-
10 Questions with ... Tim Camp
October 21, 2019
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. -
BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
My first radio job was at WABB in 1968, I was only 16 at the time. I left there after a little over a year, but I did return to WABB in 1983. I ended up working about 16 years of my radio career with Bernie Dittman at WABB. No better place or person in the world to learn great radio!
I bounced around several radio markets, Panama City, Pensacola, Atlanta and Birmingham. Spent some time on the road as a musician and various other music industry jobs, occasionally having to get a "real job" to survive. Back home again in Mobile I started WNSP-FM (all sports) in 1993, a few years later we purchased 92ZEW.
1. How did you become interested in radio?
First of all, I was an electronics nerd and secondly, I came from a musical family, so interest in music was always part of it. My dad started putting musical instruments in my hand at about age nine, about the same time I started my obsession with electronics -- any book I could get my hands on about electronics, I read. I got a ham radio license when I was 13, a first-class commercial radio license when I was 16. My older brother, who also became a broadcaster, built the first college radio station at The University of South Alabama when I was 15 and I helped him with that. I guess that is when I got the broadcasting bug.
2. WZEW is celebrating 35 years! How has the market changed or stayed the same over that time?
After 35 years I would have thought that you would be able to kick back and enjoy some of a heritage position in the market. I guess in some ways we do. Call sign and brand recognition is certainly a part of that however, it comes with a downside as well. Especially when you are trying to grow and reinvent yourself which we have been in the process of doing.
The downside being the audience has a preconception of what you are and maybe haven't sampled you in a while because of that. Sometimes it makes you worry about becoming "new coke." No matter how hard you try to make it fresh again there is a segment of the P1's who still like classic.
The problem of course is that segment is also growing out of the demo and after 35 years literally dying off.
It's a problem many Triple A's are dealing with and it has become a staple topic at the summit every year. Overall, we still have some 30 FM music signals in our market, and we continue to have to be different to stand out.
3. How has the music evolved on the station over that time?
Because of the situation I mentioned above we have moved the station into much more of an Alternative/Triple A hybrid which is making some headway but has not been without some difficulty. It has required us to decide if you can you put that new coke in the classic package and sell it or do you totally abandon your old brand and start fresh.
We decided to take the parts of our heritage that could still apply and polish the brand into that new product. Always the place for music discovery, always the Alternative to cookie cutter radio, always putting the music and the community first.
Still The ZEW, but not the same old ZEW. It is a position that required and continues to require a song by song analysis to determine what music makes it on the station. It also requires talking to your target and understanding their language. If you want to grow an audience on the young end you have to be ready to engage them, not just try to placate them with a few tunes.
4. What are you doing to celebrate 35 years?
To celebrate 35 years on air, starting on our birthday we are doing a simple thing that has rekindled a lot of passion amongst our listeners --35 years in 35 days. Each day we have been celebrating the music of each year beginning with 1984.
The celebration is continuing throughout the fall season with multiple concerts we have brought to town for our listeners. We have given our listeners birthday promo codes to save money on the concert tickets.
Our plan is to continue this until the end of the year. We are renewing our support of the local music scene as part of our 35th with a Christmas concert featuring only area artists.
5. In addition to The Hangout Festival that the station is intimately involved with - what other yearly benchmark events does the station do?
The Hangout festival has grown and evolved over its life as well. Ten years is old for a Music Festival and I think there are growing pains involved for them. However, I think they are on the path to rediscovery and hopefully that will bring our efforts more to bear.
Many other events in our market have gone by the wayside in the past few years. Mardi Gras remains a big event and we are once again looking for new ways to bring The ZEW into the limelight during that time.
If there's something going on in the community, we are plugged in to it.
6. What are some of your biggest challenges as an independent station?
Using limited resources to fight the fight against the corporate giants that try to undercut us every day at every turn. Sometimes I feel like we are a small band of guerrilla warriors fighting small skirmishes daily. As I said, we are the only locally owned music FM among the 30 others with signals in the market. We need to be different to be noticed.
7. What do you view as the most important issue facing radio today?
Learning how to work in the new media world we now live in. Radio is just a distribution channel for content and we no longer have a monopoly on distribution. This means we must realize that everyday it's our content against theirs, and when I say theirs, I don't mean just other radio stations.
We also have got to understand what it means to be of "local importance" to our market. Being local doesn't mean we carry weather or news or traffic. Listeners are too smart to be fooled by stations that just say it. "Live and Local" -- I hear this coming out of corporate stations that are voice tracked from outside the market, please!
So, we strive to be an intricate part of the market. The local newspaper published a glossary of Mobile terms and defined "the zoo" as NOT a place for animals, but our Local Radio Station "The Zew"! We Win.
8. What do you think of the current state of the Triple A format?
Triple A is as important if not more so than ever. Triple A is the curator of music for the rest of rock radio. It also, if you've been doing it right, is the place that listeners know they can go to for new music and not have to wade through a lot of crap to find the good stuff.
Music on the radio still has the ability to become relevant with the masses if they earn their trust. The internet has boundless amounts of new music, but who has the time to find the good stuff? That's where Triple A can shine. We have to be sure that each song we play is worthy. If we play crap and try to tell the listeners it's good, we'll lose them.
But Triple A is moving into the danger zone in my opinion. The audience that grew up in this format can't sustain us forever. How do you invite new people to the party? You have to figure out who they are, invite them, and make sure the party is fun and entertaining to them.
Basically, we need to decide where the future lies and begin down that path soon. 92ZEW has already mailed the invitations; we're watching the front door.
9. What is the best advice you would give to young programmers/promotion people?
Learn multimedia, it's where we are going. Focus on content, I can't say this enough. Radio will only win in the end if we learn how to do radio with compelling content presented in new ways across multiple platforms -- we no longer can exist as a jukebox as there too many alternatives now for that. Get into the hearts and minds of the people in your market and play to them, not placate. Make them think, feel, and know that you care and don't ever be too cool for the room.
10. Fill in the blank: I can't make it through the day without ...
... my sidekick, my partner, my music director, all the same person -- my wife Lee Ann Waters. Plus, my entire dedicated staff who amaze me very day.
Bonus Questions
Last non-industry job:
Selling high end recording equipment and PA systems.
First record ever purchased:
The Rolling Stones "England's Newest Hit Makers"
First concert:
Paul Revere and The Raiders, damn you're dating me!
Favorite band of all-time:
Hardest question of all, if you were going to lock me up for month with only one, I guess it would be Led Zeppelin, or maybe The Beatles. Hard question!
What do you enjoy doing in your spare time away from work?
Being with my wife and kids and playing music.
-
-