A Morning at WWJ Newsradio 950

I work in Radio. I capitalize the word “Radio” out of respect. I’ve worked in Radio for 28-years! Nowadays I guess I say I “work in Audio“, but between me and you … it’s Radio. Radio formats have come and gone. There’s no more Oldies, Jazz, or Classical radio stations. Classic Hits and Classic Rock are “oldies” now when you consider the music they play is from the ’70s, ’80s, and early ’90s, which means the music is between 30- and 50-years-old. And I’m somewhere between 40- and 53-years-old. I guess us Gen Xrs just don’t want to think of our music as “Oldies” (even if it is).

I’m not here to list all the Radio formats (even though I could … because I’m kind of a nerd when it comes to Radio), but instead I want to talk about one, specific format . . . Newsradio.

And one specific station … WWJ Newsradio 950 AM in Detroit.

When you work in the Radio industry, it’s fun when you get to sit “in-studio”.  I don’t know that everyone in Radio Sales is like me, but I grew up and thought I was going to be On-Air. I thought I’d be a famous Morning Radio host. In college I got the chance to be On-Air at Michigan State’s Impact FM and when I heard myself on-air I thought, “who’s that guy doing a Kermit the Frog impression?”  I didn’t have a voice-for-radio and, worse, I never got comfortable talking on the microphone. I’d stammer. I’d overthink what I was about to say. Attempts at humor sounded as if I barely had a handle on the English language. There was a list of things I could and couldn’t say on College radio, and I messed up ALOT.  The station manager talked to me at least 6 times in my brief 3-month On-Air career. And because I was a blithering idiot (I was 19-years-old, in my defense), I was stuck working 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. or 2 a.m. until 6 p.m.

Crappy air shifts. I was crappy at being on air. I sounded like Kermit.

I resigned. I stole a copy of the PJ Harvey CD To Bring You My Love because I liked the song “Down By the Water.”  I wasn’t even good at stealing CDs!!!  Of all the CDs to take from the studio as a sign of rebellion, I picked that one. It was 1992. Can you think of any better CDs that might’ve been ripe for the taking in 1991 or 1992?

What does all this have to do with my morning in-studio at WWJ Newsradio 950? I share that story because Radio is hard work. It was hard work in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s.  And it’s hard work now. A different kinda hard work, but it’s not easy.  I think I take News for granted, but no more! To watch a *LIVE* News station in action from 8:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. is, in fact, like watching close-up magic.

A 24/7 News station is exactly what it sounds like … 24/7 news. Every minute. Every 30-seconds. Every 10-minute window between Weather & Traffic “on the 8s” (8:08, 8:18, 8:28 … you get it, right). Quick 2-minute commercial breaks. Sponsors for every segment. Back in 1992, I thought it was hard to say something interesting about PJ Harvey and make a joke about her song being inspired by Dr. Suess’s “Red Fish Blue Fish” . . . I thought that was hard.  Watching the morning team of Jackie P. and Chris F. work *LIVE* without a net, lobbing news stories back and forth, while Traffic person Michelle P. slips into the studio every 10-minutes and then the Sports guy twice an hour . . . and then the go *LIVE* to Charlie who’s outside of the biulding reporting *LIVE* from someplace . . . phew! If that paragraph and sentence seemed like a run-on and made it sound frantic? It was.

Except it wasn’t. They all made it look easy.

Newsradio is a format as old as radio. I think we (I do) take it for granted. It’s there. It’s always there. Newsradio is there when I need it. It’s purposeful. It’s smart. It’s near perfect because it has to be. It’s not “Talk” or “News Talk” with callers and topics and long monologues. It’s hit after hit after hit after hit. By “hit”, I mean story. It’s relentless. It’s amazing.

I think, if you ever move to a new city, find that city’s Newsradio station and listen for a day or two and you’ll probably be completely up-to-speed on your new home and probably smarter than some of the current residents.

In just an hour I heard . . .

• Kratom is a scary drug, sold at gas stations, and is like heroin (and needs to be stopped)
• Donald Trump was visiting Detroit that day
• It’s North American International Auto Show week in Detroit (and in Detroit, the Motor City, those are like our Oscars and Emmy’s rolled into one)
• There was a cold snap coming
• I heard 6 traffic reports (each a little different). I learned “Traffic tipsters” are real people and some are regulars who call all the time, but about half call when they really have a traffic tip
• I learned that, the night before, the Red Wings honored one of my favorite Red Wings – Sergei Federov
• They caught somebody and charged him with burning down a synagog

Watching Chris F. and Jackie P. stand in front of their mics, with smooth voices and perfect pronunciation, delivering story after story after story and then, in the middle of everything, greet the station’s News Director, Rob, when he came in to talk with them about what they’d be doing the next day and where, and then casually filling time when the remote feed to Charlie (the man-on-the-street) wasn’t working and then keeping everything going while the News Director fixed the issue . . . remember . . . I couldn’t handle 60-seconds between songs at a College radio station at 3 in the morning. Watching them all work was “wow” and, I’ll say it again … close-up-magic.

This station is a Detroit staple. Not everybody listens all the time, but I guarantee you, everyone listens sometimes.

Traffic. Weather. School closings. Tragedies happen. Things blow up. Six sports teams are important to Detroit. There are elections and scandals and sometimes, there’s just cool stuff and things and events worth reporting … like the Auto Show. Or the Woodward Dream Cruise. Or music festivals or groundbreakings or good economic news or good news in the auto industry … the D.N.A. of my city and state.

I’m a nerd. A Radio nerd. Sometimes I think I know everything because I’ve been in this business for 28-years and I’m on the front lines evolving my approach to how Radio audio can work for advertisers and Radio can’t be just “radio” – it has to be streaming audio, Podcasts, social, and video, too.

And to that point. What are Podcasts and social posts and YouTube videos? All those things are “content.”

Content.

I learned, when it comes to content … news is content! And WWJ Newsradio has content on top of content and then some.

I’m not some grumpy old man harkening back to the good-old-days of a newspaper on my porch in the morning, or sitting in my favorite chair and watching Brokaw tell me the news, and wishing I still had 12 magazine subscriptions. I’ve adopted “new” and I’m as responsible as anyone for some forms of media and their demise. I no longer get a paper or magazines delivered to my house.

However, we all crave news. We do. We like to know stuff. And there’s LOTS of stuff to know. Too much. If you’re like me, if you see something in your Social feeds, you definitely don’t know if it’s true.

Newsradio, and the people behind it, work very, very hard to make sure the story is true and accurate. I counted 15 people working at 8:48 a.m. making sure the news was timely, local, accurate, and that it moved from story to story and trying to cover all the stories.

It was inspiring and made me realize . . . 28-years … I’m just getting started.

Oh, and here’s that PJ Harvey song and why I stole that CD.