By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Mike Fowler last week ushered me into his spacious corner office less than a week after he arrived as the new Star 94 general manager. He was visibly embarrassed by its relatively large size.
"It's too far from the studios," he said. He said he already spends most of his time out of the office and closer to his staff.
Fowler - who comes from Chicago and ran Q100 from 2003 to 2006 - faces a resurrection project, but he believes the Star 94 brand can be rejuvenated despite a very competitive pop market and shifting listening habits.
"It's a great heritage station," he said. "It's just lost its way."
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Indeed, Star 94 is a well-regarded but degraded brand name that had its heyday in the 1990s when it was the top-billing pop station in town, anchored by Steve McCoy and Vikki Locke in mornings. It was known as the "soccer mom" station but was considerably hipper than B98.5 or Peach.
In the 2000s, Star's dominance faded as rivals such as Q100 and 95.5/The Beat peeled away younger listeners and the Bert Show pecked away at Steve & Vikki, who were out the door by 2008 when Star decided to pivot younger. Subsequent morning shows (Morning Mess, Cindy and Ray, Cindy and Jimmy) failed to rouse much enthusiasm or loyalty. And when Power 96.1 arrived in 2012 and B98.5 began to skew younger at the same time, Star found itself the fourth place pop station in the market.
Besides softer ratings, there is obvious one sign that Star's connection with listeners had severely weakened over time: its annual Children's Healthcare at Scottish Rite careathons used to draw $1 million in pledges in the mid-2000s. By last December, Star struggled to draw $85,000 from its listeners.
Entercom Media earlier this month closed a deal to buy 15 radio stations from Lincoln Financial, an insurance company that happened to own some media properties. This is the first time Star has ever been owned by media-only company.
For many years while Star 94 was run by GM Rick Mack, he prohibited air talent from talking to me. Mack interacted with me in a warily minimalistic way. Why? I'm not sure and I probably should have asked but avoided that uncomfortable conversation. He just kept me at arm's length.
The minute Entercom took over July 17 and Fowler entered the picture, I was immediately out of a multi-year purgatory. Fowler invited me over to Star's offices in Vinings off I-285 and I-75.
The last time I was in these offices was six or seven years ago when the space was being used by Citadel, which ran Kicks 101.5 (now owned by Cumulus). Star, along with the soon-to-be-dead sports talk station 790/The Zone, moved to cheaper surburban environs of Vinings from its pricey long-standing offices in Buckhead a couple of years ago.
At least Lincoln handed Star over to Entercom in relatively passable shape. Lincoln signed a promising new morning show six months ago in Drex, Cassiday and Tingle , who I finally got to meet in person. And ratings were on the upswing, with the station's best performance in more than a year in June. In overall ratings, Star beat Q100 for the first time in several years with a 3.8 share, a tie for 11th.
Fowler, who last worked at ESPN radio in sales in Chicago, is not the type to sit around doing nothing. He is keeping on-air staff stable for now but quickly hired a new program director Tony Lorino, who turned around a comparable station (99.7 The Point) in Kansas City and was also an afternoon air talent.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
He quickly dumped the all-90s weekend interim PD John Dimick instituted in early April. (Sorry, Right Said Fred fans...)
He also wiped out the "90's to now" slogan and replaced it with... nothing. Jocks now just say "Star 94." The logo is all that appears on the top of the website and social media pages. The closest to a slogan is seasonal: "The ultimate summer of fun." Jingles are tighter between songs. Tighter and brighter seems to be the theme.
In fact, 1990s music appears to be excised completely. Star is playing songs primarily from the past four years with just one cut an hour from the 2000s. The mix is fairly conservatively culled from the Hot AC charts, focused on songs that reach the top 15 nationally. Lorino has added one brand new song on the playlist in the past week: "Worth It" by Fifth Harmony. He brought back songs such as Calvin Harris' "Summer" and Magic's 'Rude" from a year ago. And he re-added "Centuries" by Fall Out Boy and gave a few spins to a song that peaked in January but Star never played: "Heroes" by Alesso with Tove Lo.
"We're not going to break music," Fowler said. "We're in a perfect position between B98.5 and Power and Q100. That's a great position. We're in between musically."
Otherwise, except for the absence of 1990s songs, most Star listeners probably won't notice anything major in terms of the music mix:
Here's a sample hour from Tuesday, July 28:
1:01 p.m. "Problem" Ariana Grande (2014)
1:04 p.m. "Thinking Out Loud" Ed Sheeran (2014)
1:08 p.m. "Heroes" Alesso (2014)
1:12 p.m. "Worth It" Fifth Harmony (2015)
1:15 p.m. "I Will Wait' Mumford and Sons (2012)
1:19 p.m. "Bad Blood" Taylor Swift (2014)
1:29 p.m. "Centuries" Fall Out Boy (2014)
1:33 p.m. "Roar" Katy Perry (2013)
1:36 p.m. "Hey There Delilah" Plain White T's (2005)
1:48 p.m. "Go Big or Go Home" American Authors (2015)
1:51 p.m. "See You Again" Wiz Khalifa (2015)
1:55 p.m. "Shake It Off" Taylor Swift (2014)
1:58 p.m. "Radioactive' Imagine Dragons (2012)
Fowler thinks Star 94's brand is so strong, it doesn't need a definition that might cause listeners to feel excluded.
"Radio nowadays can't drive anyone away," Fowler said.
Not surprisingly, he also ditched the morning show slogan "Real Life OTP." That was blatantly exclusionary to anyone who lives inside the Perimeter. (UPDATE: As of Friday, July 31, they were still using this line on air.)
Star has tried several different slogans in recent years. For a time, they focused on"Your Life... Your Music." In 2013, the station briefly used the ill-fated "Today's Hits Without the Rap" before focusing on "90's to now."
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Fowler's situation in 2003 when he arrived to work on Q100 was different because Q100 was a start-up station trying to upend Star 94. But building a morning show from scratch is similar to what he's facing now.
"My job when I came in was get everyone to believe in what we were doing, to compete," he said, of his time at Q100. He succeeded in spades. He was able to quadruple revenues for the station over three years. And the Bert Show was soon beating Steve & Vikki in younger listeners. He was also able to stay ahead of hip-hop leaning 95.5/The Beat, which used to mock Q100's weak signal (when it was on 100.5) by having sales folks tell advertisers that a hairdryer had more wattage. In 2005, with Q100's ratings soaring, Fowler said he sent the Beat a case of hairdryers with Q100 stickers on them.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
This time, Star has a new morning show gunning after the Bert Show, which is now considered the establishment.
"I like our on-air talent," Fowler said. "The morning show reminds me of the Bert Show when I got here. They have a lot of energy and a will to win. They have some funny bits. I don't think they've been directed the right way." He promises "to give them the tools they need to make an impact."
On Thursday, July 30, the station changed its "Star 94 Mornings" Facebook page to "Drex, Cassiday and Tingle," a move to try to help brand them better.
He thinks the Bert Show still sounds great and he isn't afraid to take them on. "It's a great challenge," he said. "I'm looking forward to it." (Bert Weiss responded in kind about Fowler: "Love him. He'll do anything to win.")
Fowler has not had a chance to hear the relatively new teams of Scotty Kay and Riley Couture on Power 96.1 or former Bert Show host Melissa Carter with Jeff Elliott on B98.5. In terms of music mix, he thinks Power sounds better than Q and its ratings reflect that.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Fowler cringes at the phrase "soccer mom," which I have been guilty of lazily using to describe Star's audience over the years and in fact used again earlier in the story. Women are more in control of their finances than ever and are more appealing, he said, to, say, auto dealers than they used to be. He didn't paint me a complete picture of who their target audience really is but he noted that 48 percent of Star's listeners are actually men. "We're going to skew more female but we're male friendly," he said.
And the long-time focal target of 25 to 49 remains the same.
Fowler is also excited about his new program director Lorino. "Staff love him," he said. "He took a Kansas City Hot AC from 17th 25-54 women to No. 1. He's spectacular."
And while Spotify and Pandora and the like has siphoned listening from traditional AM/FM stations, 93 percent of people still listen to at least some terrestrial radio any given week, according to Nielsen research. Fowler said his 17 year old son is a Spotify fan but does go back to local radio to hear personalities and get local news and information.
"Radio is still a great medium to sample new music and find out what's going on," Fowler said.
Entercom will effectively have a stand-alone FM station in a market dominated by companies with multiple stations. Having more stations means more leverage with advertisers and some cost savings. But Fowler looks on the flip side: he and his sales and programming staff can hyperfocus on Star and make it it the best station they can be.
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