10 Questions with ... Skip Essick

NAME:Skip Essick TITLE:Program/Operations Manager SHOW:KMJ-AM-FM MARKET:Fresno COMPANY:Peak Broadcasting BORN:Toledo, Ohio RAISED:Lima, Ohio

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

On air jock WGRD in Grand Rapids, MI 71-80. Program Director WSPD, Toledo 80-82, Program Director WOOD AM/FM Grand Rapids 82-89, Program Director WHAS Louisville 89-95, Program Director WJR Detroit 95-96, Market Manager Clear Channel 1996-2007.

1. What made you decide to get into radio? Why radio?

My father's brother, my uncle Lou Essick, was in radio in the Carolinas and Georgia following WW2. When I was a kid, he used to come up to Toledo during the summer to visit. He drove a neat car and had a great looking wife - and I thought "I want to be him" when I grow up. So, essentially, it was about cars and women.

2. About what are you most passionate these days?

Producing a great radio station. I want compelling product, with energy and momentum all the time. Dead air, sloppy board work, crappy production kill. I have no political agenda. I play the hits for the target audience. And our target audience leans to the right.

3. You've programmed and managed some major stations before joining KMJ, the heritage station in Fresno. How has the radio business changed since you started, and how have you had to change to meet the challenges of recent years?

I also am a firm believer that advertising is the foot on the accelerator that drives our economy. If commerce stops, we're out of business. Our sales efforts need to improve, utilizing the new technologies to benefit our advertising customers. Unfortunately, too may of our sales people reach into the old, tired, radio satchel of shit and deliver yet another lame remote or on-air ticket giveaway.

4. Here's a related question: KMJ, like some of your previous stations, is a heritage station with an entrenched reputation; what does a station like KMJ need to do to still be a viable, dominant force in the market ten, fifteen, twenty years from now? Where do you see KMJ in the coming years?

5. Of what are you most proud?

My kids. My son Eric is a PHD at Boston University working on stuff that will save lives. My daughter Cara is a director for the Make A Wish Foundation of Michigan. They are wonderful people and I enjoy them and appreciate them very much. And I have two grand daughters too - Olivia and Brooklyn.

6. You're a Midwesterner of long standing who moved two years ago to California. What do you miss most about Michigan and what do you like best about being in Fresno?

I miss my kids and friends in Grand Rapids. I like the milder weather in Fresno and, of course, I love the station.

7. Who are your mentors, influences, and inspirations in the business?

My mentors are Ron White - he taught me a lot about programming. I still think he is one of the best programmers in the country. And Mike Lareau. Mike was the GM and President of Wood Broadcasting. He gave me my first News/Talk programming job and, to this day, we chat regularly. He truly is a man of integrity and he ran his stations that way.

8. What do you do to relax?

Once a year I go to Canada - about 300 miles north of Toronto - and fish. I've been going to the same place, and staying in the same cabin, for 52 years. My grandfather started going there in 1937. Our whole family goes - my mom, my sisters, my brother, spouses, grand kids. It's really a great time. And you have to boat or fly in - the place is not accesible by car. It's the one time of the year where I disconnect - becuase there is no cell phone or internet service there.

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

...checking my stocks ...which, like for everyone else, sucks.

10. What's the best advice you ever got? The worst?

As for the worst - an old DJ in Lima, Ohio told me not to get in the business. He said I would fail.