10 Questions with ... Charlie Ochs

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

Charlie Ochs began his radio career in 1962 and has covered every facet of the business at some of the format's legendary call letters, including: MD/on-air personality for KNIX/Phoenix; PD/morning host at KIKK/Houston; VP/GM for WQYK/Tampa; VP/GM for WMZQ/Washington, D.C.; and SVP at CBS Radio/Tampa. Ochs is the founder of his own consultancy, Ochs Media, and still handles day-to-day radio responsibilities for Beasley Media/Tampa.

1. Let's begin by asking what induction into the Country Radio Hall Of Fame means to you. What do you think it says about your radio career?

Wow. Well, what it means to me is that it is an honor that I really never expected to have happen. I was quite shocked when that possibility happened. As you know, I've been around radio for, what, 55 years now? It was July 15, 1962, so on July 15th of this year, it will be 55 years. I have to stop and think if that's even real! But, I didn't get in to Country until 1972, ten years after I got in to radio. And, by then, I had done all kinds of formats, from Top 40 to Beautiful Music to a Polka show. I had been a war correspondent for the Army during Vietnam. I took that job, because it was the only think I could find in Phoenix at the time. And, I didn't know anything about Country. I just thought, "Well, I'll do this for a while until I can find a 'real' job." But, gosh! A couple of months in to it, and I could tell it was not what I was expecting. The music was fun, and the people were just fabulous! This was a little radio station on the outskirts of Phoenix that didn't even cover the full market. But, I will never forget, Frank Mull used to come out - and, we were strictly in a lean-to in Tolleson, Arizona - and good ol' Frank would come out there and bring some of his records. And, he would plop down in the corner of the studio - there was a chair sitting there - and he would just sit and talk. We'd go out to dinner. And, I thought, "I love this format!" The artists were nice, all the promotion guys and gals were fabulous, and I just kind of got hooked. A couple years in to that, Larry Daniels called from KNIX, and he wanted me to come over and do the morning show. And, I said, "Uh, yeah! I'll do that!" Country music, to me, has just been this wonderful thing for so many years. My family was totally involved, and my kids knew a bunch of the artists, and Margaret - my wife - was fond of them. Country music has been a wonderful thing, and to get this kind of recognition is overwhelming to me.

2. Tolleson was not your first-ever radio job, though. You had some things going on before that. Do you remember your first ever radio gig? There always seems to be a few memorable stories from the first radio job. Can you tell us about that?

No, Tolleson was ten years after I got in to radio. My first radio job was in my hometown of Klamath Falls, Oregon. I was between my junior and senior years of high school. My brother, who is almost seven years older than me, had been in radio when he was in college in Ashland, Oregon, and he had gone in to the Army and left behind a little tape recorder - I think it was an RCA. It was a little reel-to-reel, and he had some of those little mailer three-inch reels. So, being the curious high school kid I was, I plopped one of those reels on it, and I figured out how to run it. It was him auditioning for a job in Yakima, Washington. He had the job, but he got drafted, so he never went. But, the tape was of him practicing the call letters, so that when he went on the air, he wouldn't be saying the old call letters. So, he would say, "Radio Yakima, K-I-M-A." He said it several different ways with a pause in between each one. So, I listened to it, and I thought, "Well, crap. I can do that!" So, I would play his, then put it on stop and flip it to record, and I'd say it. There was enough room between each of his that I had room to put mine in and copy what he was doing. So, then, I got a tape of my own, and I sat down in front of my hi-fi and took the microphone and made an audition tape with music. I took it out to KLAD in Klamath Falls, which was a Top 40 station at that time - it was a day-timer - but it's a Country station now. I talked to the Program Director there, who was a guy named Bill Girard, and he - I guess - was probably just desperate for a weekend guy. So, he hired me! I did a Saturday, and it was summertime, so they signed off at 8:45p. He needed someone to work from about 5a until 8:45p and sign off. So, I did that on weekends in high school, and some during the week in the summers, and that's how I got my start. It was Top 40 during the day, and on weekends, they would sell these special shows. One of them was a Polka show, so I did the Polka show from like 10a to 11a. Then, from 11a until noon, it was "Sing Along with Mitch Miller," and I played singalong music. But, I was really crappy for a long time, really. I was 17 years old when I started there, and I didn't have a big boy voice! I couldn't lean on that, and I tried so hard for so many years to have a big boy voice. But, you're born with your voice, and you can't make it a big boy voice if it's not there. So, I finally learned that the voice wasn't the deal, it was relating to people that was the deal. Once I figured that out, I was fine. But, one of the memorable things that happened there, the jingles and the commercials that we didn't read live were either on reel-to-reel recorders that were in a rack behind you - they were old magnecorders that took about four turns to get up to speed - and we actually played jingles and did it pretty tight. We'd have to time it, so we would still be talking while we were reaching behind us and turning the little flip-switch to turn the tape on, and we would talk up the tape. Then the jingle would go, or the commercial would go. Or, some of the commercials - like the Coca-Cola commercials and a few others - were on big, eight-inch discs. So, we had an 18-inch turntable with a gray resurge tone arm that was counter-balanced so that you could drop it on the record from about two-inches up, and it would just float down to the record. But, the problem with that was that those big discs were very easily warped. So, we had two quarters, two nickels, two pennies, and two dimes all sitting by the machine, and if it was warped - to keep the needle down on the grooves - we would put as many on as we needed to to get enough weight to keep the tone arm down. We did that with records, too, when we'd play albums. Sometimes those would get warped, and we'd have to use the coins to keep the tone arms down. I remember getting the first cart machine - it never worked right. The cart machine would always warble, and we kept matchbooks in the studio to slide under the cart to try to level it up to try to make the cart play at the right speed. It's a different business now!

3. When you were growing up, was there a station or personality you listened to in particular? How did either - or both - influence you in pursuing a radio career?

There was a local guy - who I would love to know what happened to him, because he was really good - and he worked evenings at what was called KFLW then. It's KFLS in Klamath Falls now, and his name was Bob Inch. He was just sensational! He played - back in the late 1950s and early 1960s - he played the standards of the time, which were the currents at that time. He was a great communicator, and it was like he was right there with you. Also, my hometown is about a mile high in Southern Oregon, so I got the Portland stations and San Francisco and Los Angeles and Tijuana. I remember that Wolfman Jack was on then, so I'd listen to him. I listened to KDX in Portland and KGO in San Francisco, and I would hope that one day - I had two dreams - one was to go to Portland and work at KEX, which was a big 50,000-watt station, and the other dream was to work at KGO or KNBR in San Francisco and live in a houseboat on the bay. That was the dream!

4. So, what about your mentors? Everyone in radio seems to have a few of them. Who was it for you that helped you, challenged you, and made you believe you could actually make this a career?

Absolutely. Let me give you three people. My ultimate mentor was Nick Trigony. I don't know if you're familiar with Nick, but Nick was the GM at KIKK when I was the Program Director. He came in from WABC to manage the station. I think he had been the Sales Manager at WABC, and he came down to manage KIKK, and the station was a mess. We had the market to ourselves, and we were just killing it, but they were running 18 and 20 minutes of commercials every hour. It was just clutter city! Then, KILT went on the air, and they did the three-in-a-row deal. Corporate did not want to change, but Nick came down within a couple of months of that starting. He said, "What do you need?" And I said, "Well, Nick, first of all, if I can just do 12 minutes instead of 18 or 20 minutes, I'll be good. Because, I have a plan that Bill Figenshu and I have put together." So, he said, "Okay, you're doing it." And he went to the Sales department - bless his heart - and he said, "We're doing no more than 12 minutes." Well, the Sales Manager went crazy! He called Corporate, but Nick had apparently been given the mandate to do whatever was necessary. So, we went to 12 minutes. KILT beat us in their first book, because they did the big three-in-a-row television commercial with the goofy looking guy playing records, and they beat us in that first book. But Fig was the National PD at that time. He had been the PD at KIKK and had left to go up to Corporate when Viacom bought the station. He and I were just livid over all of the commercials we were playing, and so Nick gave us the 12 minutes, and we sat down decided how we were going to market it. I said, "You know, we have to market it in some way that we look like we are bigger than them and doing better than them." So, I was putting together a clock and thought, "Well, I can do long sweeps if I do two-in-a-row in some places. I can then do longer sweeps, because I'm keeping it to 12 minutes." So, Fig and I were sitting there, and I said, "I'm going to promote us as doing four-in-a-row." And, Figenshu is one of the most creative people I've ever known - I talked to him this morning, as a matter of fact - and Fig said, "Ah! Four-play!" I thought, "Oh, my God! That's great! A great double-entendre!" So, in order to be able to do "Four-Play" and make it okay, then when I had hours that didn't have as many commercials, I would do a "Five-Play," and at night, I'd do a "Six-Play." So, when people called and said, "You can't say that on the radio!" I would just act like I didn't understand what they were talking about! So, then I'd get to say, "Oh, no! No, no, no! That's not what we're talking about at all! You must have a dirty mind!" So, we did "Six-Plays," and "Five-Plays," and "Seven-Plays." We got away with it! They beat us that one book, because we made it sound so big that we were playing four, five, and six in a row. We'd promote at night, "We've got Seven-Plays at night!" It just killed them. They never caught up as long as I was there, and I left there in 1984. Nick was the fabulous General Manager, and that's the reason I told you that story - that's just the way he managed; he was balls-to-the wall and damn the torpedoes! Just the most wonderful human being in the world. So, I wanted to be the manager of a radio station, and he took me under his wing. He taught me everything. He taught me budgeting, he taught me personnel and how to work with people, how to be honest - always be honest. He was a great guy. He was planning on leaving eventually, and he knew that wasn't his last stop. So, he was grooming me to be his successor. We talked, and I said, "Nick, I think I need more seasoning." At that point, it was 1984, so I was 40. I started looking for another job, and with his full recognition that it was probably the right thing to do - I hated leaving him, because he was so fabulous - but I got another job. I stayed in touch with him for a long time. When someone says, "Do you have one mentor?" He would be THE one. But, I'll tell you, Bill Figenshu is three years younger than me, and when he came down to Houston as the Program Director, I was doing mornings. I had applied for that PD job - twice! But, I didn't get it, and Fig got it that time. So, I walked in to his office and said, "Fig, I really wanted this job. But, if there's anything you need, I'm your guy." And we worked together so well. He is so creative and other just wonderful human being. We worked together there, and then he went to Corporate as the National PD, and we worked together again, because I became the PD. After I left the company - I went to Phoenix to a station that was awful, and I left there after one year - that was when Mel Karmazin hired me to manage KCBQ in San Diego. That was my first management job. And, you know how this business is, all consolidated down. All of the stations, except the one in Phoenix, were - back when CBS was still owning stations - Infinity merged with CBS, and so all the Infinity stations were CBS stations. So, from 1978 until I retired the first time in 2008, I had worked for what became CBS for all but two and a half years, because Viacom sold their stations in 1997 to Evergreen, so I was with them for a couple of years. The rest of that time from 1978 until 2008, I was with something that was part of CBS in the end. But, Figenshu and I have talked, and still talk, and I talk to him to bounce ideas off him. Although he's not what I'd call a mentor, I taught him a lot, and he taught me a lot, and we work great together, because we are very different. He's not a mentor, but he's my radio soulmate. The other person is Mel Karmazin. He hates this when I say this about him, but Mel Karmazin is one of the kindest human beings I've ever known. He is rough as hell, but he is a fine, fine man. He did anything for people who were loyal to him - loyalty meant everything to Mel. He saw me through some very tough personal times that any other owner/CEO would have bounced me. I had something that happened within my family that could have been embarrassing for the company, but he just said, "We've got your back." He always had my back, and I love that guy.

5. It seems like we have been - and will be - seeing fewer managers who came up through the on-air-then-programming ranks. That's because the business is changing, for sure. But, what will they have missed by not having those hands-on experiences?

Let me put it this way, I have known a lot of General Managers in my life. Some of them came up through Programming, and some of them came up through Sales. And, a lot of the guys who came up through Sales do a really good job, because they recognize what they've got, and they work really hard and do a great job. But, I can't think of a manager who came up through Programming - that I know - who didn't do a great job. The reason is, they understand the whole product. Sales is easier to learn than the nuances of entertaining people. Entertaining people, you have to have the talent. You're born with some of it, but a lot of it is learned through audience reaction. You don't do that overnight; you have to learn what is successful and what isn't successful. The reason, I think, that the Programming people are successful at managing radio stations is because they understand the product. The reason that some of the Sales guys don't make it is because they don't understand what happens when you don't treat the product as a jewel. If you treat the product as a jewel, you're going to win every time. Unfortunately, some of the Sales people don't do that. Hopefully, there will still be people hiring General Managers who are able to give people who came up through Programming a chance. And, hopefully there are managers like Nick Trigony who will teach people how to manage with the idea that this programming kid one day will be running one of these radio stations.

6. A lot of people have expressed concern about where the next generation of new, great air personalities will come from. Where do you think the next great radio stars will come from, with fewer and fewer "Farm Team" type opportunities being made available?

I think that's probably if not the biggest problem facing the industry, it's right up there. And, to be honest with you, I don't know. I'm a big advocate of giving people a chance. I tell Program Directors that, if they've got something going on at night - voice tracking or whatever - I really encourage them to take that three o'clock hour, take a board op who is desperate to do a radio show, and just let him crack the mic. Let him do something. What's it going to hurt at three in the morning? It's not going to hurt anything! And, that's the only place I know now. God, how fortunate were we?! When we were coming up, oh my God, there were radio jobs all over the place! There were guys like Bill Girard - the guy who first hired me - who were desperate to have a warm body that could say something. I don't have much of a chance now to do anything, but I have been able to do a couple of things. One of them is, I've got a guy here who is a board op. He desperately wants to do something more on the air. The first thing I did was, he came to me and said, "I love wrestling, and I love mixed martial arts. I'd like to do a show at night about that." And, we do a lot of stuff, so I said, "Okay, Charlie, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give you Wednesday night at 11p. I'm giving you and hour. And you can do -" he we only do a wrestling show blog - "you can put that blog on the air." And, he started that and was pretty darned good! So, he came to me and said, "Can I have another night? I want to do a mixed martial arts show." So, he does the MMA Talk Show on Thursday nights. And, he's working and working, and he's trying to sell sponsorships and has seen a little success with that. So, then, I needed an afternoon traffic guy. He was the natural person that I went to, and he was rough around the edges when he started. But, he did a pretty good job. As a beginner doing traffic, he did really well, and now he has that job permanently. So, that's where I think that you've gotta give people a chance! RJ, I can't tell you how upset I am that there is virtually no farm team anymore. We're going to regret it.

7. Okay, so, ditto that previous question for programmers. We have seen a new generation of PDs who aren't asked to be innovators or creators, but instead, executors of a plan. Does this concern you in any way?

This is a big concern for me! It's now, "Here's what you're gonna do" coming down from Corporate. So, the Program Director has no opportunity to be creative on his own. Being creative is making mistakes. That is the definition of being creative - you screw up! There's no opportunity for that now. I'll give you the line that I gave Larry Daniels years and years ago when I was the Music Director and the morning guy at KNIX in Phoenix - and Larry was one of the very first in to research. He and I were doing all this research, and the big mantra then was "Take Out All The Negatives." The station started sounding really bland! So, I sat down with him one day, and I said, "You know what we've done, Larry? We've created a radio station that nobody doesn't not like very much." And that's what happens. If you don't allow people to have their ideas, you're never going to get anywhere. Where are the Mac Daniels of the world going to come from now? Mac's first PD job was at WMZQ in Washington, D.C. I put him in as the PD, and he was the Music Director. I had known Mac when I was consulting KPLX in the 80s, and he was a skinny little Texas kid. Then, I needed a Music Director, so I went to him, and he came up to D.C. Then, when the Program Director left, it was a mentoring thing that was going on at that time - we were teaching Mac how to be a Program Director. He stepped in to those shoes, and he took off immediately and did a great job. The rest was history - he's a great Program Director! But, where's that going to come from now? Who is out there giving someone a chance? Who is letting anybody learn? I gave Mac his head. He did things that I didn't agree with, but he did a great job, and he became a great PD.

8. Having been in the format for years - and away from it for a while now - let's talk about where the format is going. What direction do you see it heading? Are the Pop, Hip-Hop, and Rock influences here to stay?

Well, as you're asking that question, I was thinking about 1980 and Urban Cowboy. The same thing was said then. "Oh, my God!" There was all this hand-wringing. "What is going to happen to the format?!" And, I remember going to CRS, and there were the Traditionalists and the New Age guys - it was "We've gotta keep the Twang in Country" versus "We've gotta get the Twang out of Country." It was, "Where are we going to go with this?" And, gee - ya know - it survived rather well, I think! I probably came down more on the side of the new, more AC or Pop kind of side of it, even to the point where Joe Ladd came in to my office in Houston and said, "Boy, I've got this great, great guy. He's brand new, and you've gotta hear him." So, I went down to his office, and we sat down and listened to this song, and I said, "God, Joe. I don't know if this guy is gonna make it. He's too Traditional sounding for this time in Country music." And Joe said, "No. Nah. No, no. He's great. Really." And I said, "Joe, you're the Music Director, and you've been in Houston a long time. So, if you think you should add it, that's fine." So, he did. Joe went right ahead and added that George Strait song. So, back to today. Is it extreme? I mean, sure! But, go for it! See what works. You know what would be really bad? If there were no experimentation going on. THAT would be really bad! I don't follow as closely and as much as I used to anymore, of course - I've got my hands full running this Talk radio station - but, I think it sounds fresh. There are times when I listen and think, "What the heck is that?" But, I love experimentation. I'm a research guy. I love research, and if you research the same thing, there's no point in researching it anymore. "Well, yeah. That's the same. We know that works." But, get some great stuff. Get some wild things. It's no different than Ray Price putting strings in to songs. That was "just horrible" according to everyone who went crazy when that happened. At the time, that was like doing Hip-Hop on Country radio! "Oh, my God! What is he doing?!"

9. On a broader level, let's discuss radio. It's under fire from a perceptual and real standpoint - so many other audio choices are available now. How can radio maintain its place on the podium?

I can give you my dream of how it stays relevant. My dream of how radio stays relevant is that it becomes a local business again. I don't think that's going to happen - it's just a silly dream of an old man - but the one thing and the only thing that radio has that is highly, highly unique is the ability to look out the window and relate to the audience what is going on right now. That's the one thing you've got on everyone else. Pandora can't talk to Billy Jones in Tampa, Florida and say, "Hey, watch out. Here comes a tornado." Only radio has the ability to do that. But, what we've done, is we've cut those legs off. That's frightening to me, for the good of radio. I think it's great that we still have a huge number of people listening to the radio, but I think we need to - from the very top down - we need to recognize that this really is something that is fragile. It's a beautiful, fragile piece of art, and you cannot treat it poorly for tomorrow's bottom line and think that it's going to survive. The world is full of radio stations, that were once legendary radio stations, that made tremendous amounts of money that were bottom-lined out of existence. Because, the people in charge were so focused on just the bottom line that they, somehow, lost sight of the fact that with no top line, you have no bottom line. And, the only way to keep a top line is to invest in the product. The product meaning not only the music or the talk show that you have on the air, but also on the people who make it happen. Some of those people are on the air, but most of them are not on the air. And, when you start trimming back your Promotions department, your Sales department, and you start telling people what they're going to do instead of letting them be creative on their own - it's a creative business, for God's sake! You have to let people create! And, if you don't, it's going to go away. Many legendary radio stations are gone because that happened. It's really depressing to me to watch that happen after 55 years. But, it's going to survive. It always did. It survived TV. It has survived so very many things. Let's not make ourselves the silent movies. The silent movies didn't survive, because there were people who said, "Oh, sound in movies?! That won't work!" They didn't see the threat. Don't be that. You have to embrace new technology. I know that the radio business has dug around in to all of the digital stuff, and I think it's doing a pretty good job of continuing to hammer away at it and using it to make some revenue and get some creative things done on the digital side. To me, that's all just a mystery - it's so beyond where I am that I just have to have people do that for me! We have been creative, we just have to continue to be creative. We have to listen to the Millennials who really understand all that crap!

10. What has been your proudest moment in radio? Is it an on-air moment, or was it something that happened off the air?

Well, I'll answer this on a general level, first. The thing that makes me the proudest is to see the people who I have worked with go out and succeed and go beyond anything that they ever believed they could do - just like I did. I never thought I my wildest dreams that I would be a SVP of CBS Radio. I never thought that could or would happen when I was coming up. I just thought I was going to be a deejay. But, it happened! My proud moments, though, are always when I see someone really blossom. I mentioned Mac before, but Mac has made me proud many, many times. The things he has done - and I don't even call him sometimes. Like, when he got the KPLX thing. How proud I am of Mac! Here's this skinny kid that I knew when he was 20 years old or whatever at KPLX, and now he's back at KPLX running the joint. How cool is that! And there are a couple of others, too. That's what makes me proud. Proud for myself? Eh, well. I'm proud of the things that have happened in my life. I think of the first management job in San Diego when Mel hired me and we drove out to KCBQ. When he walked away, I was sitting at that huge desk in that huge office that had a conference table, and a couch that made out in to a bed if you needed it, and a private bathroom. I sat there, and I thought, "Boy, this is awesome!" But, I am hard-pressed to say a moment when I was proud of myself. At KIKK when we got the ACM Station Of The Year, I was proud of the people. I was proud of what WE had accomplished. I didn't do it on my own! I can't be proud of myself for that. When I was able to knock off the #1 morning show in Phoenix for one book, I was proud of myself for that, but I was also proud of the fact that I worked with Larry Daniels who made that possible. I couldn't have done it without Larry! So, that is an impossible question for me. I've never through of it that way, really.