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10 Questions with ... Dom Theodore
January 31, 2006
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NAME:Dom TheodorePOSITION:Regional VP/ProgrammingSTATION:WKQI/CC MichiganMARKET:Detroit, MIOWNER:Clear Channel
Please outline your radio career so far:
On-Air / Production at WHYT / Detroit, WDFX / Detroit, WIOG /Saginaw, WTCF/Saginaw
OM/WILN & WTBB Panama City
On-Air / MD and eventually PD at WFLZ/Tampa
PD/ KRBE Houston
OM/PD WKQI Detroit
RVPP/ Clear Channel Michigan1 Congratulations on your recent promotion to RVPP CC/Michigan and OM CC/Detroit. What will this mean for you, in terms of your daily duties?
I will continue to oversee the day-to-day operations at Channel 955, but now I'll also be working with all of the Clear Channel PD's in Michigan to help them develop their strategies. I'm very lucky to have so many outstanding programmers in this region who are smart and competitive... it makes that part of the job much easier.
2 What is your favorite part of the job?
I still love the creative part of this job... thinking up promotions, new ways to position the radio station, writing imaging, and trying things that haven't been done before.
3 What is the morning wake-up battle like in Detroit these days?
Detroit remains one of the most competitive morning markets in the country, and I'm very proud to have one of the best CHR morning shows in the country with "Mojo in the Morning." There are several high profile 20+ year heritage morning shows in this market, and Mojo has beaten them all in the last five years. The team of Mojo, Spike, Sara, Chad, and Kyra is one of the hardest working and most unique morning shows I've ever worked with. They know how to take creative risks and make it pay off big.
4 In your view, what things can radio do to insure its long-term health and survival?
We need to put the "show" back into "show business." Somewhere along the way, our industry decided it was in the "formatics" business, not the entertainment business, and we spent years developing efficient positioning statements, super-tight predictable rotations, and then found low-maintenance announcers that were negotiated down to complete non-offensiveness, and placed them in-between the records. The result was a perfect "appliance" that dispenses music. Problem is, technology evolved and now we have even better appliances for that purpose, so radio became less important. If we want to succeed long-term, we need to play to our strengths - companionship, emotion, unique and compelling content that's difficult to duplicate and difficult to leave out of fear that you might miss something by turning it off. This is done primarily in-between the records, and we need to understand that in the future it might be delivered on a different type of device. If your radio station is a living, breathing thing, it really won't matter what platform it's delivered on because users will seek it out if it's meaningful to them. How meaningful is your radio station? What are you doing to make it matter to listeners? What are you doing to become more than an appliance? The answers to these questions are critical to our future.
5 What goes into creating a productive, non-adversarial PD/Air Talent relationship?
Start with hiring the right people in the first place. Find people that are already good and then help them to become great by empowering them with the ability to take creative risks with the knowledge that it's ok to make a mistake as long as you don't make the same mistake twice. Take a bullet for them once in a while, and I guarantee they'll take a bullet for you too. Keep the structure down to a minimum... if you hire true performers, they don't need too much of it, but make sure they know that with that freedom comes responsibility - hold them accountable for their results.
6 Who is your favorite air personality not on your staff and why do you like them?
There are two - Kane from WFLZ and Lisa Paige from WIOQ. Both are superstars and they understand what I said earlier about companionship, emotion, and unique and compelling content.
7 What was your favorite station to listen to when you were a kid?
WHYT/Detroit... This station raised an entire generation of people who wanted to do this for a living because of what we heard growing up, including myself, Alex Tear from WKST, Mark Anderson from Audience Development Group, and voice guy Sean Caldwell, just to name a few.
8 Do you have a favorite hobby outside of radio?
I know it doesn't sound like a hobby, but I like playing around with stocks and investing. Also boating and anything else water-related.
9 What advice you would give people new to the business?
Never say "it's not my job." Some of the biggest opportunities of my career have come along because I was willing to do thankless jobs that others didn't want. It got me noticed by the right people and they gave me a chance to prove myself on a larger scale.
10 What is the current state of the radio 'talent pool' ... slim pickings or a smorgasbord of talent? Please feel free to elaborate.
There's no doubt that it has become harder to find new talent, but in many ways we've done this to ourselves. We haven't taken the time to embrace the most enthusiastic people that walk into our doors. Why not give that intern who keeps leaving you tapes the chance to do a weekend overnight shift? Passion is the number one factor that separates jocks that will make it from those who won't, but if our radio stations lack passion, why would anybody be inspired to want to do this for a living? I have always found that the best up-and-coming talent grew up listening to other great jocks and great radio stations. If we're really good on this side of the mic, then we'll inspire the next generation of talent on the other side. We CAN make it better.
Bonus Questions
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
I always wanted to be on the radio - true story! I used to make tapes of myself talking up vinyl records that I played on my Fisher-Price record player. I wasn't all that bad for a seven-year old!
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