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12/10: Norm Schrutt — radio agent to the stars - feted at AIR Awards Thursday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ABOVE: Superphat Mikey (left), Norm Schrutt (center) and Marc Orem (right) at Star 94’s Mark Kanov’s retirement party in July. The Morning Mess is part of Norm’s client base.
This is an extended version of a story running in Thursday’s print edition about Norm Schrutt, radio agent extraordinaire. He teased me for years to do a story about him. With him getting a big lifetime achievement award, I am finally doing him justice:
He’s helped make Mara Davis the voice of Dave FM, Ryan Cameron the afternoon gig at V-103 and the 2 Live Stews national radio stars.
His name is Norm Schrutt. And he’s an agent, along the lines of the fictional Jerry Maguire or the very real sports agent Scott Boras. But while he specializes in nurturing radio DJs into big names, he himself is an avuncular, larger-then-life figure in the radio business.
“I have a sculpture on my desk in the office of a horse pulling a wagon,” he said in an interview at Bone’s. “I really believe that’s what a talent is, the horse pulling the wagon and the wagon is the radio station.”
He has a caricature of himself on the wall at the Palm restaurant in Buckhead. One year, he sent out bobbleheads of his likeness to his clients. And tonight, he receives a lifetime achievement award a the Achievement in Radio Awards fundraising dinner for the March of Dimes.
“He knows his clients’ worth and gets them top dollar. He’s done that for us from day one,” said Ryan Stewart, part of the 2 Live Stews, heard locally on 790/The Zone. He dubs Schrutt the “radio rabbi.”
Schrutt represents 23 radio personalities, more than a half dozen in Atlanta alone, including John Kincade and Christopher Rude at 680/The Fan, Mike Bell at rival 790/The Zone and both the morning show and the afternoon show at Star 94. He’s part babysitter, part advisor, part counselor.
And he supports his talent unequivocally. “Nobody,” he would say, “calls my children ugly!”
“Nobody can talk me off the ledge better than Norm Schrutt,” said Kincade, who credited Schrutt with getting him his deal with ESPN Radio. “To me, he’s like the godfather. You listen to what he tells you to do.”
Schrutt said he tries to keep the negotiations with management light with jokes and banter — until they start talking salary. “I stop messing around,” he said. “Invariably, the person I’m negotiating with will say, ‘What happened to the jokes?’ I’d say, ‘Nothing’s funny about money. After we negotiate the money, we can start joking again.’ “
Andrew Saltzman, general manager at the Zone, said he appreciates the fact Schrutt was a former radio exec and understands where Saltzman is coming from. And Schrutt’s style is distinctive.
“You can tell he’s making a point when he starts talking slow and really low tones,” Saltzman said. “We’d be in these heated discussions. My voice is rising and he’d immediately do the reverse. ‘Andrew - why are you yelling?’ “
“Some days I love him,” he added. “Some days I hate him.”
At age 75, Schrutt looks and acts like someone two decades younger: “I’m in it because I like the action. I like the people I represent. I enjoy being around young, creative bright people. I cannot tell you how much I love it.”
Davis of Dave FM said Schrutt won’t always tell you want you want to hear, but he’s right 99 percent of the time. When she decided to do mornings at the station in 2003 when it was Z93, he told her it wasn’t the right move. “At the time, I was offended,” she said, telling him, “You’re trying to squash my dream!”
But in the end, he was right. Davis eventually went back to mid-days, where she has thrived.
Paul O’Malley, who runs Kicks 101.5 and True Oldies 106.7, used to work with Schrutt weekly in the mid-1990s as an advertising exec while Schrutt ran ABC/Cap Cities radio station group. One year, he won Schrutt’s coveted Waterford Crystal Pig of the Year award.
Schrutt’s rationale: breakfast is like life. Chickens contribute eggs. Pigs commit themselves via the bacon.
O’Malley still has the pig sitting on his home office mantle. “He gave it to me because I was committed to my job. I would go talk to him about national performance once a week and get unbelievably yelled at. Then I’d come back for more. That’s commitment!”
A Buffalo native, Schrutt entered radio selling ads in the 1960s. “I took to it very quickly,” he said. “I loved the aggressiveness of sales.”
After stints in Buffalo and Los Angeeles, he came to Atlanta in 1981, where he stayed at Cap Cities/ABC Radio in various capacities (including head of Kicks 101.5 and WYAY-FM) until 1996, when Disney bought the company.
“I realiized Disney and I did not laugh at the same jokes, “ he said. So he retired. But he got bored. “I have no hobbies,” he said. “I don’t play golf. I don’t play tennis. Working is my hobby.”
So he became an agent, hooking up first with Atlanta entertainment agent Joel Katz, who has repped the likes of Sheryl Crow, Alan Jackson and Christina Aguilera. He has since gone solo, garnering impressive loyalty. Of his first 10 clients, he said, nine are still with him.
“I want my clients to be rich. But I want management to be richer,” he said.
He hasn’t seen eye to eye with every client. After former country Kicks 101.5 morning host Moby was hired by then classic-rock station Z93 in 2002, the station after a few months decided to demote him to traffic person, taking advantage of a loophole in the contract Shrutt had drawn up for him.
Schrutt as his agent suggested he find a radio job in a different city. Moby wanted to start his own syndicated radio program and stay in Atlanta. They eventually parted as client and agent. But Moby still has nothing but respect for Schrutt.
“Norm always assumes he’s the smartest man in the room,” Moby said. “And usually, he’s right.”
Ryan Cameron recently left Schrutt as a client after a decade but still talks to him regularly, calling him his “bruddy,” as in his bro and his buddy. Norm didn’t take offense to Cameron’s departure to the “bigger brand” of Career Sports Management.
“He’ll be back,” he said. “They always come back.”
Comments
By Beetlejuice
December 10, 2008 8:37 PM | Link to this
People stop saying his name I am affraid an obnoxious and perverted “bio-exorcist” who carries a grotesque physical appearancename is going to show up in my life. I don’t think anyone needs to be managed by that?
By Deshawn
December 10, 2008 11:10 PM | Link to this
Have Norm Schrutt ever considered taking on sports talk host Steve West? He has been on the air for some time.
By Deshawn
December 10, 2008 11:11 PM | Link to this
Have Norm Schrutt ever considered taking on sports talk host Steve West? He has been on the air for some time.
By Doofy
December 11, 2008 1:50 PM | Link to this
What are the odds that the fat guy has a coronary before that joke of a morning show is fired?
By indymark
December 11, 2008 3:42 PM | Link to this
Doofy,
Your comment just goes to show why the rest of the country thinks the folks in Dixie are ignorant and slow.
If your name is Doofy….you might be a redneck!!
By weird al
December 11, 2008 6:04 PM | Link to this
He looks like he is about to eat Norm. Who is Marc Orem and why should I care? He should open his eyes and stand up straight. The rest of the country thinks we are slow? Did not know that I cared.
By Lester Maddox
December 11, 2008 7:08 PM | Link to this
who is that fat ass standing next to him?
Skidmark do you know?
Don’t like the South get the hell out brother.
By al
January 17, 2009 10:15 AM | Link to this
The picture looks like some aging “Rat Pack” wanna be flanked by the Bizarro World Jeff Dauler and Bert Weiss.