The Big Payback by Charnas Dan

Author:Charnas, Dan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2010-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

Cummings had to program a rap station without knowing a thing about rap music. He knew only one person who did: his assistant back in Indianapolis, Michelle Mercer. She and her sister—both White girls in their twenties—knew every word to rap songs that Cummings was just now hearing about, like the Geto Boys song “Mind Playing Tricks on Me.” Not only did Mercer like hip-hop, she was actually in Power’s demographic. Having a White girl endorse the music eased Cummings’s fears of veering too far from the mainstream. He made Mercer his music director.

Cummings and Mercer started adding rap tracks with abandon. By December 1991, Power 106 had more rap songs on its playlist than KMEL did—16 to KMEL’s 11. By February of 1992, around the time of the Gavin Convention, Power had 20 to KMEL’s 10. At Gavin Cummings finally heard what KMEL was doing with rap. The more Cummings looked at Keith Naftaly’s station, the more he saw a perfect model for the new Power 106. KMEL’s air staff actually sounded like the music they played. He had seen KMEL’s TV spots, which used shots of listeners across a broad ethnic spectrum. Most important, KMEL didn’t sound like a Black station, nor like vanilla pop, either. KMEL was somehow using Black music, especially hip-hop, to knock down traditional racial and ethnic barriers, creating a perfect coalition of both inner-city and suburban kids. KMEL was unlike anything Cummings had ever seen in the business: a multicultural radio station. That, Cummings knew, was what Power 106 needed to be, too.

How did a radio station like KMEL develop such credibility and listener loyalty? Jon Coleman gave Cummings an answer. He called it the Image Pyramid, a graphic guide to how great radio stations evolved. Unfortunately the Image Pyramid ran counter to the current conventional radio wisdom. Most stations placed emphasis on hiring popular disc jockeys and creating contests to boost their ratings. Coleman insisted that notion had it backward.

People listen to radio stations for music, he said, first and foremost. So your first job is to get the music right. Music formed the base of Coleman’s pyramid.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.