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10 Questions with ... Johnny Maze
December 4, 2018
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. Active Rock is an ebb-and-flow format. You hear more recurrents and golds than new songs nowadays and it's been hard for bands to break through. Crossovers from the Alternative format are also finding their way on the many Active Rock stations and doing well
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1) What was your first job in radio and early influences?
My first job in radio was an internship at a station in Houston right out of high school as a college freshman. Growing up in Houston and having family on the East Coast afforded me the opportunity to listen to great stations like 93Q, 101 KLOL, 97 ROCK and KRBE in Houston as well as Z100, HOT 97 and 92.3 K-ROCK in NYC, all which were amazing stations with top-notch on-air talent. I found myself listening more to the imaging and talent than the music most of the time.
2) Can you give us a quick career overview with stations and positions up to now?
As with many others, I've moved around and have worked at some awesome stations throughout my career. On-air for three years at KTBZ/Houston, PD of WRXW/Jackson, PD of WXZZ/Lexington, PD of KICT-KFXJ/Wichita were some great highlights and honors.
3) How long have you been in Huntsville and what makes your Classic Rocker WTAK so unique?
I've been in Huntsville going on eight months now and love it here. It's a great progressive city and growing rapidly. 10WTAK is a heritage station that's been around a long time here in the TN Valley with a top-rated heritage morning show.
4) While you do afternoons on WTAK, you have the legendary "Big Show" with John Boy and Billy in mornings. How are they performing for the station in the market?
John Boy and Billy do great for us and perform very well with our core demo and continue to compete really well with Adults.
5) What does the Classic Rock format need to do today and in the future to continue to stay relevant while playing music that is sometimes over 40 years old?
You continue to hear more Classic Rock songs in commercials, movie soundtracks, sporting events. Providing solid content is very important. Being creative in music features to highlight the format is also a great way to keep the format fresh. Specialty weekends are always a great way to keep the format sounding fresh. Connecting to your listeners via social media is important. Many of the bands are still touring or doing farewell tours and releasing live/'best of' CD's, so finding ways to connect listeners to those happy memories of then to making new memories today.
6) Besides your Classic Rock experience, you've programmed the Active Rock format as well. What's your take on that format and "current" Rock music overall?
Active Rock is an ebb-and-flow format. You hear more recurrents and golds than new songs nowadays and it's been hard for bands to break through. Crossovers from the Alternative format are also finding their way on the many Active Rock stations and doing well.
7) Besides WTAK, you recently launched a new Alternative station in the market (WQRV- HD3). How is that going so far?
The response has been huge and very positive. Huntsville has never had a station totally dedicated to the Alternative format. Listeners really only had one option for 'new' rock music on terrestrial radio, and as they have found us, they are saying how happy they are that we are here and setting their preset to ALT 92.9. For only being two months old, we're still working hard to get the word out and marketing the station using social media, cross-promotes on our sister stations, and TV commercial visibility.
8) The Alternative format has really seen a big revival in many new markets over the last year. To what do you attribute all of these new Alt stations popping up?
The format has a great balance of new as well as proven gold, which is great. I love hearing a gold song from Pearl Jam, Weezer, Foo Fighters or Blink 182 balanced with all the new music from 21 Pilots, Muse, Imagine Dragons and Florence and the Machine and the like.
9) As PD of four stations and on air full-time, what do you do to de-stress and try to have a balanced life?
Concerts, road trips, baseball and football season and an occasional movie seem to be the most rewarding for me to balance my life out of radio. I always enjoy quality time with my dog SJ after work and on the weekends.
10) Finally, since you have Texas roots, I know you're a huge Texas football fan. How do you think both the Houston Texans and Univ. of Texas Longhorns will end up this season?
This has been a really fun year of watching the Houston Texans and Texas Longhorns play with both exceeding expectations and doing well. It's funny, when I moved here, people here don't say, "Welcome to Alabama." The first question they ask is "Who's side are you on?" meaning are you an Alabama or an Auburn fan. I've smiled and said 'neither' as I reply back with a 'Hook Em'. However, I did buy both T-shirts to somewhat fit in. And it's been really funny being here in Alabama with so many Crimson Tide fans. I hear Roll Tide at least five times a day.
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