A WCCO-AM Makeover?
By Brian Lambert
[UPDATE: Proving, I hope, that I only go with rumors that have
a high probability of achieving reality, Mick Anselmo was in fact
announced this morning as the new top boss at CBS Radio's Twin Cities
properties, with current GM, Mary Niemeyer, re-labeled a VP of Sales.
No new boss opens with an explosion of formats, but it is safe to
assume that Anselmo isn't being brought in to maintain the status quo.]
Why lie? I like a good media rumor.
Today's best has former Clear Channel boss Mick Anselmo joining CBS Radio here in the Twin Cities in some capacity, maybe as early as Tuesday. CBS, of course, would be the owners of WCCO-AM, WLTE-FM, and JACK-FM.
I can not confirm this, but people who routinely snort at the usual media rumors . . . "Stan Turner is coming back to 5!" . . . "Russell Shimooka caught in bizarre love triangle with Cindy Brucato and Ron Schara!" . . . think this deal is going down.
Anselmo is not quite a household name around these parts, but he should be. The guy survived more changes of ownership than a sub-prime mortgage and managed to stay a half step ahead of the Clear Channel profit-takers for years . . . until the summer of '07 when suits from San Antonio showed up at the company's St. Louis Park office to take away his security card and job. It was no coincidence that Anselmo was not in the office at that moment. He was instead up at a Canadian fishing lodge, from which he soon insisted he was as surprised as everyone else.
No one who knows Anselmo believed that. Leaving the suits to fire an empty office was vintage Anselmo. Having known him--not well--for twenty years and worked for him briefly, I tell everyone that the guy is a classic. One part Don Corleone, one part '70s record producer, and three parts world-class, gold-standard bulls**t. In another words: A true character. You don't have to believe a word he says to concede that Anselmo operates with both style and distinctive show-biz bonhomie.
While sucking down free shrimp and meatballs at a bowling alley opening in Lakeville tonight, I had three different conversations about Anselmo at WCCO.
As I say, word is that an announcement could be made as early as Tuesday.
The questions tonight were: Would Anselmo get Mary Niemeyer's job as GM of all three local CBS properties, or would the suits from New York risk giving him only one or two of the Twin Cities stations, forging a truly implausible marriage between Ms. Niemeyer and Don Anselmo?
The obvious business target for CBS is K102, Clear Channel's still successful country music station. Anselmo is hard-wired into the Nashville culture, with plenty of influential friends in the business . . . wait, that's what he always says . . . if anyone came with a solid basis from which to compete against Clear Channel's best property (thereby destabilizing the whole local CC boat), it would be Anselmo.
Music radio formats are all taking death spiral hits from iPods and everything else you can download off the web, but statistics suggest country music fans are among the slowest adapters to cutting-edge technologies. There may be a decade worth of business in hackneyed faux cowboy balladeering. ("Radio country," as the cool kids call it, is like Sean Hannity with a guitar.) But country music fans have a deep class identification with the country music culture, and advertisers believe they can still sell to them.
JACK-FM would be the obvious choice for a format change if Anselmo were to be given the freedom to attack Clear Channel as he sees fit.
WCCO-AM, AKA The Good Neighbor, is, of course, CBS's primary brand here in Minnesota and, for years, a regular source of bafflement . . . as in, "What are they thinking over there?" Frankly, I don't know if Anselmo has any special magic to apply to 'CCO, which explains the suspicion that Niemeyer will stay on and manage that particular "unit."
Anselmo's signature talk creation was, of course, KFAN, where, the story goes, he was too preoccupied with his money-making stations to pay close attention to a roster of knuckleheads who only occasionally talked sports--and who grew too popular while he wasn't looking for him to change. His (and Clear Channel's) experiment with FM talk on KTLK (where I worked) has been uninspiring from the get-go.
The original concept Anselmo presented to me was "a twenty-first century 'CCO with hosts with a range of opinions they were happy to have you hear." Within days of launch, KTLK's "range of opinions" spanned from Rush Limbaugh to Jason Lewis.
There are plenty of intriguing new twists to talk radio, which--provided the content is local--has far better prospects than music, but the Anselmo of Clear Channel fame was locked into some decidedly old-school, well-behind-the-curve thinking.
Too bad. Because the Twin Cities would respond to a thoroughly freshened WCCO-AM.
More later if this thing actually floats.
Why lie? I like a good media rumor.
Today's best has former Clear Channel boss Mick Anselmo joining CBS Radio here in the Twin Cities in some capacity, maybe as early as Tuesday. CBS, of course, would be the owners of WCCO-AM, WLTE-FM, and JACK-FM.
I can not confirm this, but people who routinely snort at the usual media rumors . . . "Stan Turner is coming back to 5!" . . . "Russell Shimooka caught in bizarre love triangle with Cindy Brucato and Ron Schara!" . . . think this deal is going down.
Anselmo is not quite a household name around these parts, but he should be. The guy survived more changes of ownership than a sub-prime mortgage and managed to stay a half step ahead of the Clear Channel profit-takers for years . . . until the summer of '07 when suits from San Antonio showed up at the company's St. Louis Park office to take away his security card and job. It was no coincidence that Anselmo was not in the office at that moment. He was instead up at a Canadian fishing lodge, from which he soon insisted he was as surprised as everyone else.
No one who knows Anselmo believed that. Leaving the suits to fire an empty office was vintage Anselmo. Having known him--not well--for twenty years and worked for him briefly, I tell everyone that the guy is a classic. One part Don Corleone, one part '70s record producer, and three parts world-class, gold-standard bulls**t. In another words: A true character. You don't have to believe a word he says to concede that Anselmo operates with both style and distinctive show-biz bonhomie.
While sucking down free shrimp and meatballs at a bowling alley opening in Lakeville tonight, I had three different conversations about Anselmo at WCCO.
As I say, word is that an announcement could be made as early as Tuesday.
The questions tonight were: Would Anselmo get Mary Niemeyer's job as GM of all three local CBS properties, or would the suits from New York risk giving him only one or two of the Twin Cities stations, forging a truly implausible marriage between Ms. Niemeyer and Don Anselmo?
The obvious business target for CBS is K102, Clear Channel's still successful country music station. Anselmo is hard-wired into the Nashville culture, with plenty of influential friends in the business . . . wait, that's what he always says . . . if anyone came with a solid basis from which to compete against Clear Channel's best property (thereby destabilizing the whole local CC boat), it would be Anselmo.
Music radio formats are all taking death spiral hits from iPods and everything else you can download off the web, but statistics suggest country music fans are among the slowest adapters to cutting-edge technologies. There may be a decade worth of business in hackneyed faux cowboy balladeering. ("Radio country," as the cool kids call it, is like Sean Hannity with a guitar.) But country music fans have a deep class identification with the country music culture, and advertisers believe they can still sell to them.
JACK-FM would be the obvious choice for a format change if Anselmo were to be given the freedom to attack Clear Channel as he sees fit.
WCCO-AM, AKA The Good Neighbor, is, of course, CBS's primary brand here in Minnesota and, for years, a regular source of bafflement . . . as in, "What are they thinking over there?" Frankly, I don't know if Anselmo has any special magic to apply to 'CCO, which explains the suspicion that Niemeyer will stay on and manage that particular "unit."
Anselmo's signature talk creation was, of course, KFAN, where, the story goes, he was too preoccupied with his money-making stations to pay close attention to a roster of knuckleheads who only occasionally talked sports--and who grew too popular while he wasn't looking for him to change. His (and Clear Channel's) experiment with FM talk on KTLK (where I worked) has been uninspiring from the get-go.
The original concept Anselmo presented to me was "a twenty-first century 'CCO with hosts with a range of opinions they were happy to have you hear." Within days of launch, KTLK's "range of opinions" spanned from Rush Limbaugh to Jason Lewis.
There are plenty of intriguing new twists to talk radio, which--provided the content is local--has far better prospects than music, but the Anselmo of Clear Channel fame was locked into some decidedly old-school, well-behind-the-curve thinking.
Too bad. Because the Twin Cities would respond to a thoroughly freshened WCCO-AM.
More later if this thing actually floats.
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
Two thoughts about this.
I'd love to see someone take on K102. As someone who listens to a lot of country music (and has worked at country stations earlier in my career), that station sounds like it was programmed by chimps. Yeah, it's won awards, but so has GM, and it's nearly out of business.
Flipping Jack to a format that played pop-country (nothing old, nothing too twangy) would do extremely well. Oh, and hiring mid-day hosts who didn't sound as if they were reading liner notes while someone held a gun to their head wouldn't hurt either.
I'd love to think that WCCO would get focused, but like you, I'm skeptical. What the Twin Cities needs is at least one talker that can be both entertaining and as politically diverse as the potential audience. But that might require more of a leap of faith than anyone is willing to take in a weak economy.
LAMBERT: I'm so far out of the demographic for "radio country" i should just keep my yap shut ... but ... how is that someone like Lucinda Williams gets virtually no airplay on Twin Cities radio? Or, a better example, was the popularity of Cuban music after The Buena Vista Social Club. Very nice record sales -- zero play on TC commercial music stations. Didn't exist as far they would know. Music radio is destroying itself with risk aversion.
Posted by: Rick Ellis on November 11, 2008 at 2:13 AM
With the rumour of WCCO TV being up for sale, what would happen to WCCO radio ? Nice if t feel to local ownership.
Thanks for finally writing a media related post.
LAMBERT: Did the election go well for you?
Posted by: Jed Leyland on November 11, 2008 at 10:02 AM
It's all about the demos, BL.
Unfortunately, pasty, pudgy faux-French "intellectuals" who are left of Che Guevera are not driving the market.
"hackneyed faux cowboy balladeering"?
Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban.
Look up their record sales.
And maybe try listening to something newer than Boxcar Willie.
Or I'll sick my pal Dwight Y. on ya!
LAMBERT: My, uh, point is that the white hat balladeers are still selling "records".
Posted by: bertram jr on November 11, 2008 at 11:24 AM
"...sucking down free shrimp and meatballs at a bowling alley opening in Lakeville."
Sir, your gig is glamour-filled to be sure. But must you throw it in our faces?
LAMBERT: Did I mention the mini egg rolls?
Posted by: Frogman of Grant on November 11, 2008 at 12:51 PM
Mick is brilliant, entrepreneurial, knows more about radio than the combined executive corps at the media conglomerates and a lot of fun! Radio in the Twin Cities would be better for having him back in it. This is one media rumor I hope is true!
LAMBERT: I prefer "canny" to "brilliant". But I will not dispute that Anselmo is "fun".
Posted by: Fred Hundt on November 11, 2008 at 1:50 PM
I highly doubt there’d be any marriage - plausible or implausible - between Niemeyer and Don. It’s her sandbox and no one else plays in it unless you play by her rules. Even then I still don’t think she’d share. I’d surprised you picked JACK to be country-fied. I would’ve picked Lite. They seem to taking the Joan Rivers approach to format – a nip/tick here, a cut there, pretty soon you have something unrecognizable.
LAMBERT: I don't pretend to know. But it seems robotic JACK would be an easier transition. WLTE is struggling. But it can be tweaked -- a little personality wouldn't hurt -- to drag another couple years of life out of it. Mick of course used to be a huge fan of HD radio. I'm guessing he's over that obsession.
Posted by: Jane Doe on November 11, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Look for an announcement from WCCO later today....
LAMBERT: Try to keep up.
Posted by: bertram jr on November 11, 2008 at 3:08 PM
The man survived a trip to Sturgis on the Montgomery Gentry tour bus.
He's a survivor, baby.
LAMBERT: Oh he knows his way around a party.
Posted by: bertram jr on November 11, 2008 at 3:13 PM
Re: record sales & radio airplay.
Maybe the reason why Chesney, et al. do sell so many records is because they're the ones getting all the radio airplay? It's a Catch-22.
LAMBERT: If any format reeks of payola its "radio country".
Posted by: noodleman on November 11, 2008 at 3:14 PM
I wonder if the "suits" (the top two guys haven't even moved their families here yet)at CC have Swedberg locked down.
If they don't, look out.
As a media columnist, you're quite tolerable.
LAMBERT: Now I'm worried.
Posted by: bertram jr on November 11, 2008 at 3:17 PM
B.L. I heard that CC is shaking things up by bringing in Bob Ruhland the former Treasure Island Casino honcho. What kind of gamble could they be up to?
LAMBERT: There are some rumors I like more than others ...
Posted by: Monte Video on November 11, 2008 at 7:44 PM
For your next media column, can you go "under cover" and investigate the role of alcohol and drug use in the Twin Cities media?
I mean, we have Carr's book, McDonough, Dubay...
What or who is next?
Is everybody on something,or just onto something?
Me, I'm all about clean living!
The environment, conservation, and eatin' tasty animals!
LAMBERT: Have you considered "living clean" in maybe Azerbaijan or Mongolia?
Posted by: bertram jr on November 12, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Thank goodness for satellite radio, I swear.
It will be interesting to watch a former CC'er take them on. As boring as this radio market is any change will be appreciated. But I'm not expecting much.
The coveted 50 - 85 age demo is too valuable for anyone to mess with the Good Neighbor!
LAMBERT: CBS Radio is as risk averse as Clear Channel, so I seriously doubt Anselmo will make any radical changes. He isn't that kind of guy. He may go after K102's country audience. He may hire John Hines for something (at a salary significantly less than Hines was making at Clear Channel), but no one expects Anselmo to push any daring or imaginative envelopes.
Posted by: essar1 on November 12, 2008 at 3:49 PM