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10 Questions with ... Chadd Scott
July 31, 2007
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NAME:Chadd ScottTITLE:ProducerSHOW:The Sports TapMARKET:Syndicated regionally throughout the SouthCOMPANY:TGR Media Productions, LLCBORN:5/9/75 in Waukesha, WIRAISED:Waukesha, WI
BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
Started working in radio in Auburn, AL hosting a music morning show, a sports talk show, doing sports reporting and high school play-by-play. Moved to Birmingham, AL where I was a producer for Richard Dixon at WAPI and hosted a talk show on WJOX. Then went on to produce for Michael Savage, 790 the Zone in Atlanta and most recently at ESPN Radio with Tony Kornheiser, Colin Cowherd and Jason Smith.
1. What got you into radio? Why radio?
I was a huge sports fan as a kid and in high school - this was the early 90s when sports talk radio was really starting to take off - I remember skipping out of school to go sit in the parking lot to listen to WSCR out of Chicago in my Buick Regal. I lived in suburban Milwaukee, WI and could just BARELY get the signal, but I'd listen to Mike North and Dan Jiggets and McNeil and Boers and Mike Murphy and as much as I loved the sports, I found myself fascinated by how I could listen to these guys and the time went so quickly, before I knew it, I'd been in my car 40 minutes. So, over time, I became more interested in the "radio" tactics and the personalities and on-air styles they developed and then one day it hit me - hey, I could do that!
2. About what are you most passionate these days?
I'm on a pretty big environmental kick right now. I've always been an animal and nature lover, but over the past two or three years, I find myself more engaged in a "green" lifestyle and donating my time and money and energy to wildlife protection, habitat restoration and energy efficiency.
When you talk on the radio for a living, sometimes you question if your life has the significance and purpose it should and helping to protect the earth in my free time gives me that while I essentially screw around all day for a job.
3. You got to work with some heavyweight hosts at ESPN and elsewhere- what would you say is the most important thing you learned from them?
From Michael Savage, I learned how to "go all the way." If you're going to make noise in this business with so many voices on terrestrial radio, satellite radio, internet radio, podcasts, you can't hold anything back. That man has a tremendous passion for his content and lets it rip every day; working with him daily was an eye opener about how to be courageous and fearless on the air.
From Tony Kornheiser I learned the value of storytelling. Tony is funny and knows a lot of people and is smart, but his storytelling is world class and separates him from his peers. I realized working with him that my storytelling as a host is not where it needs to be and it's something I've made an effort to work on because of him.
From Colin Cowherd I learned how to write to prep a show for good content and the power of being personal. Far from just printing out stories, Colin writes a good deal of his commentaries, not to read back verbatim on the air necessarily, but to organize his thoughts and sharpen his arguments; that was a real awakening. He also had the guts at ESPN to break down the walls between his personal life and the audience that all the other hosts have built up. Colin is a true man of the people, not a glossy product like many nationally syndicated sports talk hosts. Colin openly talked about his marriage, his divorce, the birth of his children, his alcoholic father, his rural upbringing and many other intimately personal experiences from his life and I respect the hell out of him for that.
4. You're returning to the South, where you went to school and worked, to produce and appear on a Southern sports talk show. What's different about sports talk in the South? Is it all SEC football and nothing else? Is there a particular attitude or viewpoint that's different from, say, the national audience on ESPN or up north where you've been living?
What's different about sports talk in the South is that it's more singularly focused on one topic - college football - than anywhere else in the country with the possible exception of Boston and the Red Sox. Don't forget, until very recently, even pro football in Dixie was irrelevant because for most of their histories, the Saints, Falcons and Buccaneers all stunk. It wasn't until the 90s that the Jags and Titans came on the scene, so the NFL in the Deep South is still fairly new and just now creating large fan bases where as Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, etc have developed hundreds of thousands of alumni and fans over the course of 70+ years of great success.
I would also say the average sports radio listener in the South is more likely to be weary of a host he considers an outsider, there's definitely a sense of "are you one of us" you get from listeners there that I don't think is as pronounced in other parts of the country. Sports fans in the South make you prove you speak their language before embracing you.
5. Here's a chance to sell "The Sports Tap." What's it all about? What do you hope the show will become, and what would you say are the best reasons for affiliates to pick the show up?
"The Sports Tap" is about bringing Southern sports fans what they want every day - college football. From candid opinions, to gossip, to interviews with coaches and analysts and recruiting news, the three of us doing the show, myself and the hosts Brien Straw and Stark Harbour, live the college football fan lifestyle and will bring that passion to our audience every night.
I hope the show becomes no less than the voice of Southern college football, a place where fans, coaches and opinion makers turn in nightly to get a pulse on the community of Southern college football. I hope it becomes a natural extension of afternoon drive for our affiliates and the rarest of all things in radio - syndicated programming that comes cheap and delivers ratings and revenue.
The best reasons for a station to sign up with "The Sports Tap" are that we're on the ABC satellite which everyone has a receiver for and we're syndicated out of the Cox/WSB studios in Atlanta by Cox who knows how to syndicate as well as anyone in the country, so the show - which is fully automated - will be technically sound and easy to carry. But more than that, instead of losing the audience your afternoon drive show has built up once the "network" comes back on and resumes talking about Sox-Yankees or Kobe Bryant ad nauseam, "The Sports Tap" is here for you to continue serving your listeners with high quality content aimed right at them and produced for them by people who share the same passions and backgrounds.
6. On chaddscott.com, you run down a wide range of opinions on political, social, and sports topics. Is there part of you that would love to do a non-sports talk show? Can we expect that from you someday?
That's a dangerous thing, a sports talk personality with varying interests dropping out of sports to do general talk. I think Dan Patrick is struggling with that question right now, it's an idea Tony Kornheiser wrestled with when he left ESPN, it's something Colin Cowherd and I talked about many times. Here's the rub, we're all sports fans first and foremost and while we have many interests, sports will always be #1 to us. As often as there are days when I'd rather talk about movies or music or the environment than sports, there would be far more days when doing a general talk show I'd rather talk about the Tennessee-Florida game than immigration.
I know what I am and that's a sports guy, and I'd rather be the guy at a sports station who knows less about sports, but more about everything else, than the host at a talk station who knows less about everything else, but more about sports. What you hope to find is a situation that allows you to have sports as the centerpiece, but also the freedom to stray into other topics when you so choose.
7. Who are your heroes?
Look at Mount Rushmore. Stack up your life against what those men did and the risks they took. Those are heroes.
8. What do you do for fun?
I love to travel to national parks, visit museums, get out in nature.
9. Fill in the blank: I can't make it through the day without____________.
...e-mail.
10. What's the best advice you've ever gotten? The worst?
Best advice was given to me when I first got into radio by my mentor Brett Michaels way back in Auburn and he said, "if you're not having fun, neither is your audience." Everything I've ever learned in radio was built off that foundation.
The worst advice I've ever been given, and I've been given this a lot, "tone it down."
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