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Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Home on the Range

by Cindy Chaffin of of Life Outside The Bubble , Blair Lovern

The home of great Texas and great American country music can be found on the ground floor of this building off Central Expressway in Plano.

There have been lots and lots of big changes over at KHYI 95.3 The Range in the last couple of months. For one, the departure of longtime Program Director and Morning Show Host Bruce Kidder. Secondly, the addition of Nadine Bodett to the station in the morning drive-time slot with current KHYI on-air personality Natalie.

Blair and I sat down with Josh Jones, Owner/General Manager of KHYI, to talk about the changes the station has undergone, as well as the future of The Range.

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TG: Can you tell us a little bit about the departure of longtime program director and morning show host Bruce Kidder?

Josh Jones: "Honestly it was like losing a family member. He's the guy who I've been in the fox-hole with for the past 9 years, the guy that I've been waging a war with for 9 years, he had my back and I had his. Bruce is very very talented, he has a great ear and some of his schtick works really really well. But Bruce's demeanor and Bruce's disposition when it comes to being a Program Director for a major market radio station - well, it's geared for really really high TSL or time-spent listening, and fairly low to mediocre Cume overall listening audience. And the fact is, our signal umbrellas almost 4-million people and that has great value right there. We can't let 100 really loud, really obnoxious, Texas-Country music fans dictate our playlist. We are running a business, we like to think that we have great taste in music and that we play the coolest, edgiest Country music in town - but at the end of the day, being edgy and cool doesn't pay the bills. So we wanted to work on bringing our Cume up."

Says KHYI GM Joshua Jones about the station playlist: "We are targetting an upscale predominantly male demographic - country music enthusiasts. Someone who thinks Lyle Lovett is cool. Someone who gets Robert Earl Keen and Jerry Jeff Walker as well as some of these newer, more happening, more current acts."

"Our ratings, to be honest with you, have been static for over a year. Our Cume needed to be boosted. In fact, our morning show was the lowest rated out of the entire day - all this led to what ultimately transpired. That being said, it's really important to me that you understand that I have great affinity and a great respect for Bruce. I think Bruce is really talented - I just don't think his skill-set was right for that particular position."

Ed. Note - Cume is an abbreviation for cumulative audience. An estimate of a station's total unduplicated audience over a particular time period. A radio station's cume is similar to a newspaper's circulation.

TG: So are you going to hire a new Program Director or tap someone in-house to replace Bruce?

Josh Jones: "Right now I'm sort of the interim P.D. and we also have a P.D. by committee during this interim period too."

TG: Yeah, I heard about that, I think that's a really cool idea.

Josh Jones: Yeah for sure. I learned a really good leadership lesson a long time ago that a really good leader gives his job away and allocates responsibility to people who are adequately prepared to handle it. A really good leader allocates responsibility, but there's something to be said for allocating too much responsibility. Right now we have it under control. I have a vision for the radio station. I have a vision for the radio station as it pertains to ratings. I have a vision for the radio station as it pertains to revenue. I have a vision for the radio station as it relates to a target demographic. Now is Barbara Mandrell going to hit our target demographic? No. Is um..."

TG: Toby Keith? Since he's the one the Unofficial KHYI Yahoo Group is all in an uproar over.

Josh Jones: Is Toby Keith in our target demographic? Probably. Close to it. Is Tim McGraw or Kenny Chesney? No. Is uh, you know I could list artists all day long that do and don't hit the target demographic."

"The fact is, we really hit the 18-54 year old male. We are targetting an upscale predominantly male demographic - country music enthusiasts. Someone who thinks Lyle Lovett is cool. Someone who gets Robert Earl Keen and Jerry Jeff Walker as well as some of these newer, more happening, more current acts."

TG: Are you still including a lot of Texas-based artists?

Josh Jones: "Sure, I think that if you looked at our clock you would see that --- I built a new clock after Bruce left so you can see what songs are played each hour..."

Through the window, taking a peek at Peck! Did you know DJ Alan Peck is in the Radio Broadcast Hall of Fame? He's also been named CMA Disc Jockey of the year three times and has been Billboard Magazine Personality of the Year five times.

TG: Yeah, on the Unofficial KHYI Yahoo Group, run by Robert Brooks, everyone was fussing about KHYI playing too much mainstream. However, if you go to Yes.com you can see the playlist for the past 24-hours and it looked similar to what ya'll have always played. I also think that KHYI helped educate the listening public, me for one, to a lot of music they may not have been able to hear elsewhere.

Josh Jones: "You know it's funny, music is something very close to people's hearts. Music is something very personal and very intimate. And when you change it or tweak it a little bit - or there's the appearance that you might change it or tweak it a little bit, people often times have a tendency to knee-jerk and overreact. The fact is, you know, we are still going to be the only radio station in town that plays Max Stalling and The Derailers and Chris Knight and Dale Watson and Ray Wylie Hubbard, etc. We are trying to make what we do a little bit sexier. We are trying to make what we do have a little bit more mass appeal. But we aren't selling our souls - we don't have a contract with the devil. I mean we are still the same radio station."

TG: I think it was a really interesting move putting Natalie and Nadine in the morning drive-time slot. Have the listeners responded well to that decision?

Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The overwhelming response has been positive. The idea is 2 girls and I want that to cater to the 60-65% male demographic that we have. Sometimes they lose sight of that - the other day I was driving to the office and I turned on the station and they were playing "PMS Blues" by Dolly Parton, which does not cater to that demographic..."

TG: (laughs) but it's pretty funny!

Josh Jones: yeah well...I sent Natalie a text message, you know, regarding that and of course they talked about the text message and the demographics on the air for the rest of the show. And Cindy, you were here, so you know that for all the things Bruce is gifted at, he doesn't communicate very well with the rest of the staff, and you have to be able to do so as a program director. So for years, DJ's have had complete autonomy over their own shows. Their job consisted of coming up to the radio station, playing some tunes they liked, cracking the mic, running some commercials and going home, not really thinking about what they were doing."

"Now each jock has a show-prep sheet they have to fill-out each day during their show. It's just 5 simple questions, but they have to fill it out, even if the answer is the same every day. It's things like: *how will my show hit the target demo* - so they have to think about it, they have to ask themselves that question every day - and *what music in my show contains mass appeal* - it might be Alan Jackson or Brad Paisley or George Strait, um, it might even be Miranda Lambert, but like I said, it's not going to be the Faith Hill's or Shania Twain's or Kenny Chesney's of the world. *How will my show have an Edge - Did I deliver the message that it's always about the music* - it's not about the personalities. It's not about me. Ultimately, it's always about the music. I love my on-air staff. I think I have a really great team. But if the planet froze tomorrow or my job and all the DJ's jobs were replaced by robots tomorrow, then the listeners out there would still listen to the station, because it's not about us, it's all about the music. *How have I thought about revenue generation today* - they have to ask themselves what have they done to back sell concerts that are coming to town at venues that advertise with us. How have they talked about what's going on with clients and this and that. I want them to think about these things every day. Plus we go over all of it in our weekly meetings."

TG: I think that's really interesting how you get them focused on those things. I mean, they are a part of helping the station generate revenue.

This box in the KHYI office contains the stuff that dreams are made of. It also contains a bunch of crap (see writing on the box). But you never know until you listen. Staff members collect new local music CDs that come to the station in this box, which used to contain Shiner beer, which has the stuff dreams are burped out of.

Josh Jones: "Absolutely. I don't mean to be cliche, but you are only as strong as your weakest link. Our DJ's are our ambassadors to the community. My lease is up in a few months and we are looking at some other sites, hopefully closer to Rockwall since I have 2-year old triplets and I hate the hour it takes to drive every day. But anyway, I plan to paint the new studio green - and maybe outlaw the color red in the studio. And it sounds silly and borderline maniacal, but the idea is, we are a business and we have to think about money and we have to think about revenue generation. We can play all the Chris Knight in the world, all the Robert Earl Keen all the Guy Clark and whatever - and be the coolest radio station in town but we gotta do it and make money."

TG: Yeah, you really couldn't do that without money.

Josh Jones: "Exactly."

TG: Tell us about your other new addition to the on-air staff, Dallas Wayne

Josh Jones: "Dallas is awesome. He's also a Grammy nominated artist. He was in an all-star honky-tonk band called the TwangBangers with Bill Kirchen. He's had record deals with Hightone, as well as Koch in Nashville. He's a great artist. He's also been doing mid-days on Sirius for over a year now - he was in radio before he was in music. He's so great, so talented, such a wonderful guy. I'm really really excited about having him on board."

TG: There's been a conversation going on over at TexasGigs.com about ways to get airplay for local and regional bands and artists, which I know that ya'll do already. But now that Bruce is gone, what's the procedure and criteria for submitting music?

Josh Jones: "The criteria is pretty much the same as it was when Bruce was here. If it's a CD, there needs to be artistic integrity about it. We aren't looking for the next Kelly Clarkson's of the world, that's not our radio station. There's a lot of teenage Country music girls knocking our doors down and that's not who we are and never will be. We play more local music than any other commercial radio station in town. That being said, we have a box back in the DJ's area, "the new music box" and they can check it out and listen, sign it out, and bring it back. That way everyone can have an intelligent conversation about possible new music being added. But the box has a sign on it that says "New Music Box" and below it reads "Be careful this box contains the dreams of others...but remember, they usually suck." Our criteria for music is: integrity to the music, it has to be available in stores, there should be at least 2 radio-friendly songs on the album, and this last one is really my own criteria --- we are a major market radio station --- and if I'm going to introduce our audience to a new artist, then that artist had better blow your socks off. That act needs to be phenomenal. We certainly have the capacity to break new bands more than any other station in town. We've got lots of new music in the studio, there are 3 or 4 new bands right now that are really hot and we are getting lots of calls on. There's a band called Mammoth Jack that I listened to as a favor for a friend, actually, we all listened to the CD and it blew us away, so we put it on the air. We are probably more committed to local music than we've ever been - but it's got to be really amazing."

TG: So what's in store for the future, do you have any big events coming up?

Josh Jones: "Yes, we are doing a 4-week concert series, sort of a TMR light, and the first one will be Friday, August 11th at the new Plano Amphitheater. We have already confirmed Ray Wylie Hubbard, Hayes Carll for the first show. We are also gearing up for the next Shiner Rising Star competition, as well as the current winners (Lost Immigrants) CD coming out in July. We are also in full swing at Love & War in Texas for our annual Shiner Sundays."

TG: Can you run through the on-air schedule for us real quick?

Josh Jones - Sure. Nadine and Natalie are on in the mornings from 6-9 AM. Brett Dillon is, as he has been for years, on the air from 9 AM until 2 PM. Alan Peck comes on from 2-5 PM. Dallas Wayne is on Monday through Thursday 5 PM until Midnight. Friday nights, Greg "Pookie" Patterson and Boone are on the air from 5 PM until midnight.

Tune in to KHYI 95.3 The Range

Staff
Verified User
Anonymous

Bill Holston, says:

Thanks for the great report. This is the best station in Dallas by far. They have introduced me to mucho musica I had never heard of, Chris Knight, Charlie Robinson, Rodney Crowell, Hangdawgs, my new fave Tom Russell's Stealing Electricity. Keep up the great job, but bring back the BEER at Bill's please.

best wishes,

bill