Lessons From The Master

Very impressive of R&R Publisher Erica Farber to end 2007 with a profile of one of the best programmers I ever worked for, Bill Drake:

State of radio: Competition is such that today people are excited about a 3 share. There are so many wasted signals. Our policy was, we didn’t go into a market without the intent of being No. 1, period, boom! No niche this or that. And we made it 90% of the time.

What we can learn from yesterday’s successes: Whoever puts the best on the radio wins. Obviously today you’ve got iPods, satellite and all kinds of goodies. There are some good programmers, but some lousy-sounding stations—and some of them have incredible signals. There doesn’t seem to be that fever anymore. I know when we were doing it we were like a brotherhood. We went in to win and did whatever it took. We were totally, absolutely dedicated. It doesn’t come across on many radio stations now. A lot of people just don’t know what they’re doing. Of course, that’s always been true, thank you, Jesus.