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10 Questions with ... "Shaggy" Matt Culbreath
November 8, 2016
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BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
Board Operator, Assistant PD, Remote Engineer, Imaging, Halftime and Postgame Host, On-Air Fill-in, and now Program Director... all at one cluster, across 15 years.
1. First, what got you into radio? Why radio?
It's weird, I didn't have any inkling of a career in radio growing up, but others around me say they saw it coming a mile away. I had always targeted being a computer programmer, but I do remember learning the ins and outs of that Windows 95 sound recorder, and later getting a (likely illegal) copy of Cool Edit '96. I remember making drops by recording them off a TV with that tiny, cheap microphone that came with PCs back then, and then e-mailing them in to a local morning show (I eventually worked with that host, which is a hell of a moment).
It wasn't until I started at the University of Toledo where I got involved in the student broadcasting organization (WXUT, 100 mighty watts!) and realized I had found my tribe. Audio-only broadcasting allows you to entertain/inform/engage the people who listen, without the rigitity of needing 15 people in a television studio to be on the same page all the time. There's really a simple elegance to the medium, and what you're able to accomplish with that elegance is what pushed me into the field full time.
2. You've done a lot of jobs at the station(s) in your time there, from board opping to hosting to programming. Did you have an idea when you started as to what job you ultimately wanted to do -- did you plan on being the boss someday, were you more an on-air kind of guy, or was there (and is there) another goal?
I wasn't really sure what my goal was when I was first hired in, to be honest. I was comfortable running board, producing audio, setting up equipment. I earned early on-air cred because I couldn't stop laughing in the studio while running board for Mark Standriff's morning show (he's the one who dubbed me "Shaggy", I hadn't had a haircut in a while). Even after picking up the Assistant PD title and started doing sports updates in AM/PM Drive, I wasn't 100% sure what my target was, and I ended up as a jack of all trades. And, to be honest, I like that position. I'm still co-hosting with Scott Sands in the afternoon, I'm still doing overnights on 104.7 WIOT, I'm still doing in-studio hosting for the Rockets Sports Radio Network, and now I can help move WSPD into the future. I'm the boss, sure, but I'm also in the mix.
3. You're a Toledo-area native and you've been with the stations for a long time. So you can tell us: What about Toledo are the best things that nobody outside the area knows? What are the best things about living and working in Toledo?
Is it cliche for the fat guy to say "the food"? For real, Toledo was a large immigrant destination for a long time, and because of that, there were these ethnic neighborhoods that sprung up across towns: Polish and German and Hungarian and Greek and Lebanese... and during the summer, there's a string of two months where each one of these groups holds a festival where you get authentic food and booze, hear the music, and learn the culture. It's a staple of the community, and it really is spectacular.
Toledo, on the whole, is that mid-sized metro that's finding its groove again. People are learning to fall back in love with the Toledo Museum of Art, or the Metroparks system, and the fact that you can seemingly get anywhere in town in 20 minutes. And people are moving back into downtown, which is pretty dope.
4. Now that you've ascended to PD of WSPD, let's talk about talk radio in general: Where do you see the format, as it exists on broadcast radio, heading in the next few years, once this election's done? Do you foresee major changes to the formula or will there always be a place for the angry-guy-ranting-about-politics style of talk?
I don't think wholesale changes are on the way, but I do think it has to start sliding away from political talk. If you look at it logically... if a talk radio station is targeting Men 25-54... and, really, 35-54 is more or less the demo, then you're target audience is 100% GenX. Add that 25-34 back in, and now you have Millennials in the mix. So why does talk radio still sound like it's talking to Boomers?
During this election season, there are days where Scott and I finish up the afternoon show and just feel exhausted from all the bullcrap. And I think we both understand that if we're exhausted, how do you think our listeners feel? But there's that thing in the back of your head that whispers "But... Rush's numbers..." And it's a hell of a lure, because that's what talk got by with for a long time. But when a listener e-mails us complaining because one host isn't in perfect political alignment, it tells me that that political alignment is all that's expected out of us, and that means we're cutting ourselves off from the rest of the community. We can't expect the city to tune you in when they're down in the basement during a Tornado Warning if they're legitimately afraid of you (an actual diary comment I once read on the station).
There's a gentleman who used to be in charge of NTS at iHM (whose name may or may not rhyme with "Meryl Starks") who said "Politics sucks. Make it suck less: don't talk about it." Political talk will always have its place, but so does local talk, and sports talk, and "my boss is such a jerk and my 12-year-old daughter is talking about dating and HOW DO I DO THIS" talk.
5. As for talk radio that isn't ON the radio, do you listen to podcasts? Which ones? Is podcasting the "next talk radio" or will it develop as something else entirely?
I'm subscribed to (one...two...three... ) 12 podcasts currently, so you could say I'm a fan. One of my all time favorites (with which I think you may have had a little hand in) was "Walking the Room" with Dave Anthony and Greg Behrendt. Two hilarious guys talking about their flailing careers and the weird crap in their lives. It was intriguing to hear the inside-the-comedy-world stories, and to hear them tell stories about the lemon-stealing neighbor or the mall playground-turned-wrestling ring was not only hilarious, but entirely relatable. They bared their souls to us, and in return, we saw ourselves in them: "Oh, I have anger issues like Dave." or "God, Greg sounds like I do after too many cups of coffee."
I do think that the format, for a while, was oversaturated with "two guys who think they're funny, talking to a random guest, brought to you by Squarespace", but that seems to be falling to the wayside as well. Dramatic podcasts like "Welcome to Night Vale" have really changed the game on that front.
6. How do you use social media in conjunction with your radio work? Is it show prep, communication with listeners, all of the above, or something else?
A little bit of both, but with a tweak on each side. On the show prep front, it's easy to take a look at the top trending stories and work a couple segments out of them, but it seems to work a bit better when you're following the things your listeners and/or friend are actually posting or tweeting about, because there might be a story that isn't trending, and isn't local, but has a local tie-in, and that's what puts you ahead.
On the communcation front, Facebook is still the end-all be-all for driving traffic to the website and teasing out listeners for a big interview. But I'd love to use social media to better connect with listeners and better humanize the station. Two of the best Twitter accounts out there are connected to Ohio sports teams: the Cleveland Indians and Columbus Blue Jackets. Not only do they both push information related to the teams (and draw traffic back to their websites with them), but they also have a very distinct voice in how they interact with their fans (or their opponents' fans, for that matter). It becomes an extension of the brand, and it's something I'd love to do more with.
7. Of what are you most proud?
It always comes down to those local breaking news moments. Not so much the national moments where you toss up anchored coverage from your national affiliate and ride it to the end, but when it's on you to inform the area because it's most pertinent to them. In 2014, the municipal water supply had a high level of toxins due to an algae bloom in Lake Erie. What started out as an early panic (and a massive run on bottled water) soon turned to calm as every station in town went wall-to-wall with information on what exactly was wrong with the water, where shipments of clean water were coming in, and how long before the tap would be good again. It was about a weekend of hardcore on-air work, but in the end, it felt amazing. As I tell my employees often, moments like those are the real reason we're in business.
8. Who are your inspirations and influences, as a host and as a programmer?
It's funny how the people you first worked with made the biggest imprint on you. On air, Mark Standriff showed me the structure of a good, local, morning news talk show without being *angry guy* (though, as a 20-year-old, I'm sure I didn't appreciate it at the time). Scott Sloan's show showed me the value of not taking yourself too seriously on air. And on a programming front, Steve Sutton took the time out as a PD to show us lowly part-timers the theory behind the decisions.
9. Fill in the blank: I can't make it through the day without _____________.
...Twitter. Christ, I am hopelessly addicted to Twitter. I can make myself feel better about it by telling myself it's symblomatic of people's desire to communicate, which is something talk radio facilitates. But really, I just enjoy retweeting hockey highlights and bad puns.10. What's the most important lesson you've learned in your career so far?
"Whenever I had a problem sleeping, I'd always turn on the radio, because I felt better knowing there was someone else awake." That was what an old friend told me right after I shattered his reality by telling him I was voicetracking that Sunday overnight shift on WIOT some 12 years ago. In my defense, my actual shift was morning drive on WSPD, and he called me on my cell while trying to gather whatever sleep I could. But that statement still sticks with me because it represents the relationship we have with our listeners. When you do it right, they trust you. They wake up with you, they bring you to work with them, and they need you to make themselves feel better when it's 2am and they can't sleep.
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