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Guest 10 Questions Take-Over with ... Robby Bridges & @ShittyRadioJock
January 11, 2022
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. For this week’s 10 Questions, All Access turned over the keys to veteran programmer and air talent Robby Bridges, who in turn posed the questions to Instagram sensation/provocateur @ShittyRadioJock. Robby Bridges is currently the Program Director and morning host at Classic Rock WWZY (107.1 The Boss)/Monmouth-Ocean. @ShittyRadioJock’s IG page currently has close to 3600 followers. What follows is an edited version of their conversation. Their comments and opinions are their own, and not that of the staff and management of All Access.
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RB: Have you been surprised that the page has struck such a nerve among radio ranks, inspiring a sizeable fan base and many big names?
SRJ: I don’t find it surprising. I find it refreshing. In the sense that so many in this industry can relate to the stuff being posted. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean they agree with everything that I post, but relatability is what I go for. Know your audience you’re creating content for. Whether it’s for the @ShittyRadioJock page or my station's social pages, I try to create content that is relatable to my target audience and create content listeners or followers can relate to and engage with. Whether it's by laughing, sharing, liking or maybe even getting mad, I'm ok with that, as long as they are engaged with it.
RB: Have you been surprised by the intense negative reaction from some and their efforts to reveal your identity?
SRJ: No. I’ve worked in radio long enough to know this industry has some serious egotistical, authoritative megalomaniacs in it. The ones who want to “expose” my identity are usually a failing GM or PD (and a few jocks who felt the need to stick up for a piece of garbage radio personality who had been exposed) who are part of the problem in radio. It’s amazing how many people have zero problem giving up information about a corporate PD, a PD at the local level, a GM or even a jock who treats employees like they are beneath them.
RB: What inspired you to start the page?
An Account Executive I work with was telling me about the @ShittyPD page on Instagram. After looking at some of the posts I started thinking there should be a page specifically from a jocks perspective, while always being real and raw. No holds barred. Addressing issues jocks deal with on a daily basis from PDs, AEs, GMs, the listeners, and last but not least…everybody's favorite…our friends at corporate. Thing’s jocks wish they could talk about but don’t out of fear of losing their jobs. (See the word “jobs’ was plural because a lot of jocks need to have more than one job to work in radio).
RB: What’s been the biggest surprise?
SRJ: The biggest surprise to me is how many Program Directors, General Managers and people at the corporate level in radio are willing to look the other way on issues that the average employee in radio or ANY JOB would be terminated for.
RB: In one word…the state of the radio business in America today is?
SRJ: Tumultuous. Executives continue to say radio is strong, yet they are the same ones who continue to lay off Program Directors, General Managers, Engineers, and Talent due to budget cuts and company restructuring. Everyone is doing the jobs of two, three or sometimes four people, yet wages are at a 20 year low for most, the cost of living has increased tremendously, and no one ever has a budget for even a 3% cost of living increase to at least keep up with the times. Jocks are going five, six, and seven years without a raise. I’d like to believe the state of radio is strong but corporate radio sure makes that dream a lot more difficult to buy as the years progress.
RB: What happens in our business in the year ahead?
SRJ: Anyone who says they can tell you what’s going to happen in the next 30 days in radio is full of six day old donkey excrement. Do I think there will be more layoffs? Yep. Will the jocks and Program Directors who survive this next round be required to take on additional duties with little to no extra pay? Yep.
RB: You’re hiring a PD today, format/market doesn’t matter, what are you looking for?
SRJ: Obviously track record matters, but I’m talking with jocks that worked with them. There’s been quite a few Program Directors that have successful track records, yet I find out they treat their employees horribly and no one likes them. Not because they push jocks for excellence, but because of how that Program Director treated their employees. That’s a no-go for me. Talent always gets overlooked0, but talent is what helped make that Program Director successful.
RB: Same question in an air personality?
SRJ: I look at social media, I look at the creativity the jock has, ideas they have. What are they doing that no one else in my market is doing? What benchmarks did, or do they have on their show. What would they like to do that maybe they haven’t been allowed to do in the market they are currently in? Are they open to new ideas, are they OK with constructive criticism? Do they want to win? I’d rather have to pull a personality back than constantly have to push them to be creative. Lazy jocks equal complacency and complacency gives the competitors in the market an open door to come in and slaughter you just by their jocks recognizing your complacency and trying.
RB: I believe many of radio’s wounds are self-inflicted. Agree?
SRJ: 100%. Corporate radio has gotten into this trend of cutting corners everywhere we can. Once those corners have been cut, corporate figures out a way to shave them down a little more, and then a little more, and then some more. A year and some change later corporate does another round of cutting corners and another round of RIFs. And the cycle repeats itself over…and over…and over again until we are left with the mess we have right now. I mean it's so bad I can't even melt down horse tranquilizers and shoot it in my eye socket in the studio anymore. God how times have changed. It’s ridiculous. (I feel compelled to note that I don't actually melt down horse tranquilizers and shoot it in my eye socket in the studio. Everyone knows it already comes in liquid form.)
RB: Name a jock or radio station from the past we’d all be smart to go back and study/take a page from?
SRJ: Sean “Hollywood” Hamilton. I know he’s still on the air but when growing up, every time we’d drive up to New York to visit my aunt, and he was on, it was always a solid entertaining show.
Bonus Questions
RB: Best/worst positioning statement ever?
SRJ: It was Mother’s Day weekend, and I was enjoying vacation in a "vacation destination" city on the East Coast with my family when I heard a sweeper that, after hearing it, I said out loud, “What In The Actual Fuck Was That?”
That sweeper said, “Happy Mother’s Day to all the M.I.L.F.s in the (area code).” I thought it was a bad joke at first until a few songs later another Mother’s Day sweeper came on. “Number one with M.I.L.F.S in (city name)” Then a few songs later another one. “M.I.L.F.s love us because we play music like THIIIIISSSSS”..... and then went into a song. This was on a Top 40 station all Mother’s Day weekend.
RB: Will you ever reveal yourself?
SRJ: I’m not planning on it. I think that's part of what makes the @ShittyRadioJock page on Instagram so interesting. No one knows who I am. I might be the one that was sitting next to you at MSBC or I might be the one partying with you and the other PDs at the WWRS 2022 secretly taking pictures while you all snort a bag of California Cornflakes at 2 in the morning. You just never know.
RB: Have you and I ever met? Ha!
SRJ: Have we?
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