Hess, Still One Of The Best, After 40 Years

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Bill Hess is in charge of everything that comes out of the speakers at Cumulus’ Washington, DC, News-Talker WMAL. He’s also in charge of talent recruitment and coaching. And he serves as the VP of all of Cumulus’ News-Talk stations. He’s basically an in-house consultant for over 50 Talk stations. While the local markets make their own decisions, Hess is their sounding board and he shares his 40-plus years of ideas with them. Not surprisingly, Hess was voted one of Radio Ink’s Best Program Directors in America.

Bill Hess has programmed radio stations in Washington, DC, New York City, Providence, and Springfield, MA. He’s directed Programming for Air America and has served as VP/Programming for Red Zebra Broadcasting. Cumulus EVP of Content & Programming Mike McVay tells Radio Ink Bill Hess has driven the ratings upward during his time at WMAL/FM-AM. “The majority of his shows are live and local. He also works with the entire Cumulus fleet of News/Talk stations. His guidance has enabled us to grow the company’s Talk group into a more profitable platform.”

Radio Ink: What do you enjoy the most about your job?
Bill Hess: The most enjoyable part of the job is finding new talent and helping them develop as strong hosts. We keep a weekend slot open as a place to develop new hosts and several of our current and recent team members have started out on that shift. We have also developed a slate of events involving our personalities, and I work closely with the talent, our promotions/marketing team, and the sales folks to insure these events are executed cleanly. Our “Free Speech Forum” and “Politics & A Pint” events are revenue generators AND great opportunities for our listeners to spend time, often one-on-one, with the on-air folks.

Hess with US Women’s Ice Hockey Gold Medal team member Haley Skarupa (she’s from suburban DC)

Radio Ink: What is your biggest station accomplishment (outside of ratings) over the past year?
Bill Hess: WMAL launched a local PM drive show in January of 2017, for the first time in more than a decade. Larry O’Connor moved from our morning team to solo hosting in afternoon drive and we took a risk, with a plan to grow ratings and revenue in that daypart. It has been a resounding success from both perspectives, and watching Larry build a strong, locally-involved show has been an exciting project.

We have also rolled WMAL midday host Chris Plante out into national syndication and helped him realize a long-desired goal. His great success over the last decade at WMAL made him an obvious choice for wider distribution and his show is now heard on more than 80 stations, including 2018 additions WABC/New York and WLS/Chicago.

Radio Ink: Who do you consider your mentors in the radio business, and why?
Bill Hess: Consultants Pete Salant and John Lund were strong, positive influences in my initial PD years. I have both competed against, and collaborated with, Mike McVay at several points along the way and his support and encouragement has been a blessing. The corporate programming team Mike has assembled at Cumulus is top notch and we learn from and support each other!

Radio Ink: What do PDs have to do this year and over the next five years to have a successful career in programming that leads to their advancement?
Bill Hess: In this format, it’s all about creating compelling content and discovering and supporting and coaching strong talent. Career advancement can mean different things to different programmers, but if you’re successful developing and executing ratings strategies and growing the personalities with whom you work, you’ll be perfectly positioned for any opportunity that is of interest to you.

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Radio Ink: What is radio’s biggest programming challenge moving forward?
Bill Hess: Recruiting and maintaining talent. The grass is always greener on the new technology; our challenge is to continue to provide a platform for great talent to thrive. If they’re successful, we’re successful!

Radio Ink: Why are consumers listening to Pandora and Spotify and not radio?
Bill Hess: Well, listeners do continue to listen to the radio, though it may be as part of a larger mix of options. Fewer or no commercials, and personal choice are strong attributes against which we compete, but radio continues to compete effectively and rumors of our demise are greatly exaggerated.

Reach out to Bill to congratulate him on being one of the best [email protected]
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