10 Questions with ... Jason Dixon

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

Intern/Board Op/Producer 970 WFLA/Tampa

Jock/Morning Show Producer/Stunt Boy/Every Other Job You Can Think Of (I was even a traffic reporter for a hot minute) WFLZ (Power 93, The Power Pig)/Tampa

PD 620 WDAE (The Sports Animal)/Tampa

Senior Director of Broadcasting and Programming, Tampa Bay Lightning

PD WJZL (1010XL)/Jacksonville

PD/Ops Manager WCMC (99.9 The Fan)/WDNC (620 The Buzz)/WCLY (ESPN Deportes)/Raleigh, NC

PD WMGC (Detroit Sports 105.1)/Detroit

1. How did you get into radio in the first place? And why radio?

When I was at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa in 1989, I had an hour in-between two classes that I needed to take, and there was a “TV and Radio” class. I figured, “I watch TV. I listen to the radio. This is one I should be able to pass.” I thought I was headed into TV, doing behind-the-scenes stuff. I was pretty good at running the switcher. Then I heard the professor tell another guy about an internship opportunity at 970 WFLA. I went down to the pay phone and called Steve Hall, who was the News Director. The next day, I had an interview, and by the next week, I was working as an intern in the newsroom.

Then I just fell in love with the business.

From there I worked as a board op for talk shows. I helped out Tedd Webb in the sports department. I ran “Dick Clark’s Rock Roll and Remember” on what was then Good Time Oldies Z93. When the FM flipped to the Power Pig, I segued records on weekend overnights before running into Marc Chase in the hallway and asking him if I could talk on the radio. He said, “Yeah, but not more than four times an hour.”

2. Having programmed traditional sports stations in several markets before going to satellite, what are the differences, if any, in programming philosophy between programming a broadcast station and satellite channels? Although you're not under the same month-to-month PPM pressure of a broadcast station, how important are internal ratings and research to your programming decisions?

The main difference is that in terms of sports coverage for the most part we program to the narrow and not the broad. Most of our sports channels are talking to a very specific niche, so in some ways you have to re-train your brain to program to a goal of super serving fans of a particular sport as opposed to the broad sports audience.

There are some unique challenges that our style presents, along with the amount of diverse programming that we produce. We are always trying to build a better mouse trap when it comes to content awareness and cross promotion.

As to the ratings part of your question, the answer for the most part is “not very much.” Don’t get me wrong, we use some principles that PPM has taught us when coaching our talent. Listening habits are what they are whether it be terrestrial radio, SiriusXM, or podcasts. The commute remains the same no matter what people are listening to, and people don’t adjust their attention span based on what input they’ve selected on their radio. Since we are not beholden to those weeklies and monthlies, we can be patient in developing hosts and shows. We have layers of pretty smart radio people, from our PDs to management like Steve Cohen, Brian Hamilton, Chris Eno, and, of course, Scott Greenstein who are able to identify talent and put them in positions to succeed without the day to day weight that PPM puts on the shoulders of terrestrial programmers.

To Steve’s credit, he is constantly looking for ways to grow and retain audience. Part of the reason that he brought me on board was my experience in the world of terrestrial radio. He’s asked me to try to keep one foot in that world and to keep tabs on current best practices and find ways to apply them on our platform.

3. Before you went into sports radio, you produced a top-rated, very-high-profile morning show, and since then you've worked with a wide array of talent. What advice would you give a neophyte programmer or producer about working with talent, especially high-profile hosts?

It’s all about trust. Look, it’s the talent who has to be behind that microphone for four hours. It’s their name on the marquee. They are the ones putting their neck on the line every day. They have to understand that you as a programmer or producer have only one goal, and that is to see them succeed.

The high profile, well established host has history on his or her side. They’ve been through 10 PDs and 20 Producers. The only constant in their career has been themselves. So I try to find ways to complement their process. Use small suggestions, then show them results. Once that established talent starts to see those results, the level of trust starts to grow and then you are off and running.

4. SiriusXM has done a great job in superserving relative niche sports talk audiences, with channels dedicated to the major sports, college sports, fantasy, soccer... could you see eSports grow to the point where it becomes fodder for a full channel? Women's sports? What kind of growth would you have to see in those areas before it became more than just qualifying for a weekly show -- does Vegas have to take action on them first?

I don’t know if there is a definitive answer on when something makes the jump from a one-off show to a full channel. Of course, the audience needs to be there. We also need to be able to present the product in a way that matches up to the audience expectations. To build a channel, you have to have a programmer that is passionate about the subject and the talent to present it. Our subscribers expect a certain level of star power when we launch a project so we have to be sure to have the right people lined up for each situation.

We had a daily block of eSports programming on for a few months and it was probably a little bit ahead of the curve. I think the key to success with an eSports channel (or any other niche channel) is to present it in the way that the fans of that sport want to consume it. Watch an eSports broadcast on Twitch and the pace is frantic. The Shoutcasters don’t call the game in the same way that Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth do on Sunday Night Football. Do eSports fans want to hear a show that’s an hour long with four 12-minute segments? Let’s re-think the model to serve those fans. We shouldn’t make those fans conform to the way we want to do radio. The talent, the clock, the imaging, the storytelling. They all need to be adjusted to fit that particular niche.

I programmed our Olympic Pop-Up Channel “Rio Olympics Radio” last year, and while we used staff from our sports department to produce the channel, we reminded everyone that the Olympics were 25 percent sports and 75 percent storytelling. The approach needed to be different. We needed to produce content that told those stories to wrap around all of the play by play.

Another great example of tailoring your presentation to your audience is The Vegas Stats and Information Network. This channel is the vehicle for Brent Musburger’s daily show, but mainly it looks at sports from the perspective of how the day’s news is impacting the betting lines. Injuries, transactions, weather, are all looked at through the prism how they impact someone that might bet on the game. I love some of the nuance in their presentation. It’s the little stuff. When they are talking about rain impacting a game, it’s not “a 25 percent chance of rain.” Instead it’s “the odds of this one staying dry are 3 to 1.”

5. In sports, generally, coaches have played the sport; in some cases, players won't respect a coach who hasn't played the game at least to some level. You've done on-air work (and still fill in) over the years -- do you think that a PD needs to have done the job before he or she can really do the job right?

Not really. I think passion and being a student of the game more than makes up for not logging a lot of time on air. Obviously it’s helpful to have spent some time behind a mic so that you can better relate to your talent and help you work your way through scenarios as a program director, but I don’t think it’s a necessity. Frankly, some of the least effective talent-coaching that I’ve done has started with the phrase, “When I was on the air…” I believe the talent that I’ve worked with has much more respect for the time that I’ve put in learning the ins and outs of programming than anything that I’ve ever done on air.

There is that old saying, “Those who can’t, teach.” Well, nobody has ever handed me an award for my on air work.

6. One of the standard questions I ask programmers of traditional radio stations is how social media is used and integrated into their operation, whether it's as show prep or engagement with the audience or promotional... or an afterthought. Is social media an important part of SiriusXM's sports programming -- how, if you use it for that purpose, DO you use it?

It’s about content awareness for us. We cast a pretty wide net in the world of sports; Social media provides a platform for letting our subscribers and potential subscribers know about some of the cool things that our channels have done. I spend a ton of time listening to our sports channels and I have a hard time hearing all of the good stuff in real time, so social media is a good way to direct subscribers to specific pieces of content.

We make sure that social media is included in part of our coverage plans for big events. We send social media producers to the remotes to create content that brings our subscribers closer to what we are covering. We send out a lot of video in an effort to share the access that we have at these marquis events with our subscribers.

The audience engagement piece is interesting. I think we are getting closer and closer to the day when asking people to pick up the phone and call a talk show will be an exercise in futility. We need to be thinking about the best ways to use social media in real time to drive audience interactions in the same way that phone calls do now.

My use of social media is of course as a news source, but also to keep track of some of my personal interests and industry news. If I’m actually posting something, it’s usually a way to scratch a creative itch with mostly snark or attempts at humor. Twitter is a lot like talking up a 15 second intro on a record. It’s a good exercise in word economy.

7. Who have been your influences in the business?

I was so lucky in that my first gig was with Jacor in Tampa during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. I will put the group of programmers and talent assembled in that building during that era up against anyone anywhere.

I’m almost afraid to start listing names for fear of leaving someone out, but honestly I owe a ton to folks like:

• Marc Chase
• Gabe Hobbs
• BJ Harris
• Jeff Kapugi
• Lionel

On the sports side of things, guys like Scott Masteller, Bruce Gilbert, Rick Scott, Bill Wicket, and Sean Henry are people that I’ve learned a lot from not only in programming and management, but how they’ve handled their business. They’ve always been there to offer advice when needed.

8. Of what are you most proud?

Can anyone really answer this with just one thing?

I mean, The Power Pig era was something that was so special. What a group of people! We were family all working together for a common goal. We worked together and played together. For that matter, everyone in that Gandy building got along so well. Oh, and that group of people just happened to be a collection of some of the best minds in our business. I got spoiled. I thought every radio job would be like that.

I was privileged to be a part of a Stanley Cup-winning organization during my time with the Tampa Bay Lightning. I have such an appreciation for what those players went through to win a championship. You also learn how good the front office staff has to be to support and leverage the success that the team was having on the ice.

I’d like to think that everywhere else that I’ve been, Jacksonville, Raleigh, and Detroit, we’ve left the thing in better shape than we found it, and made friends along the way.

9. Fill in the blank: I can't make it through the day without _______________.

…learning something.

It’s probably cliché, but I really do try to learn something every day. Sometimes it’s something about work or life from our younger staff. Sometimes the most innocuous thought will pop into my head and I’ll ask Alexa to Wikipedia it for me.

10. What's the most important lesson you learned in your radio career?

Be nice and don’t burn bridges. It’s a point of pride that I could walk in the front door of any place that I’ve ever worked and be welcomed in.

It’s radio, so some situations are not going to have a happy ending. In those situations try to get out in front of it and make the best of it. When those not so nice thoughts are popping into your head, don’t say anything. Save them for your book.