bookcases or to see whatever
you want behind the backdrop, and however you set up,
as long as you have a good microphone. Because the
most important thing that people learned after that fact was
they needed good equipment. Learn to get better equipment.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Ran Jorge was the performative aspect of it, yes, because
when you do doing an audio podcast, you could be
looking down, you could be reading.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
You can't do that on a video podcast. So that's why.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
And I was starting with a lot of people that
were just starting their sort of like thought leadership journey,
so they weren't like, they didn't have ted talks, they
didn't do speeches regularly. So I did it more as
to protect them from having to worry about being performative
and you know, reading scripts, reading questions, looking at a
camera while they speak. That is the hardest part for
I think a lot of people to grasp more and
(26:27):
more people getting used to it. You're right, COVID was
a big driver for that. But even then, you know,
you just don't want to do a video podcast just
for the sake of doing it if you're not going
to do it well. So that's why I was always
resident about it. But as I saw the data come in,
and you've seen in anyone watching or listening and seeing this,
I think YouTube has now become the number one podcast
(26:48):
finding source on the planet, or are finding more and
more podcasts on YouTube. YouTube is the third most used
search engine in the world after Amazon and Google, So
you're limiting if you're not on there, you're limiting your
search ability.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So all of the.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Data that comes into play, I think was the thing
that really pushed me over the edge, and I saw like, hey, listen,
it's now or never, because you have to take advantage
of while you can and build up that bank of
video content that's going to live on the interwebs forever.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
You know, and there's a story you can put out
and south of your LinkedIn page about changing stations of
why channel changing is liberty ag in today's society and
diverse media world, you said, And one of the things
you're talking about is no longer being needed to be
forced into watching or listening to things we don't want
that media content contrainers of all kind of have a
point of view. We could choose which views work for
(27:42):
us where we want to go. But we did come
from radio. I mean, I also say this. I know
I never got the career that you had in radio,
but then again, it was like it was the entry
to get in there and to be in the right
place at the right time and know who the great
connections are. That's really how radio operates. So the freedom
here of podcasting was what I really got to embrace.
And it's gonna be twenty years in August, I'll have
(28:03):
said that they'll do that. So at least what I
think in for radio all these years into corporate in
the podcast has been wonderful. But one of the things
I'm sure you might have had too was a bit
of a resistance because, like you said, you want to
do audio only. You were always a little bit hesitant
to do video right away, and the same thing goes now,
like even for me, I know that YouTube that's you
have to make your content. I'm not doing it. I'm
(28:25):
not myself on a camera doing the YouTube content. But
I have YouTube content up. I just put up you know,
transcriptions whatever, so like you can see the subtitles going on,
and I have some kind of decent background, so at
least it's something there to watch. But I want to
still keep it audio for me, but for others, yeah,
videos just is imperative. I want to just get your
take on to transition and saying well we got to
(28:46):
finally do something with video here. And the thing was
also was like a transition from vidio of the podcasting.
I'll let me just tell this quick story. So when
Donna Mike were still in the air and they were syndicated,
and it was right after Annonicole Smith died the same day,
I remember calling into that show and you know that
you still always ask about who you were, like whatever
calls or they wanted to go and rag on you. Well,
(29:07):
they went off the after me and they said, oh,
well I'm in podcasting. It's like then you told me.
It was Donna said, well, you're just like you're You're
no different than working on McDonald's drive through.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Bro.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
It was like that was it. They just shot me down,
like all right, two thousand and nine, I think it
was two thousand and eight, and now today it's like,
well they're in podcasting themselves. If they're not, well, I mean,
I think Mike is still but still they had to
embrace the fact that there was a change in what
this digital disruption this well the interner's been able to
allow us to do and then moving past the resistance
(29:36):
of being able to go ahead and say, well we
got to take this format, we got to make it work.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
I mean, the one thing I will say about that
the digital disruption is I think radio went through it,
you know, twenty something years ago, and now television is
going through it.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
It happens with every medium.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
It's it happened with CRNT journalism twenty years ago. So
I think it's part. I mean, part of surviving in
media is being able to adapt. And I think you
saw the people that were able to adapt, whether it's
even people are still interrestional, like if you like Elvistrand,
who've we've mentioned like all his content is online, like
you don't have to listen to it, I mean, which
(30:13):
is what I think one of the cool and bad
things about When I was on radio, it was one
of those things where like if you had an amazing
moment and it went viral viral back then was a
lot of people heard it and then told someone else,
but they wouldn't be able to watch it or see
it again.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Nowadays, if you.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Do a radio show, whether it's terrestrial or podcasting, it's
going to live out there basically accessible for people to find.
So yeah, and I will tell you, like I think,
like many new technologies, and if you're from a legacy
media you are kind of like in.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
A squinch your eye and be like, yeah, is that
really a real thing? Like is that? I mean, can
you make.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Money off of that? Because you know, we still live
and die by advertising. I mean, it's whether it whether
you're a technology company or where your legacy media company,
you are always going to be behold into advertising. So
at the time when you started podcasting, advertisers like what
I mean, I mean, as much you could say as
like Don and Mike joking about podcasting, that was essentially
(31:07):
the attitude in the ad community. It was like, I'm
not gonna advertise what a pod? What is even a podcast? Like,
how do you listen to it? And you remember those
early days of podcasting before Wi Fi enable phones and
five G enabled phones, you'd have to used to plug
in your iPod.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
It's your computer so you can access it.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
This is people who listen to this who were like
born after like nineteen eighty You're like, what are you
even talking about? But like that is the way, That's
the way it was. So it's just one of those
things where you know, you mentioned Dish Nation and I
remember my boss on that show's name is Stu Wise.
And one of the things that drove me crazy about
doing that show was he was beholden to Twitter. This
is when Twitter was popping, so he would essentially pick
(31:47):
and choose the content that would go on the show
with whatever trending on Twitter. And I said to him,
I'm like, man, what are you doing, Like you've got
to like you've got to be able to use your
gun and feel and figure out what's good for television.
He goes, I've been in television my entire life, and
I don't want to be a dinosaur, and I said,
what do you mean by that? He goes, I've known
(32:07):
people in my entire career who would not adapt to
the times and then they became extinct.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I'll never be that person.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
So he saw the importance of like, oh, for me
to drive content from this show and choose content, I'm gonna.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Have to go to Twitter because that's where that's where
the audience is going.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
So and I've always I've always kind of sort of
graphs that mindset of like I don't want to be
left behind in any technology. And that's sort of like
was my impetus for the video podcasting thing, was like
I do not want to be left behind in this.
You know, I wasn't astute video editor, but I became one.
I taught myself how to video edit, but you know
at a much later age that most people are learning
(32:46):
how to video edit. But it's just one of those
things where it's like I knew that I didn't want
to be a dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I did not want to be left behind.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
So that's why it was important for me to make
that transition to video.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
But I think there's something to be said about you
can still incorporate an intuition in your gut feeling and
still take the metrics and take the demographics and whatever
your audience says. But the thing is, I think there
has to be a mix of that, and that's the
part where I feel like we're with radio content and
with podcasting. Podcasting can be a wide open space, but
(33:16):
radio can still be have a purpose and there's still
gonna be something where in media you can create things
that you think that the audience wants to watch or hear,
and you can still have that. But the problem is
now there's just too much reliance on metrics. Do you
agree with that at all? Do you think can there
be a middle ground?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
It's I think there's it's there's a lot of that's
on metrics, But I think when it comes to when
you're talking to say torrestial radio, I think it comes
down to radio. And one of the reasons why Disney
sold our radio station is radio is not a growth industry.
You can make money in radio, you just you're not
gonna go one x, two x three x yearity.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
You can't really make it operate right if you're a
local owner and you find it and you have the
money to go and work with and you could go,
I mean, there's a lot of local radio stations that
will still thrive really well and they can make their
money and advertising is fine. But the other part too
is in radio you've got to be able to be
entertaining or informative across the entire hour. You just can't
do what they do now where the commercials are just
(34:16):
so bad and the content is just so unfulfilling. And
then the music, you know, if you're not even like
being the taste maker and yeah, putting out what people
really want to hear and just putting out the same
kount of music because the audience says so, metric testing
says so, then you're not going to do anything better.
There has to be a human component.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
To it, well the big part of it, and you
mentioned the analytics of it. The problem now is that
we know too much. So when I was growing up
in radio, to get people a little less. And again,
if you don't remember this, ratings were done by a
diary system. Oh yeah, Well what happened was people would
much like sort of like the Nielsen box, but instead
of it being a box that would keep track of
(34:54):
who you're listening to, people would actually have to write
down that from six to ten they listened to Jorge
and then from ten to twelve, oh, I didn't do anything.
Oh and then from three to five I listened to
Hoges radio station.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
That's how the old time was.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
And so you saw a lot of stations become hugely
successful because people just from happy It would be like, yeah,
I listened.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
To them from six to ten, that was it, and
they were and they were right down. I listened to
all four hours.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Right then it happened was the shift to PPM, which
is the Personal People from Me, which was basically a
pager that people would either carry around in their handbag
or on their belt or have you, and it would
keep track of what station they were listened to. There
was like an encoded sound in every radio station that
they would know. What that did was that provided all
(35:47):
this data to program directors that said, oh, you know
what PPM's telling me is that less talk, more music
is what people want to listen to it because it
just the numbers don't lie. And so saw a lot
of people do was they went to this idea of like, Okay,
people want more music and talk. But this is around
the time where radio is struggling financially, so like less music,
(36:10):
more music, less talk, more commercials. So so radio kind
of ate itself like they knew what people wanted, but
in the same regard they kind of were just like
trying to survive. They knew that like great content and
personalities was super important, but at the end of the day,
they're just sort of like, you know, you know, one
(36:30):
of my running jokes I've always said is like a
publicist their their for their their number one job. Criterias
don't get fired. Like that's it. So if you think
about it from if you if you were, it's saying,
whatever job you have in your life right now, if
your first thing you think about is don't.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Get fired, don't get fired, don't.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Get not even think about, don't do a good job,
don't get fired, don't get fired all of a sudden.
All you're doing, every action you take, is to make
sure that that doesn't happen. So radio programmers did what
it took, like they saw the day more music, less talk,
and it's basically killed the live radio personality that we
that we used to know in love and the.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Radio that you worked in before. Also the people meter,
the PBM actually happened. You were in the entire the
entire time you were working at the w PLJ, it
was PPM. It wasn't diary at all time.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
No, I was diary the first few years was diary.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah, no, no, we we had the diary system when
I saw that's how old I am or right, but
we were.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
We did the.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Diary system and then we switched over to PPM, you know,
early on in my career. But I did see the
huge change like you saw stations like ratings just like
drop like a hammer, because you just didn't see people
because like I said, people would write down, oh I
listened four hours, whereas PPM be like, no, you didn't,
you listen for four minutes and then that's where the
(37:48):
rating would come in.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
But I think that's the part where and that goes
for current podcasting climate today. Is that Jill Partavila, I
really appreciate you coming on and talking to me about
all this, and you know, really it's been great. So
once again, good listen creating memorable conversations in business and life.
Of course, you have the YouTube page at Joe and
just look on Google for Joe part of Villa P
(38:10):
A R D A v I l A. And that's it.
We're going for there. Joe, thanks for being on with me.
Really appreciate you taking time out.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Thank you. Hey, it's a pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
All right,
My guest today has spent decades mastering the art of audio,
storytelling and effective communication, and he's a New York City
media veteran. Trust me, when I say and I tell
you the accolades, you'll realize why it was well Now
producer at Scott and Todd in the Morning, ninety five
point five, the p l J and New York. He's
used that wisdom to his best selling book, Good Listen,
and now leads the podcasting charge as director podcasts for
(00:23):
Advantage Media and Forbes Books, helping others create contentent deeply
resonates Joe. Part of you lives with me and think
you'll be on with me.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Joe, Oh, you're very welcome. This is now.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
This is gonna be odd for now, you will tell you
because usually I'm not on the question asking end of things,
so it's always weird when I'm on the receiving end.
So bear with me, uh during this, because I'm used
to one, you know, being the captain, so it it
almost feels like some of the captain phillips, like, now
you're the captain, so I'm just gonna have to just
like just ride your coat tails and see how this
goes well.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I'll try to produce this best I can. Now, it
was two thousand and nine that you joined with ABC
Radio or was cumulat to media at the time.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
It's actually Disney. Oh that's right.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Okay, Yeah, So WPLJ was for many many years owned
by Capital Cities ABC, and then the merger of ABC
and Disney, Disney took on all those radio stations and.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Then that was Michael Isiser's dream.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Michael Eiser loved having like being involved with radio and TV.
And then Robert Iiger took over. He said, what are
we doing in the radio business? We got to get
rid of these things. We're a theme park and a
movie and a television company.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
We're not a radio station company.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
We see, there were a wrong about that, you know,
because ABC for so many years, i mean, going from
the seventies into the eighties. Are you in the sixties,
let's just talk about the WABC before all this came around,
they ran great radio stations. They actually had really good, great,
great radio programming. Even syndicated was really well done. And
from there you come in and you were what was
the role you had ascon Ton and issue? Was it
producing already or was it uh tell me where you
(01:54):
what was initially the direction to what? What was your
hierarchy from the time you were there up until the end?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yes, So I was.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I was going to college at William Patterson College in
New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Uh, I find state school. But I was one of
these kids.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I always wanted to get into media, but my my
parents were immigrants. We didn't have any connections or know anybody.
So while I was going to school, I said, you know,
I don't even know if I'm gonna like this radio thing.
I mean, I know I was a fan of it,
but can I make a career out of it? So
I applied to h w PLJ for an internship during
the and I don't know, for whatever reason, I had
(02:29):
more I didn't realize I had this much self awareness
as a young person. But I was like most people
don't get internships till much later in their college years,
Like they wait till maybe their senior year. But I
was doing it as a sophomore. So I go for
my spring semester and I interned at WPLJ and it
was fun. I like thoroughly enjoyed it. And as people
may know, if they get their foot in, you know,
(02:50):
in the radio door. Essentially, you start in promotions driving
around van, handing out T shirts, all that kind of things.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
So I did that for the span of the semester.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
The summer break comes and the promotion department says, hey, listen,
we're gonna bind. We have to fill a position for
one of our full time promotion coordinators. Would you be
willing to leave school and join the company. I'm like, hell, yeah,
I'm not a fan of school.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Let's let me go do it.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
So in the meantime, as I'm working in promotions, I'm
doing like a lot of them. Seeing I'm doing a
lot of public facing stuff for the for the radio station,
and lo and behold, I didn't realize the host of
the morning show noticed who I was, like they would
see me hosting events. So it was at the time
it was Scott Shannon and.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Scott Shannon, Oh my god, yeah, Scott Shannon.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Obviously the let's take away talk about Scott Cannon. All right,
so I know, well from originally for the fact I
did watch this one hundred or worse, the first documentary,
and I'm very well familiar with what he did in Tampa,
and well people are going to do there making his
way to New York because what a what a sea
change for him to go and go into that climate
(03:54):
and do what he tried to do, and then also
being very ambitious when it comes to like going to
Los Angeles, trying to go ahead and do the replicate
the same coming back to New York and now what
he does with the oldiest channel and and just the
it's consistently been prominent in the space. So for him
to go and tap it to you, you gotta I
mean all, let's put there with all together. You're interning
in the number one market. You're not even going to
(04:15):
like okay, you're in New Jersey. You could have gone
to like a lower market and worked your way up.
You went right to number one. I don't know if
you were paying attention to that when you did that.
And Scott Shannon catches your eye. Tell me about the
fact of what was your initial reaction when you got
the work with Scotschien and when he started talking to
you about like you saw I saw your potential bringing
you on board to his morning show.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, So what happened was so you you got the
chronic ledge Qarder perfectly. So he started in Florida, or
actually kind of started in smaller stations, but he broke
out in Tampa, right. Yeah, in the early eighties, Top
forty radio in New York was dead people taking for
granted now that D one hundreds here and then there
were several other AC hot AC Top forty stations there,
(04:56):
but in the early eighties there was no Time forty
radio in here. It was basically like rock and like
their vasions of any kind of urban just everything but
pop music. So he came in and essentially took the
city by storm. You mentioned the documentary that that was
released a few years ago about taking the station Worse first,
and it literally was the worst station on the planet.
(05:19):
They brought him to just raise from the dead, and
because of him tapping into that need and also the
timing of it, because remember this early this is like
Michael Jackson, Madonna, Cindi Laupper, Bruce Spray, this is when
all these pop acts are blowing up. So it was
the perfect time in the perfect city to launch this station.
And they Lumbold went first from Worse to first in
(05:41):
a matter of months, and it was a sensation like
there are stories of people like driving around New York
City with their windows down looking at each other like, oh, you're.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Listening to ZE one hundred, Yeah yeah, I'm listening to
yeah yeah. And so it was huge.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
So at the time, the station has taken off and
then Scott's like, you know what, what's So he goes
to the Bostons Z one hundred like, hey, give me
more money or I'm gonna go see what's out there, right,
and he wants it, and he wants to see if
he could replicate that model, goes to LA It doesn't
work out. He's told me this story several times, but
a lot of it was just like bad ownership really,
(06:16):
just that they put too much money up front, so
they were losing money. So the station that was Station
one could put and PLJ at the time was sort
of one of these middling New York City radio stations.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Everyone kind of knew it from its rock and roll.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Days and such, but it was still just one of
those things, the station that was always playing catch up
to Z one hundred.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
So they brought on Scott.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Scott then brought on a partner, Todd Pettentil, who was
He was his morning show host for twenty plus years
and sort of the rest is history with Scott. So meanwhile,
I'm like this young intern. And what's funny too, is
I would I would have a lot of conversations with
Scott where he would be like, hey, you remember when
I used to do the Z one hundred.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I'm like, nope, I was too young, Like it was.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I was like when he was when he was at
Z one hundred, I was like maybe like seven or
eight or not.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Like, so, I I was.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Like really young, And I was never like a Scott
Shannon fanboy. I knew the name obviously, Like if you
lived in New York scen area, everyone knew who Scott
Shannon was, which is kind of crazy to think now
in this world of radio. But yeah, so he would
always say like, do you remember this moment? Like Nope,
never had it. But I've always had a huge respect
for him. So when they brought me on, they were
looking to sort of like freshen up the show because
(07:22):
the show had kind of inherited older producers from the
previous morning show, so they wanted some fresh voices, some
really more like younger energy, and My Star was essentially
as a phone op for many people like that transition
is usually working in promotions as an intern.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And then going to become the phone op is like.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And basically what that meant was you were taking the requests,
you were taking questions from the audience, and the phone
op was situated in the phone pit, which was essentially
a windowless room right outside the studio. And then again
this is I think timing has always been sort of
like my calling card. At the time, there were really
(08:02):
it was just sort of the beginning of the Internet,
so you couldn't google answers, you couldn't like find so
I was like a pop culture junkie as a little kid.
So I knew who was who was like the fourth
lead in a movie. I knew who wrote a song.
I knew all these little factoids. And so as they
were doing the show and they were doing live morning shows,
they would look at you other like, hey, do you
know who that is? And I would always kind of
know who they're talking about. And eventually, after like a
(08:25):
month or two in the phone op room, they said,
you gotta stand in the studio with us. So I
essentially then from that moment on stood in between Scott
and Todd for the next twenty three years.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Like I would stand in between the two of them.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
My entire that was like my situation, like I never
I never sat. I just stood in between the two
of them, either shouting out like an answer or writing
it down for them, coming up with a joke and
writing it down a punchlining and handing up.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
To one of the hosts.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
So yeah, and so it was just incredibly fortunate that
they needed to have someone fill that hole of like
the young quirky kid who just had a lot of
energy but had a lot of knowledge, and they just
saw that as an asset. At the time, again, there
was no Internet, no social media that they could go
to and be.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Like, oh, what is that answer?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Like, no, they needed a human to be able to
bring that And that's sort of how my career started.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Well, some of the best producers out there are the
ones that can fill the gaps and the ones that
are in tuitor the know and understand because those guys
who listen, you know, for them to get up what
like two three in the morning to go and do
a show at five or six in the morning, and also,
you know, being older, they're not going to be in
the know of everything that's said. They have to rely
on you to go ahead, be the one that's like
absorbing all the pop culture, absorbing all the content that
(09:35):
the audience is going to go ahead and be listening to.
So you've got to fill in that gap. And that's
what's important. I think that's it's a missing art for
that now because I don't think you get a lot
of hosts that are able to go and do that.
Because even now when I listen to the morning shows today,
I don't listen to much anymore. I'll listen. For me,
being a radio fan for all my life, I barely
even touch the AMFM dial. It's it's a shame to
(09:55):
go to that. But even if I try to go
to morning shows now, if I even want to go
listen to themercials, which is a gargange at best, it's
the point is like I don't feel like I'm moving forward,
and I you know, it's like you want to be
in the audience. You want to go reach back out,
like you're answering the answer that somebody else preyed on
the radio is pray yelling in their car as it's
happening to kind of feel in like okay, move the
(10:17):
conversation going, don what the answer is and then go
forward and as you feel smart about it because you
had somebody's going there and that pretty that nucleus of
the producer right there, and what you're going to do
to kind of move the show forward so important, so crucial.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
No, And the great thing about it too, And I
think the reason I was able to succeed is even
though I'm confident in having an ego, just like anybody,
I didn't really feel like I needed the accolades or
the adoration from the fan base or anything like that
to get me going to me, I got the instant
gratification of knowing that, oh shoot, like the hosts were
(10:51):
in a bind and I helped them out and they
and to them, I was like a security blanket. I
went from being locked into a little phone pit to
like never be able to go anywhere without them because
they liked the idea of me being in the room.
Like I know, you've done a lot of board opping
in your career, Like board operas, usually when there's a remote,
there's someone back in the studio hitting all the buttons.
(11:11):
And when I first started with the team, I was
doing the board opping. But after a while they're like, no, no, no, no, no,
you need to come on site with us. We need
your energy, we need your information, we need all that there.
So it was one of those things where I used
my skill set to sort of shine through and become successful.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
And then from that point forward my role just started growing.
It started, like.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I think my title was like associate producer, but eventually
elevated to executive producer, which I had that title.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
For god fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
That was eping the morning show, which was it was
a remarkable run. But then it all came to an
end in twenty nineteen when our radio station, Cumulus Media,
sold us to a Christian broadcasting company. So in essence,
I was fired by Jesus and then just started my
next career full time in podcasting.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Kay Love. Yeah, what a crazy thing. But now when
it comes down to it was there you were doing
into the morning show environment, and I just want to
get also the fact that it wasn't your part of
what the music format really was because there wasn't much
being played during that time slot. But like the thing was,
you were just into the morning show format. It was
more of just like you wanted to be in that
realm of radio, not necessarily in anything else you never
(12:21):
wanted to spread into becoming a jock. And you know,
was there anything you took away from many of the
other folks that you got to work with within that
building because or at least from the people that Scott
Shannon knew in his purview, because the one thing I
would think of is that he procured so much talent.
And I think Hollywood Hamilton still works out there today,
Wendy Williams still works out there, and you know what
(12:43):
was out there for so many years, unfortunately with all
her things, but had a lengthy radio career before getting
the television. And that's the thing, is like, there was
just so much talent that came through. And what was
it about you, Sandy Gun just stay in that role
and what kept you kept an bitius, kept it fresh,
kept it interesting the whole time.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Well, first and foremost, you mentioned earlier about the fact
of New York. The pay in New York was good,
and so the idea of I mean, and you.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Kind mentioned it earlier too as well, like I.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Started at number one, so for me to have to
lead I was literally would have had to left the
market all together to go find an opportunity to start
from scratch, essentially in a smaller market.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
And to me, I was born and raised in the
New York City area.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
I was born like ten miles from Manhattan, lived within
ten miles of Manhattan my entire life.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
That so the idea of leaving was never on my mind.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
But I will say the reason I did stay was
not just because the pay and obviously geography.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It was really because I loved the job.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Like it was amazing to be able to again starting
in a world pre Internet, where if I had an
idea for something and I wanted to share it with
an audience, I just crack a mic and I do it,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
So the ability to.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Create content before the Internet age and in a way
and so that it's always funny too because like when
I don't know if you get this, when you buy
a service or something, they'll say, hey, write a Google review.
I'm like, I don't write reviews for anything, because my
entire life was always like if I had something to
say about something, I'd just say it on the air
right So at to the day it's like I rarely
(14:23):
ever write a review for anything. It's just because it's
always been not something I normally did. When I had
something to say, I would just say it on the radio.
So I think that part of it, having the creativity
and the openness, Like even though we were in New
York essentially between six and ten, it was our ballgame,
like we can do whatever we want. Like if I
woke up that morning and had an idea for a
(14:44):
parody song, Todd and I would go into his office
bang out a song. Like we would start writing a
song at like five o'clock and then within like forty
five minutes it be written, recorded, and produced. And just
that the ability to do that was just like there
was such a high from that, like the pressure like,
oh man, we got to get this some before six o'clock.
And so that was sort of like my drug. I
(15:05):
was never into drugs. Yeah, my drug was like that
live radio aspect of you know, whatever you say, you say,
it goes out.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
There's no take backs. You know.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Scott had this line is that he always used that.
He said that, you know, you have to be like
a goal goalie in hockey. You can't you know, once
the puck goes in the net, you can't take it out.
It is what it is so embracing that of just
really enjoying and living in that moment and just like
being or surrounded by super talented people that could help
bring my.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Ideas to life.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
It was just it was too good to give up
at any point during my career.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I want to ask you now when it comes to
what when you branch out of radio into other media.
The one thing I've always noticed that if you look
at I mean various talent that's on television. If you
need a master's ceremonies, you need someone to host the
game show, you need to host the reality show, whatever
there is, there are still people that are in radio
that continue today that are thriving in television. You think
(15:56):
of Steve Harvey, this has his run in radio, Ryan
Steve Chris has had his long running radio and I
think of so many other talents going back, you know,
forever that were a game show hosts, that all got
their breaks in radio. That was always a great recruitments
and always a great place to really break open talent
so that you could do just about anything. But I
(16:18):
don't think the people that you know. Unfortunately, there's a
lot of corporations now that on stations and now of
course I don't even know they're not even radio people anymore.
They don't necessarily operate from an advantage point where you know,
they really don't want to do anything more creative or help,
you know, use the use radio as the tool can
be right now to create new talent and to create
great create programming. They don't want to do it anymore,
(16:41):
so they've suffocated all that out. But they used to
be a place where if you wanted to find great talent,
you could start in radio and take them into other channels.
And that's why people like yourself from the background you've
got in the radio, that's where you're able to go
and thrive in podcasting or into various areas you've wanted
to do in media. What is it about the experience
of being in radio itself and what it how it
(17:02):
challenges you to be able to brand yourself off and
be able to be adaptable to any other media.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, I think the the ability to communicate without pictures
and video and drawings any kind of the mind right,
it's it's all in your mind and being able to
execute that. It's it's a talent that is something that
you really kind of have to refine. You just don't
wake up being able to do that. So it takes
years semester and you mentioned it like there are a
(17:28):
lot of people like uh that you also like.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Pats Ay Jack started in radio, Harlight that into a three.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Mondo just passed away was a radio guy. Before you
think of when I think of like Alex tra beckining
you're starting in radio, and I think Bob Barker actually
started in radio. It was all these people that got
all their their bones from that. And actually when you
think about with top Hell, it was like partly was
radio intellivision. He worked in the w wf's like he
also was able to work on on camera roll. There's
(17:55):
that point where adaptable, you're able to go and just
move whatever you know.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
It's I don't think it happens the other way around,
because you probably know this as well as I do.
When you see people who are either non radio people
whether they were in television or music, try to make
the jump to radio.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
They fail all the time. I mean Whoopy Goldberg is
a prime example of this.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I mean she has an egot like she has an Emmy,
a Grammy and Oscar and a Tony and when she
went to do morning radio New York City.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
She failed famously.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
David Lee ro Oh my god, that was amazing.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
If people don't remember, when Howard Stern jumped from terrestial
to satellite, they they chose David Lee Roth to take
over for him, and it was a disaster, like an
unmitigated disaster.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
So I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I think the people who are able to refine their
talents on radio can can work in any meetingment. I've
always felt like radio was especially for me in the
way I worked, Like networking has always been a big
part of my career, and when you're in radio, you
can network easily with other mediums without any fear of jealousy.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Because I think if you.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
See like someone trying to jump from TV to film,
like oh, who the hell are you to to try
to do film? But like radio, no one's offended by
They're like, oh, okay. So I've worked with people in film,
I work with people in television, I work with people
in print, and so I think it's it's always been
one of those friendly mediums where people got to know
who you are and you know you've prior heard this before.
It's the most intimate medium there that's ever been created.
(19:21):
You know, people are listening either locked in their cars,
you know, doing shores around their house. You know, it's
a very private direct and it's something you kind of
have to do actively, whereas I think a lot of
the other mediums are pretty passive, Like you can have
the TV on.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
And do seven different things.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
You know, you could have a movie on and do
like your homework, or do like you know, or write
a book while you're watching a movie. Radio you have
to be one hundred percent engage to really get it
because if you if you're not paying attention, like wait,
what was that?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
What did that person say?
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So it is one of those things where it's intimate,
but it's also a very active medium that kind of
forces people to really be locked in and the saying
goes for the people doing it. Like you know, if
you're on TV and you know the camera's not on you, you
could pretty much like you know, you could have a
sandwich while the cameras on you. In radio, you have
to be ready for anything at all times. So yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
No, no, I think it's a great example.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
And I remember many many years ago, you know, you
brought up the example of like you know, creating the
next like next generation of radio starsmember. And it was
like ten or fifteen years ago someone said, you know,
who's the next big radio star because at the time
it was essentially like the Elvis Duranz Ryan Secret. So
there was all people getting up in age, you know,
late thirties, forties, fifties, and I said, they're already here.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
They're just on YouTube, like they they the people that.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Are YouTube stars in the two thousand's, twenty twenties.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
If it was rewind the clock forty years, those people probably.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Would be morning radio hosts, you know, they would probably
be or a TV talk show host. I think that's
just that's just the evolution of technology.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And so when we were.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Growing up, it was either be on the radio or
be on television. Nowadays it's like be on radio, maybe
television not so important, but social media, TikTok, YouTube, it's
all there for them now.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Without we have to make mention of the fact that
one of those people we didn't make mention of that
made the transition rate to the television. Howard Stern doing
going to America's got talent, and you know, if the
money will still there, he probably will still do it.
But the either or he could have always gone to
a TV talk show format and do an interview format
for himself, which I wish you would have done ten
years ago instead of stating serious but which.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I think that's Howard's one drawback that he was never
able to pull off the transition of a radio show
to a TV show. And it's just because of I
think that the medium is really hard to translate from
one from one to the other because of the like
even like think about like podcast, how you could have
like a thirty to two hour podcast. You can't do
(21:50):
that in television. You can't have like and you if
you ever hear like the late night talk show hosts
they say they're one brother of doing interviews on their show,
is like, oh, I only have six minutes with Tom Cruise,
whereas a podcast host, well have sixty minutes with Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Right. So, And I think Howard it was really tough
for him. He tried a lot.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
There were several attempts for him to make the jump
and just wasn't able to pull off like the radio
to TV. He was able to succeed being a TV personality.
Like I said, America's got talent, but he was never
able to make that jump, and I think just because
it's they're just too different and just people don't watch
TV like they consume radio.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
But what he did do, which is I'm gonna still
give him credit for this. Wherever his team was, they're
responsible for the YouTube podcast format week more one of
the types of podcasting setups we see today. Yeah, because
everybody has a microphone in front of them on a
lot of YouTube shows because of Howard. He's the first
one that had on the E channel to do that.
(22:48):
And one of the things you may mentioned most recently
is a story that you put out and You're good
listen letter about how if you're not on YouTube doing
your podcast, you're doing something wrong that you really need
to be out there prominent video content. And he was
not even much so that people were watching the video.
Is that people are just watching it on YouTube because
that's the platform to go. One of there is is
that you were in in a variation of that, because
(23:10):
after Howard went away and moved the series and then
you don't really see everything was behind a paywall for
his content, there was still that kind of room of creating,
getting in out of the radio studio and watching things
as happened. So you were part of the initial start
of the dish Nation series, which ran for several seasons syndicated,
and it's the same idea, but what has was the
idea was that you had several different warning shows several
(23:32):
different markets, and then they were just going through the
gossip of whatever or whatever the stories that they were
and that's something you did with and it was with
Todd when he was doing the show, and I forget
who was a co host of the.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Time, Todd. We're both on it.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
And it's funny too because I think looking back at
it now and now that we have context for it,
I feel like dish Nation was essentially TikTok, but it
was a scrolling content wheel of like here's what these
day in New York. Oh, here's what they say in Atlanta.
Oh here's what they say in Dallas. Here's what they
say in Detroit. So it was very fast paced. It
(24:06):
was not long segments. It was just really bite sized
pieces of information that was used into a TV show.
And I did that show for a year plus. It
was a blast, But that was one of those things
where it was out of our control, Like we had
a production team that would say, hey, do these stories.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
We would do them, and then we'd be.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Like, Okay, I don't know if they're gonna you're gonna
use any of that tonight, but we'll see and then
we turn on the TV. It was on seven o'clock
local time in New New York, and then we'd pop
it on and like, oh, okay, that's.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
What they chose or that's what they didn't choose. So yeah.
But going back to your point about the video.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
YouTube, I, as me being an old school radio guy,
I resisted for the longest time integrating.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Video into podcasts. And you know you.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Mentioned I worked for Advantage Force Books, a publishing company
in Carlso, South Carolina, where we produce content for entrepreneurs.
And when I first started, I was like, the questions
came up, Oh should we do Video'm like no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Know, audio only. And part of it was the barrier
of entry.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
When you're doing a video podcast, and especially if you're
say you're like an entrepreneur trying to build your thought leadership,
the last thing you want to do is like look
like you're doing a podcast from your from your parents'
basement with like terrible lighting and the sound. Look at
and you've got like, you know, a picture of like
a horse behind you. Like there's more to getting it
right with video than audio. And I've always been, well,
(25:28):
i'n't always been, but I've I'm really good.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
At editing audio.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
So and I've jokingly said to anyone, I can make
anybody sound good with audio.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Video it's a lot harder. But as time went on,
Covid has changed it all.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Covid actually was the barrier that said it's okay, it's
acceptable to go and see bookcases or to see whatever
you want behind the backdrop, and however you set up,
as long as you have a good microphone. Because the
most important thing that people learned after that fact was
they needed good equipment. Learn to get better equipment.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Ran Jorge was the performative aspect of it, yes, because
when you do doing an audio podcast, you could be
looking down, you could be reading.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
You can't do that on a video podcast. So that's why.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
And I was starting with a lot of people that
were just starting their sort of like thought leadership journey,
so they weren't like, they didn't have ted talks, they
didn't do speeches regularly. So I did it more as
to protect them from having to worry about being performative
and you know, reading scripts, reading questions, looking at a
camera while they speak. That is the hardest part for
I think a lot of people to grasp more and
(26:27):
more people getting used to it. You're right, COVID was
a big driver for that. But even then, you know,
you just don't want to do a video podcast just
for the sake of doing it if you're not going
to do it well. So that's why I was always
resident about it. But as I saw the data come in,
and you've seen in anyone watching or listening and seeing this,
I think YouTube has now become the number one podcast
(26:48):
finding source on the planet, or are finding more and
more podcasts on YouTube. YouTube is the third most used
search engine in the world after Amazon and Google, So
you're limiting if you're not on there, you're limiting your
search ability.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So all of the.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Data that comes into play, I think was the thing
that really pushed me over the edge, and I saw like, hey, listen,
it's now or never, because you have to take advantage
of while you can and build up that bank of
video content that's going to live on the interwebs forever.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
You know, and there's a story you can put out
and south of your LinkedIn page about changing stations of
why channel changing is liberty ag in today's society and
diverse media world, you said, And one of the things
you're talking about is no longer being needed to be
forced into watching or listening to things we don't want
that media content contrainers of all kind of have a
point of view. We could choose which views work for
(27:42):
us where we want to go. But we did come
from radio. I mean, I also say this. I know
I never got the career that you had in radio,
but then again, it was like it was the entry
to get in there and to be in the right
place at the right time and know who the great
connections are. That's really how radio operates. So the freedom
here of podcasting was what I really got to embrace.
And it's gonna be twenty years in August, I'll have
(28:03):
said that they'll do that. So at least what I
think in for radio all these years into corporate in
the podcast has been wonderful. But one of the things
I'm sure you might have had too was a bit
of a resistance because, like you said, you want to
do audio only. You were always a little bit hesitant
to do video right away, and the same thing goes now,
like even for me, I know that YouTube that's you
have to make your content. I'm not doing it. I'm
(28:25):
not myself on a camera doing the YouTube content. But
I have YouTube content up. I just put up you know,
transcriptions whatever, so like you can see the subtitles going on,
and I have some kind of decent background, so at
least it's something there to watch. But I want to
still keep it audio for me, but for others, yeah,
videos just is imperative. I want to just get your
take on to transition and saying well we got to
(28:46):
finally do something with video here. And the thing was
also was like a transition from vidio of the podcasting.
I'll let me just tell this quick story. So when
Donna Mike were still in the air and they were syndicated,
and it was right after Annonicole Smith died the same day,
I remember calling into that show and you know that
you still always ask about who you were, like whatever
calls or they wanted to go and rag on you. Well,
(29:07):
they went off the after me and they said, oh,
well I'm in podcasting. It's like then you told me.
It was Donna said, well, you're just like you're You're
no different than working on McDonald's drive through.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Bro.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
It was like that was it. They just shot me down,
like all right, two thousand and nine, I think it
was two thousand and eight, and now today it's like,
well they're in podcasting themselves. If they're not, well, I mean,
I think Mike is still but still they had to
embrace the fact that there was a change in what
this digital disruption this well the interner's been able to
allow us to do and then moving past the resistance
(29:36):
of being able to go ahead and say, well we
got to take this format, we got to make it work.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
I mean, the one thing I will say about that
the digital disruption is I think radio went through it,
you know, twenty something years ago, and now television is
going through it.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
It happens with every medium.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
It's it happened with CRNT journalism twenty years ago. So
I think it's part. I mean, part of surviving in
media is being able to adapt. And I think you
saw the people that were able to adapt, whether it's
even people are still interrestional, like if you like Elvistrand,
who've we've mentioned like all his content is online, like
you don't have to listen to it, I mean, which
(30:13):
is what I think one of the cool and bad
things about When I was on radio, it was one
of those things where like if you had an amazing
moment and it went viral viral back then was a
lot of people heard it and then told someone else,
but they wouldn't be able to watch it or see
it again.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Nowadays, if you.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Do a radio show, whether it's terrestrial or podcasting, it's
going to live out there basically accessible for people to find.
So yeah, and I will tell you, like I think,
like many new technologies, and if you're from a legacy
media you are kind of like in.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
A squinch your eye and be like, yeah, is that
really a real thing? Like is that? I mean, can
you make.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Money off of that? Because you know, we still live
and die by advertising. I mean, it's whether it whether
you're a technology company or where your legacy media company,
you are always going to be behold into advertising. So
at the time when you started podcasting, advertisers like what
I mean, I mean, as much you could say as
like Don and Mike joking about podcasting, that was essentially
(31:07):
the attitude in the ad community. It was like, I'm
not gonna advertise what a pod? What is even a podcast? Like,
how do you listen to it? And you remember those
early days of podcasting before Wi Fi enable phones and
five G enabled phones, you'd have to used to plug
in your iPod.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
It's your computer so you can access it.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
This is people who listen to this who were like
born after like nineteen eighty You're like, what are you
even talking about? But like that is the way, That's
the way it was. So it's just one of those
things where you know, you mentioned Dish Nation and I
remember my boss on that show's name is Stu Wise.
And one of the things that drove me crazy about
doing that show was he was beholden to Twitter. This
is when Twitter was popping, so he would essentially pick
(31:47):
and choose the content that would go on the show
with whatever trending on Twitter. And I said to him,
I'm like, man, what are you doing, Like you've got
to like you've got to be able to use your
gun and feel and figure out what's good for television.
He goes, I've been in television my entire life, and
I don't want to be a dinosaur, and I said,
what do you mean by that? He goes, I've known
(32:07):
people in my entire career who would not adapt to
the times and then they became extinct.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I'll never be that person.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
So he saw the importance of like, oh, for me
to drive content from this show and choose content, I'm gonna.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Have to go to Twitter because that's where that's where
the audience is going.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
So and I've always I've always kind of sort of
graphs that mindset of like I don't want to be
left behind in any technology. And that's sort of like
was my impetus for the video podcasting thing, was like
I do not want to be left behind in this.
You know, I wasn't astute video editor, but I became one.
I taught myself how to video edit, but you know
at a much later age that most people are learning
(32:46):
how to video edit. But it's just one of those
things where it's like I knew that I didn't want
to be a dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I did not want to be left behind.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
So that's why it was important for me to make
that transition to video.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
But I think there's something to be said about you
can still incorporate an intuition in your gut feeling and
still take the metrics and take the demographics and whatever
your audience says. But the thing is, I think there
has to be a mix of that, and that's the
part where I feel like we're with radio content and
with podcasting. Podcasting can be a wide open space, but
(33:16):
radio can still be have a purpose and there's still
gonna be something where in media you can create things
that you think that the audience wants to watch or hear,
and you can still have that. But the problem is
now there's just too much reliance on metrics. Do you
agree with that at all? Do you think can there
be a middle ground?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
It's I think there's it's there's a lot of that's
on metrics, But I think when it comes to when
you're talking to say torrestial radio, I think it comes
down to radio. And one of the reasons why Disney
sold our radio station is radio is not a growth industry.
You can make money in radio, you just you're not
gonna go one x, two x three x yearity.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
You can't really make it operate right if you're a
local owner and you find it and you have the
money to go and work with and you could go,
I mean, there's a lot of local radio stations that
will still thrive really well and they can make their
money and advertising is fine. But the other part too
is in radio you've got to be able to be
entertaining or informative across the entire hour. You just can't
do what they do now where the commercials are just
(34:16):
so bad and the content is just so unfulfilling. And
then the music, you know, if you're not even like
being the taste maker and yeah, putting out what people
really want to hear and just putting out the same
kount of music because the audience says so, metric testing
says so, then you're not going to do anything better.
There has to be a human component.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
To it, well the big part of it, and you
mentioned the analytics of it. The problem now is that
we know too much. So when I was growing up
in radio, to get people a little less. And again,
if you don't remember this, ratings were done by a
diary system. Oh yeah, Well what happened was people would
much like sort of like the Nielsen box, but instead
of it being a box that would keep track of
(34:54):
who you're listening to, people would actually have to write
down that from six to ten they listened to Jorge
and then from ten to twelve, oh, I didn't do anything.
Oh and then from three to five I listened to
Hoges radio station.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
That's how the old time was.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
And so you saw a lot of stations become hugely
successful because people just from happy It would be like, yeah,
I listened.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
To them from six to ten, that was it, and
they were and they were right down. I listened to
all four hours.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Right then it happened was the shift to PPM, which
is the Personal People from Me, which was basically a
pager that people would either carry around in their handbag
or on their belt or have you, and it would
keep track of what station they were listened to. There
was like an encoded sound in every radio station that
they would know. What that did was that provided all
(35:47):
this data to program directors that said, oh, you know
what PPM's telling me is that less talk, more music
is what people want to listen to it because it
just the numbers don't lie. And so saw a lot
of people do was they went to this idea of like, Okay,
people want more music and talk. But this is around
the time where radio is struggling financially, so like less music,
(36:10):
more music, less talk, more commercials. So so radio kind
of ate itself like they knew what people wanted, but
in the same regard they kind of were just like
trying to survive. They knew that like great content and
personalities was super important, but at the end of the day,
they're just sort of like, you know, you know, one
(36:30):
of my running jokes I've always said is like a
publicist their their for their their number one job. Criterias
don't get fired. Like that's it. So if you think
about it from if you if you were, it's saying,
whatever job you have in your life right now, if
your first thing you think about is don't.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Get fired, don't get fired, don't.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Get not even think about, don't do a good job,
don't get fired, don't get fired all of a sudden.
All you're doing, every action you take, is to make
sure that that doesn't happen. So radio programmers did what
it took, like they saw the day more music, less talk,
and it's basically killed the live radio personality that we
that we used to know in love and the.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Radio that you worked in before. Also the people meter,
the PBM actually happened. You were in the entire the
entire time you were working at the w PLJ, it
was PPM. It wasn't diary at all time.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
No, I was diary the first few years was diary.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah, no, no, we we had the diary system when
I saw that's how old I am or right, but
we were.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
We did the.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Diary system and then we switched over to PPM, you know,
early on in my career. But I did see the
huge change like you saw stations like ratings just like
drop like a hammer, because you just didn't see people
because like I said, people would write down, oh I
listened four hours, whereas PPM be like, no, you didn't,
you listen for four minutes and then that's where the
(37:48):
rating would come in.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
But I think that's the part where and that goes
for current podcasting climate today. Is that Jill Partavila, I
really appreciate you coming on and talking to me about
all this, and you know, really it's been great. So
once again, good listen creating memorable conversations in business and life.
Of course, you have the YouTube page at Joe and
just look on Google for Joe part of Villa P
(38:10):
A R D A v I l A. And that's it.
We're going for there. Joe, thanks for being on with me.
Really appreciate you taking time out.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Thank you. Hey, it's a pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
All right,
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