Tom Kent’s Last Gift To Radio

Friday night in downtown Nashville. You don’t want to get stuck there unless you’re a tourist. I’m not. Taking road detours in congested cities was more empowering before Google and Apple maps. Now we feel defeated when we look at the electronic map and know we’re not getting out of this mess for a while.

I rolled down the window to listen to the sounds of Nashville nightlife. As many times as I’ve heard the music blaring from Kid Rock’s club or Jason Aldean’s rooftop, it creates adrenalin for the driver stuck in moment. You’re watching young fans walk the streets in cowboy boots and visualizing the blisters on their heels when they get back to the hotel room and realize there’s a penalty for wearing those boots for the first time when you’re walking 20,000 steps per day.

As I inched along Broadway, I went to my killing-time pastime: the radio scan button. My car gives me five seconds of the station before scanning to the next signal. Press scan again to stop the scanning. My head turned toward the middle dashboard when it scanned to 92.9 WJXA, the Mainstream AC in Nashville.

“that’s my station”

Radio professionals familiar with a market rarely have to look at the dial to know what’s coming out of the speakers. Programming leaders know things like their playlists and stopset times, but if they’re really paying attention, they know how it feels and can say, “that’s my station.”

My head didn’t turn due to uncertainty about which station was playing. It turned because of what I heard. Tom Kent. The late Tom Kent of the syndicated Tom Kent Radio network. I was listening July 12^th and TK passed away June 24^th after a battle with cancer.

I’m a TK fan because he’s one of the great Top 40 jocks from a fading era of hosts and presenters. I liked him personally because of his passion for the craft of fun radio, and I was moved because he prepared ahead for his affiliates, knowing his time was limited. Suddenly, being stuck in traffic meant nothing when I heard his voice providing in-the-moment companionship to listeners of his Lovin’ Life, Livin’ The 80s show on Mix 92.9.

How are we preparing our brands for next stages? A long illness like the one Tom was fighting gave his organization time to prepare and make sure his affiliates were covered when the day came. Bravo, TK.

the utility player

The age of voice-tracking, syndication, and dare I say, AI, gives companies and stations more options than we had during the days of full airstaffs. If you’re wondering what I mean by “full airstaff,” there was a time when radio stations had humans in the studio 24/7. Weird, huh?

The Utility Player is my favorite baseball player. This person can play nearly every position on the field. They’re not superstars with the fans, but they are with coaches and managers because they fill an immediate need for the team. I had one, maybe two staffers who fell into the Utility Player category for Programming, Promotions/Marketing. If a team member resigns, gets downsized, or dies, who steps up to fill the gap?

This goes beyond preparing for the worst. It helps us at the beginning when we hire talent who fit the brand in multiple ways. In the cluster world, we’re thinking about a jock who fits on the Country station and can walk across the hall and cover a shift on the CHR or Mainstream AC. Oh, it’s 2024. The referenced “hall” might mean doing the other station from your closet studio.

Talent adjustments and changes should be part of the standard leadership thought process. What about the bigger cheese movements? Are we thinking about strategic changes?

the ‘what if’ planning

Go beyond the obvious and include war room conversations about a competitor changing formats or adding a new marketing campaign. Oh, it’s 2024. The referenced “marketing” campaign might be stretching it with some brands and companies.

But seriously, are we paying attention to competitors who use guerrilla digital tactics? Maybe you have zero budget for marketing. It’s a reality for small and large operations. You can’t sit there and do nothing. If you start thinking about it when it happens, you’re playing behind in the game.

Make time for “what if” planning. Include every department and person for which you are responsible. Write it down, challenge it, change it, tear it up and throw it away and start over. Who are the Utility Players and what are the War Room responses?

Does it help when the moment arrives? Of course. The bigger benefit happens when we challenge our decisions and create hypothetical competitive situations. It will expose our current weaknesses, and we’re more likely to make corrections to our current strategies and tactics.

thanks for challenging us, Tom

My traffic jam in downtown Nashville didn’t last much longer, and I didn’t think about it because I wanted to hear what the late Tom Kent was going to do next on his ‘80s show. Syndicated music show hosts know they have to be generic and evergreen with their material.

Tom was all about the music. I was impressed with TK’s creativity on those same songs he’s been playing for years. Did he reuse material? I’m sure some of those fun and snarky lines were recycled. However, he convinced me he was in the moment and using the line over the Kool and The Gang song intro for the first time. It’s a gift to turn the phrase and speak in DJ non-sequiturs and incomplete sentences. Tom Kent had and still has those gifts.

I’d Ike to have one more conversation with him and talk about his preparation for the time when he knew he would need to call in the Utility Players. He would probably agree to prepare, challenge, change and prepare some more. Thanks for entertaining and challenging us, Tom.

(this column originally appeared in Barrett Media https://bit.ly/3zH50nX )