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10 Questions with ... Mike Dungan
June 18, 2017
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BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
Mike Dungan is Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group Nashville, the largest music company in the Country music business. A Cincinnati native, Dungan has worked in the music business since he was 16 years old, getting his start doing odd jobs in a local record store. In 1979, Dungan began his label career as a Pop promotion rep for RCA, working in the Cincinnati, Detroit, and then Minneapolis markets. A sales position with RCA and Arista Records parent company, BMG, followed in 1987. Two years later, Arista Records hired him as its Dir./Marketing for the Midwest. In 1990, Dungan moved to the newly-formed Arista Nashville label to head up Sales and Marketing, later rising to SVP and General Manager. In 2000, Dungan was named President of EMI Music's Capitol Records Nashville; over the next 12 years, he built the company to enormous success, with Capitol named Billboard Magazine's Country Label Of The Year for eight consecutive years.
In May of 2012, Dungan moved to the Universal Music Group as Chairman and CEO. Soon after, Universal purchased EMI, a move that reunited Dungan with his former roster at Capitol. UMG Nashville operates four label imprints - Capitol Nashville, EMI Records Nashville, Mercury Nashville, and MCA Nashville. That label group is now home to 35 artists, including Luke Bryan, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood, Sam Hunt, Chris Stapleton, Lady Antebellum, Little Big Town, Dierks Bentley, George Strait, Eric Church, Kacey Musgraves, Darius Rucker, Alan Jackson, Shania Twain, Gary Allan, and Vince Gill. Billboard has listed Dungan on their annual Power 100 list in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. Also in 2016, Dungan was named Billboard's Country Music Executive Of The Year. On Wednesday, June 21st, Dungan will be honored with the Country Radio Broadcasters (CRB) prestigious President's Award, presented to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the marketing, production, growth, and development of the Country Radio Seminar (CRS) and the multiple services that Country Radio Broadcasters provides to the Country radio and music communities. Dungan has been a CRB Board member since 2000 and serves on the Executive Committee.
1. Mike, thanks so much for taking the time for "10 Questions" today. It's extremely rare for a sitting board member to be recognized with The President's Award. That says a lot about how the organization values your contribution. How did you respond to it?
Well, I questioned it at first. I always feel like I don't contribute enough to CRS, and I've made that clear over the years. I've even offered to resign to give my seat up to someone who could put more time into it, but I believe I was the first [label] President in history to ever serve on that board, and I was so happy to do so. I thought I'd do it for two or three years, but I enjoy it so much that I've stuck around, always under the qualifier of telling them they can get someone else who can throw themselves really into it - I'm happy to step out - but, they feel otherwise. I'm honored!
2. When, and how, did you get involved in CRB in the first place?
I got involved in 2000. It was very quickly after I became president of Capitol [Records Nashville]. Bill Mayne, then our board VP and now Executive Director, and someone else reached out to me and asked me if I'd consider it. I had taken over a company that did not have great relations with radio; despite the efforts of the promotion staff at the time, radio was often portrayed as the "evil enemy." I had never felt that way. Radio's job is to draw and maintain listeners so that they can monetize through ad sales. It is a label's job to convince them that our "product" will help them accomplish their goals. So, I wanted to turn that around as quickly as possible. The decision to join this board was a no-brainer for me. I wanted to re-brand Capitol with my personality, and try to move it into another direction.
3. You also serve on the CMA and ACM boards. Having spent considerable time on all three boards, what makes the CRB board unique to you compared to your participation in the CMA and ACM boards?
First, I feel that 100% of the CRS board members put themselves into it with zest, so just being in the room is always inspiring, I also feel that everything we do accomplishes something. Every time I leave the room at those board meetings, I feel like we've taken a step forward. We are building and improving an event every year; we are building an agenda, we're staying on topic, we're trying to develop topics as best as we can. That is what's really gratifying to me. CRS is very focused; it's easy to see the mission and know where and how you can participate.
4. In addition to being a long-time CRB board member, you've been on the Executive Committee for most of that time. As the event nears its 50th anniversary, what do you see as the biggest challenge facing the CRS? Are there any potential threats to its vitality, as things are changing really quickly in radio and in the record business?
I think we have a major challenge ahead of us. There is a lot of research that says there's an entire generation just behind us that does not interact with radio. Does that mean that they will always not interact with radio? That's something that we must work hard on. One simple example is the injection of streaming into the equation. I'm constantly amazed at how many radio people constantly reject that information, and look at it as a completely different consumer, saying, "It's not my fan base," or "It's not my listeners." It's people that choose streaming over broadcast radio, and to me, that's not true. It may be true of a small portion of that, but the biggest streaming songs are the ones that radio makes into hits. It's very evident every day on the chart. We need to embrace that, and we need to figure out how to use it to our advantage to maintain the lead that broadcast radio has in being the place where people discover the music first. You go through different modes as you move through your day and through your life. You have the full-on 'I want to just listen to music that I control' phase, and then you want to lean back and have it spoon-fed to you. That's the symbiosis that I think these two platforms play under.
5. Speaking of changes, CRS will undergo a leadership change soon. Charlie Morgan will step aside as President, and very soon, the Board will decide who his successor will be. Can you talk about the job that he did during his four years, and how big those shoes are to fill?
He simply did a phenomenal job. Charlie is a first-class thinker, and has to top-down manage large radio stations in large markets. There are a lot of shareholders in that equation, and I think to have his skills and his guidance at the top of our Board has been invaluable. We're going to miss him. We will move on, and while it will be a challenge to replace Charlie's natural charisma and on-point focus, we are up to the task.
6. In 2014, during a Power Player interview on All Access, you discussed Eric Church and how he'd pushed the envelope. You talked about how radio shifted; that it took Eric one and two-thirds of an album to get him where he needed to be. You recalled that in the early days, most of radio was afraid of what he was doing, but a lot of them had to admit that he was making great music. Since then, we all know what Church has achieved. Now, in 2017, is it accurate to believe we could say all those same things, but substitute Chris Stapleton for Eric Church?
Sure, that's completely accurate. There's a pattern here; this is how we like to do our business. We're trying to change the culture. We don't feel culturally responsible, although it's very personally rewarding. We conduct our A&R in this manner, because the biggest impact comes from those things that are different. Our job, from a business bottom-line standpoint, is to take advantage of the things that are different, and take the outliers and make them mainstreamers. You can say that about so many artists that we sign, and certainly the ones that we have had the biggest success with. I mean, look at Keith Urban - he was completely an outlier. Radio did not want to deal with him. Luke Bryan - people didn't understand the show he was doing - the "shake your butt" thing. He was completely an outlier. Certainly, Eric Church, too. Even Lady Antebellum, to some extent. There were people who called me personally and told me they don't understand what I'm doing, that they almost felt like an AC band. My point was - with a smile on my face - that's exactly why we signed them, because there's nothing out there like that. That's what we're always looking for. I have no interest in signing copycat number one, two, three, or whatever's popular at the moment, nor do I have any interest in recording songs that copy number two, three, four, five, and releasing them to the market. We try to be fresh, different, and challenging all the time, because that's where the biggest pay off is.
7. It seems like with Stapleton, you've managed to achieve a tremendous level of success in the sales part of it, but airplay consensus still lags behind. Is that okay - given the phenomenal numbers for "Traveller," and now, Volume I of his new two-part "From A Room" album?
We make our money by making money, so, at the moment, it is okay, but our goal is clearly to establish him as a mainstream artist on the radio so that we can continue this, and that's coming a little slower than I would like. Because of the market impact that this artist is experiencing, there are a lot of radio people who are now playing Stapleton music with a lot of success - people who would have never even considered it before. There are a lot of ways you can come into the market and break it. Stapleton was just a completely different one, because so much of it was centered on the love that Nashville had for the guy, and the appreciation they have for the "real deal." This guy had been around a long time, he has a lot of fans here, and since the CMA voting members are so heavily focused here, it resulted in several CMA nominations. Well, nominations in and of themselves don't always result in real market metrics, but they can help leverage a performance on national television, and that performance flipped the entire equation completely. From the second he opened his mouth on that stage, our sales exploded. The smart people at radio stepped back and said, "Holy crap, this is enormous! If I don't claim it now and make it part of my stations mix, then I missed an opportunity."
8. Shifting gears, structurally, UMG approaches promo staffing differently - with VPs, no Nationals, and a roving VP in David Friedman. What are the advantages of this kind of configuration in terms of how you can accomplish all the things you need to within those four labels?
I'm not sure that one structure holds benefit over another, but I know that having David in this position works very well for us. Let's face it, to go into a radio station and represent all of the artists within the UMG Nashville family makes him a pretty powerful player. And he does the job magnificently.
9. You've had interesting success on a very diverse level. Sam Hunt just had the biggest single of his career, where a few years ago, Country radio wouldn't give him a second look. On the other end of the spectrum, you have Jon Pardi, who is seen as a hope for reviving a traditional lane in this format. Then, you have Lauren Alaina - a female artist who's broken through with a number one record - which seems like mission impossible right now. Can you touch on how you found the right music for these three artists, and got radio's attention?
They're all very different. For Sam Hunt, he has a certain star thing about him. He looks great; when he walks into a room, everyone wants to know who he is and what he does. What attracted me to him personally was his writing ability - his ability to tell a small-town story in a very easy, conversational way that everyone can relate to. I was familiar with him, because he had written songs for people like Kenny Chesney, Billy Currington, Keith Urban, and some other people. Then, when I saw what he was doing for himself, I thought, "Oh, I don't know, this is pretty damn different. It's kind of hip-hop, but he's still got that incredible lyrical integrity, and if we can get these lyrics heard, this could really work." It was a lot easier than I ever anticipated. I remember going to the first iHeart meetings in Austin; we were playing our music for these people, and I called an audible at the end. I didn't tell my guys I was doing it, but we had some extra time, so I told them we had just signed a new artist named Sam Hunt, and that I'd like to play them some demos. I was half-expecting them to tell me I'm out of my mind, but all I did was say, "Sam Hunt," and six hands went up in the room. Every one of them said, "I want this right now," and the reason was because he had played all these shows in the Southeast, and they were overwhelmed with calls at their radio stations. So, what made all the fans call the Country stations instead of the Pop ones? Because, clearly, the fans saw him as a Country artist, and his music was Country. That was easy.
With Pardi, it was simply our desire to fish where they ain't. When I saw him the first time, he was a really unfocused guy who was delivering more energy than anyone I've seen in a long time. It felt like Buck Owens reinvented for a frat house. We knew it was so different and cool, and it makes you smile and move. It's taken a while, but it's doing exactly what I hoped it would do.
And Lauren Alaina - it's a different thing altogether. She struggled through being a chick singer that won a TV contest, and those are very easy to write off. The first album she made, she did it in six weeks, under pressure from "American Idol." She was sort of handed a bunch of songs and put into the studio while she was on the "Idol" tour. They did a lot of her vocals on Skype, because it was so difficult to hook up a producer with these artists on the road. So, here you have artists who have never recorded a record before, and they're singing into a computer in a room in Omaha while their producer that they don't even know very well is in Nashville, and the end result is an okay record. I thought she had a big personality with a great, great voice, but there's a lot of those. But, after that first album experience, she developed into not only a real personality, but a great songwriter. On one level, she's got that instant likeability, much like Luke Bryan, because she's just unfiltered enough that it's real, and she's very warm in the heart. She reaches out to her audience and instinctively has this sense of people in the room that are a little uncomfortable, and she'll immediately go up and make them feel comfortable. All she really needed was great songs. The work ethic was always there, and she's funny as hell. Those are three completely different scenarios.
10. There have been several occasions in the past couple years where artists have been signed on a lot of activity that has been viral, and literally zero radio exposure. With this, it often seems like the dots to radio aren't quickly connected, but labels are willing to try it out - how long can you wait until those dots finally connect with an artist like that?
I think it's a matter of discipline - trying not to overreact. It has become the thing that is hardest to resist - time. Most Pop labels are knee deep in this, but on the most basic level, it cuts completely against my grain. For Country music, most, if not all of these artists are simply copying an established star or an established sound. They are copying Kenny Chesney. Or copying Jason Aldean, or Sam Hunt. I don't want to be too precious about the A&R process, and I know the market will bear one or two copies to a certain degree, but let's think about this - are we talking about real talent, or is this some kind of social phenomenon?
I know that things have changed, and on a regular basis, I remind myself to not be stuck in my ways, but let's just make sure we're jumping in with real talent that we think we can take to the next level. Many of these artists come to the table with teams of people that are experts in spinning socials, and I am appreciative and impressed that they have excited a number of people to engage in what they are seeing, but I am also convinced that you and I could do a duet and, with the right team, spin enough socials to get attention.
Bonus Questions
As we wrap up this interview and head in to the Executive Board meetings and Agenda Planning for CRS 2018, is there anything else you want the Country radio community, and the music industry as a whole, to know about CRS and its importance to you?
CRS is the singular thing that keeps our music and genre unique. This thing called Country radio; it bonds us in a way that can't even be defined. It keeps this format of radio from falling into the traps of corporate wallpaper like all the others do. You can see the difference, when you go into a building, between the Country guys and everybody else. Guys that come in from the Pop side will tell you the exact same thing. I'll fight until the end to keep it going. I didn't really understand this until I came to Nashville, and I can't really say that I understood it the first several years I was here, since I wasn't directly involved. But, even then I could feel it. Now, having been involved directly for many years, I am more committed than ever. For anyone who is involved in country music in any way, CRS is important.
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