10 Questions with ... Mike Allen

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

WROQ/Anderson-Greenville-Spartanburg, SC ... August 1987-November 2000

WYBB & WCOO/Charleston, SC ... November 2000 to present

1) What was your first job in radio? Early influences?

I worked on the AM side of WROQ (WAIM-A), did weekends and was the person who made the automation tape for later in the day.

2) If you were just starting out in radio, knowing now what you didn't then, would you still do it?

I might do it differently, but I'd still do it.

3) What career path would you be following had it not been for this industry?

I got out of computer programming because radio looked like more fun. Now I spend my whole day ... programming computers

4) What makes your station or market unique? How does this compare to other markets or stations you have worked at?

On some level radio is radio everywhere ... Charleston has a vibrant music scene and unlike a lot of other destination towns, Charleston has a unique sense of identity where you are welcome, but you won't change who and what we are.

5) How do you feel terrestrial radio competes with the satellite radio and Internet these days?

Look at the Jacobs Media study on technology that just came out ... The rise of Pandora. Satellite was just the start of the competition.

Hopefully programmers are out there creating radio stations that can get people to surrender some of their iPod/Pandora/satellite time to a station that is so good, so interesting that they don't have a choice.

6) Where do you see the industry and yourself five years from now?

The industry is in line for a realignment after some of its Wall Street hangover goes away. As for me, hopefully making great radio here or somewhere.

7) What can we be doing with our station websites to better our stations as a whole?

Pet peeve -- I can't tell you how many listeners I've spoken to or traded e-mails with over the years where they've gotten to the point that they don't expect us to respond! Someone will send me an e-mail with a question or occasionally a complaint and they seem genuinely amazed at a personal response. We have so many more tools to talk back to the listeners and I'm afraid we aren't using them.

8) How is the relationship between programmer and record label changing? For better or worse?

I've always viewed the relationship between the two as overlapping circles. One circle is my agenda and the other is theirs. Where they overlap, we can work easily and well together. Where they don't, it's not personal. It just doesn't work for either of us.

Having said that with labels crunching down on staff it's becoming harder and harder to get together to do a fun promotion that might be good for everybody.

9) Describe your weekly music meeting

On both stations, my music directors Potter and Joel Frank, and I listen to music as it arrives. We put our thoughts on a post it and pass it around. Once we have our thoughts on it we know where it's going. For digital distribution we're still working on a system that works for everybody that includes an occasional e-mail about what I've loaded on my Zune.

a) What is the process when you listen to new music?

As noted above, as it comes in digitally I make a playlist with a date on it and listen and make notes ... music directors do the same. As for CDs we all listen and pass them around. If we like something a lot we'll usually ask for a full so we can hear some more depth from the artist.

b) Approximately how important by percentage is gut, research, sales, video play, and chart position when determining the status of a record?

Gut is 50%, then there is the story of the artist at about 25% and chart is 25%. Sales can influence me but not if the song doesn't catch me first.

10) What format does not exist that should? Would it work?

Rock and Rap together ... play it for the 12-30 year olds who listen to both, Balance would be tough, but in a major metro you might make it work. Programmers make more of the boundaries between these two types of music than actually exist on people's Ipods.

What is the one truth that has held constant throughout your career?

I heard it attributed to General Hooker from the Civil War: Get there first with the most and you're likely to win." Kind of an early Trout and Reis.

What is the best advice you would give to young programmers/promotion people?

Learn every job in the station ... I've had them all except for General Manager

If you could add any one full-time position to your budget with no questions asked, what would it be?

Full-time web master who also can do really great production

Who would be your dream guest on the show?

Eric Clapton

Favorite artist you have met?

BB King or Warren Haynes...Both really cool...Great with listeners and will take the time to talk to you or your listeners without seeming impatient.