Gregg Henson.com

Yes, Jamie is gone from WRIF.

Longtime Detroit Radio Host and my former partner Jamie Samuelsen seems to have left the Drew and Mike Show on WRIF.  There was a blurb in the Free Press on Sunday that said "Samuelsen will leave the show."  I called Jamie but have not heard back from him yet.  His byline with the Freep also has removed the part about WRIF.

Apparently he hasn't been fired from Greater Media and they are looking for another position for him in the company.  My guess is that he could end up doing some sports work at WCSX as D & D don't like to do sports in their show.

Jamie's departure from Drew and Mike isn't a surprise given the economic realities facing radio these days, they simply didn't need him to do what he was hired to do any longer so they pulled him off the show.

I wish the best for Jamie but I don't worry about him, he's smart enough to have taken care of business, he and his family will be just fine regardless of what they decided to do in the future.  Radio is in a tough situation these days....maybe we all just have to wait it out.

I found tons of old WDFN tapes!

Click the "Gregg and Jamie" link to the left if you want to hear some VERY early Jamie and Gregg Shows.  I found these shows while I was moving to a new house here in Round Rock.  I can't believe how different Jamie and I sounded when we first started.

I have a lot of other audio that I will digitize and put here on the web site if you are interested.

Drew Lane is back on WRIF

I got this e-mail from a WRIF listener.  It appears that Drew and Mike are reuniting on WRIF July 13.

Hey Gregg,

All of us at 101 WRIF appreciate your loyalty as a listener and member of the RIFF Cybercrew.   Our team here considers all Cybercrew members a part of the WRIF family.  Like any team member, we want you know about announcements and changes before you hear it in the news.   That's why I'm asking you to join us in welcoming Drew Lane back to the airwaves here at 101.1 WRIF as he reunites with Mike Clark to bring back Detroit's most popular morning show.     Drew's first day back on the air will be Monday, July 13th.     Your loyalty to WRIF Mornings over the past year has been greatly appreciated by Mike, Marc, Trudi and Jamie.

This news is a little odd.  It raises more questions than it answers.  Why is Drew coming back to the show that he left a year ago?  Is "Tess" all better now?  Does Drew need the money or just some time off?  Isn't the lifestyle still difficult?  What happened to a potential show with Mr. Skin?  Is Jamie Samuelsen staying or will he be a budget cut?

People have told me that there were "other" reasons that Drew left WRIF, I'm not going to go into them, but maybe he just needed some time off to get himself together, who knows.

Stay tuned.

Detroit radio ratings!

The latest Detroit radio ratings are in and the results are surprising in some areas, yet not so surprising in others.

WXYT became the # 1 station in Detroit and while it is a surprise, maybe it shouldn't be such a shock.
I never suspected the stations switch from AM to FM would propel it to # 1, I was certain it would mean the end of WDFN and it was, but going all the way to # 1 is a bit of a surprise.

WXYT likely got a boost from the Red Wing's Stanley Cup run and from residual Tiger listening, but congratulations are still in order for the Air Staff at WXYT.  Even without the play-by-play ratings, WXYT is still posting strong numbers in all its dayparts.  The morning show is strong, Karsch and Anderson are performing and Valenti and Foster are #1 in PM Drive.

Credit also has to go to Tom Bigby for getting everybody on the same page, it would be easy to write WXYT's success off as having a big FM signal, but clearly people are liking what they hear and WXYT now sets the standard nationally for sports radio ratings.  The Ticket in Dallas, WIP in Philly and WEEI in Boston are always strong in the ratings, but none have achieved the success of WXYT in DETROIT.  Congrats to WXYT for putting it all together.  Let's see if Bigby pulls the same trick in Dallas.

CLearly Tom Bigby is the top sports programmer in radio, he's now built two HUGE sports stations, WIP in Philly and WXYT in Detroit. The guy is tough but he knows how to win and his triumphant return to Detroit is a big win for all Detroit sports fans.

WRIF is still leaking listeners, while still # 1, the show is a shadow of its former self without Drew.  Mike in the Morning is a strong show, but listeners are clearly drifting from the old morning stalwart.

D & D are up at WCSX as well.

Check out John Smyntech's ratings wrap-up for yournews.com.

Hmmmmm....What is going on with Deminski and Doyle?

I noticed today that since my last post about D & D's show being in trouble at WCSX Jeff has deleted the archives of his web site which included a couple of posts where he ripped management at the radio station.  My guess is the chiefs at Greater Media gave him the business for airing his dirty laundry on their web site.  Deminski's blog has been reduced to a daily rundown of the show.  Freedom of speech doesn't apply when you work for a big company.

I'll reiterate the problems and the solutions.  I worked on the WCSX morning show for seven years, I think I know the audience pretty well.

1.  The show isn't a fit for WCSX.  The WCSX listener LOVES the music and they are passionate about it, they don't want to hear dumb stunts with Rudy or about Jeff's infected toe.  They need to be talking about the WCSX lifestyle and about the music, their main job should be discussing the day's issues, not making up topics to get phone calls.  Content creation is key.

2. 6 records minimum per hour.  That is why the audience is coming to WCSX, a talent on a music station should NEVER get so arrogant that they think they are the reason people tune in to MUSIC RADIO.  They are there to enhance the music, not the other way around.  This is the fastest way to get the ratings up in a hurry.  Play the hits.

3. At least act like the music matters, even if it is old, people still like it.  The should really go out of their way to create some music related content, etc.

4. Stop with the "topics" and start talking about what is happening in Detroit and the world like real people, just because you are playing 30 year old music doesn't mean you can't be current.  "Topics" are designed to get multitudes of phone calls for talk stations, they aren't always interesting and they slow the pacing down.

5.  Pick up the pace.  On a talk station you can be a little laid back, on a music station you need to keep the pace up and move the show along.  Long, drawn out discussions really hurt the momentum of a great morning show on a music station.

6.  Do what management tells you to do, this is a tough economy, jobs aren't going to be easy to find.  The people at WCSX have been through this before, they know how to win, listen to them and stop with the "we know everything" routine.

My prediction is...before they let the show go belly up they will FORCE D&D to play SOME classic rock in the morning.

I may be "a guy who thinks he's an insider" according to Jeffrey, but I can promise you I nailed the issues they are having at WCSX in that blog post.

Live Show on Wednesday!

Click the link below to listen to Gregg and Victor LIVE on Wednesday, April 29 @ Noon (est).

We'll talk about the NFL draft, Detroit issues and politics.  We may even toss in a little Detroit radio news.

What is Jeff Deminski trying to say in this blog post?

This blog post appeared on April 2 on The Deminski and Doyle web site.  It appears to point out some disharmony between him and his new bosses.

It's been interesting.  The other day we did sort of a "state of the show" address but let listeners do it, not us.  What was liked, what wasn't.  This was open to all our old 97.1 listeners and the new WCSX diehards who'd never listened to us before.  I was expecting more criticism but it was all fairly positive.  The tough position we're in is that the old JJ and Lynne show was so completely different.  A paradigm shift for WCSX listeners, many of whom are older than our 97.1 group.  The J & L show was almost all music, and when there was talk, it was very...safe.  And it was not at all interactive with calls.  We are about as different as you can get, so for a lot of those WCSX diehards it has been off-putting, but we've been hearing from a lot of them that they are warming up to what we do.  Another tough thing is the outside marketing we thought we'd be getting from WCSX to let our old 97.1 crowd know we were back.  Thought there'd be at least some billboards or tv or something.  None of that's happened.  Now I know YOU know we're back on in the market, because you've religiously followed either this blog or the dd fan group on Yahoo or both.  But not a day goes by I don't hear from someone that they "just this week" learned we were back by stumbling across us.  So not only is it tough making a marriage of what we did for our old group without being too much of a 'shock to the system' for the newer group, it's also been difficult to gauge which camp it is we're really speaking to every morning.  It's certainly coming along and we appreciate your patience (we hope, lol) while it does.  Another situation that doesn't help is even though the podcasts are through the roof in listen-to's and downloads, they're not counting towards any ratings a day after the show is done.  So the fact most of our old crowd was used to us in the afternoons doesn't lend itself well to a lot of people's schedule to listen live.  Either their work schedule is prohibitive or they might have already had a favorite morning show they're loyal to.  Another thing we hear all the time is people don't have 'as much time in the mornings' to listen as they did in the afternoons.  Interesting behind the scenes stuff.  I know the station worries about the impact on the old diehard WCSX listeners of us not playing music in the music in the mornings and doing talk.  Of course we worry that if we do even a little of that music, our old diehards will be turned off the other way.  Good times, good times, lol.  Really hope things shake out over the next year because after all we went through last year to stay it would sure be tough to leave.

Now I don't know any specifics about what is happening, but you can read between the lines and easily figure out that things aren't rosy at WCSX for the new Morning Show.  Here is what I take away from the post.

1. The ratings are down, way down.  The Morning show on WCSX was in 5th place when JJ and Lynne were not renewed, they are currently 14th.
2. Management at WCSX is worried that they made a mistake by changing direction and are pressuring D & D to make changes, quickly.
3. They are clearly getting pressure to play more music in the morning and Deminski doesn't like it one bit.  I don't think they understand the nature of the format.  The only show to ever NOT play music on WCSX was "Ferrell on The Bench" in the late 90's and it didn't work.
4. The show being cut from 6a-10a to 6a-9a is not sitting well with the guys.
5. Deminski is already complaining about not being promoted, which is a usual Air Personality excuse when the show isn't working.
6. I don't think publicly complaining about your employers lack of marketing will sit well with Greater Media brass as I am sure they spent handsomely on the "talent."
7. From my experience with the show, they are already fighting with management at WCSX and threatening to "leave." This is evident in the last line of the blog post.
8. When you are in 14th place "management" won't likely care if you threaten to leave.
9. D &D are in no position to bargain and will be forced to implement any changes the suits what to make because of the steep ratings loses.
10. D & D semi-bashing J.J. and Lynne in this post will turn what audience they have left from the old show completely off once and for all.
11. If I were D & D I would tread lightly until the ratings or the economy improved.
12. This isn't going to end good!

Just observations from a guy who's been around.  Radio is tough, get a helmet.

Deminski even followed up the first post with a similiar post in which he is clearly pissed off at management for cutting the show back and hour. He also takes similar pot shots at management in regard to marketing the show.  This is heating up quickly, how long before WCSX tries to shut down his blog?  See latest post below.

9 am is now the time the show will be ending in the mornings. I've received an awful lot of inquiries about this after a brief announcement was made Friday morning.  Obviously I'd like to say more; those who know me could guess I'd have a lot to say.  For now, suffice it to say WCSX decided the audience would be better served by having music start at 9 am, therefore the show now runs live 6 to 9 am, Monday through Friday.  From 5:30 to 6 am those mornings there will be some playback segments from previous shows.  That's the new schedule and for those who are not happy about the change please know I'm sorry we won't be there for you in the 9 o'clock hour and I hope you'll continue to listen between 5:30 and 9 am and spread the word as much as possible that the D & D show is back on in mornings on 94.7.  With the lack of marketing to get that word out we're hoping for the kindness of our most loyal listeners.

WDFN E-book update!

I just finished writing Chapter 5 of the WDFN e-book, "The Rise and Fall of WDFN."

I've had some delays as I am really busy with the Jungle Java.  I've decided to set aside one hour a day to write the book and that goal seems to have expedited the process.

I'm really enjoying writing the book, there are some fun stories that went on with that radio station.  I have so many great memories and good stories from our time at Sportsradio 1130.  The behind the scenes stuff is great.

I estimate the book will be ready for download in late June.

Deano Day passes!

Former 1500AM Morning radio personality Deano Day passed away on Friday at the age of 70.
For those who don't know who Deano was, he hosted the Morning Show on 1500AM, WDEE.

Deano hosted a segment called "Fem Forum" which was controversial for its day and made Deano a star in Detroit.  WDEE was never a powerhouse but it did score 1500AM's highest ratings in decades.

Here is a 13 minute sales piece that was done for WDEE advertisers in the 70's, it features great writing and production.  Give it a listen and see if you don't think WDEE was a great radio station.

I am not going to post the e-mail!

ok, I've seen your comments and I know you want to see the e-mail that was sent by a potential WXYT-FM employee and I've decided I'm not going to post it.  I've gone back and forth because I know this is the only web site that provides many of you with your "inside radio scoop," but I think it is best for all the parties involved if I just leave it alone.

The person who wrote the e-mail sent it directly to the person he had an issue with and that should be enough, I don't think making it public serves a good purpose for anybody involved.  The person who was upset about the situation is a VERY passionate radio guy, he wants to be in radio and help make it entertaining for the audience so I don't want my blog to be the reason he doesn't get another job from CBS or any other company.  He's an advocate for great, entertaining radio and when he cools off I want him to give radio another shot without his anger and frustration hurting his long term job prospect.  However, I think him sending the e-mail will have an adverse effect on any future opportunities with CBS in Detroit.

I am doing what I wish somebody had done for me when my frustration may have gotten the better of me, I am saving him from his own passion for the business.  I'm hopeful that as time passes he will get back into the business (working with me) and he will be thankful that this e-mail didn't go public.

Radio is a nasty business on the inside, there is very little regard for what the audience wants, so you need to maintain your relationships if you hope to have opportunities.  If I post this e-mail, the people who were the object of his scorn can and likely will hold it against him in the future.