August 25 will long be remembered as the day that Dolly Parton died. Parton was not only an iconic artist, but also an actress, business leader, media mogul, and philanthropist. She created a major amusement park. You would be hard-pressed to find someone with a bad word about Miss Parton, or someone who met her and wasn’t impressed.
Dolly Parton was very special. She not only attracted an audience to the Country music format, but she also introduced it well beyond radio with her many skills as a performer, writer, lyricist, and ability to make news with her mere presence. She’s the one artist who is in both The Country Music Hall of Fame and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Repeating: Dolly Parton was special.
Having had time to reflect on Dolly’s passing, it’s clear to me that her death is generating multiple emotions of loss and grief. It also exposes a major weakness of today’s radio.
Miss Parton’s passing was announced just before 2pm ET. That sent many stations’ content creators into scramble mode to get talent to a studio (whether it was from home or an actual studio) to log into music scheduling systems to recreate a music playlist, to start work on producing special imaging, to update websites, to send push notifications, and to post on social media.
Unfortunately, it didn’t send all radio stations, or the ones you expect, like Country and News, into that level of action and attention to detail. I camped out at my smart speaker and asked for Country station after Country station to hear what they were doing on-air. To say I was disappointed by what I didn’t hear would be an understatement. It was hours after the death announcement before I heard some stations even mention it.
It took several major market radio stations almost three hours before they promoted special audio tributes and began playing 100% Dolly Parton music as a way to honor the icon.
I am sure that there are exceptions to my belief that these perceived weaknesses are many. My perception is surely clouded by the failed expectations I experienced, and the notes received from talent telling me they’re embarrassed by how their station missed the moment, or the text from one Market Manager chiding a competitor in his market (a Country station) for not only not playing anything from Dolly, but also for not even mentioning her passing. Then there’s the major broadcast company whose websites groupwide continued to display the headline “Dolly Parton Shares Health Updates as She Continues Recovery” for more than a day after her passing.
Again, it wasn’t all bad. My spirit improved as I checked on my radio friends in California, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, and Alabama. They were all over it. While checking well-known country stations, I asked my smart speaker to play WYCD in Detroit. That station was All Dolly and All Tribute to The Queen of Country Music. Among those I checked, they were the first and quickest to react to Dolly’s death.
I called with a compliment to Tim Roberts, WYCD Brand Manager and VP/Country at Audacy. He was in his car on the way to a local TV station to be interviewed about Dolly Parton. His reply to me: “That’s what the audience expects from us.”
Radio, and especially Country Radio, owns Dolly Parton. Some in the format missed the moment.
The first 15 minutes of Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News was devoted to Dolly Parton. Fox News had a parade of country stars weighing in on Parton’s impact. CNN featured video clips of Dolly and presented her legacy while identifying her as an American gift. Entertainment Tonight was focused only on Dolly Parton. Dolly’s impact is way beyond music. President Trump ordered flags to be flown at half-mast for a week.
Some country stations acted quickly. Others didn’t. What’s most disappointing is that some of those who failed to act quickly were handcuffed by a lack of staff, unmanned studios, a lack of remote equipment, absent cloud-based technology, and programming leadership operating as a skeleton crew. I’m sure in some cases, the multitasking of programmers across multiple formats and many markets served as a time bandit to prevent being prepared for situations of such magnitude.
It appears that in some situations, there was no one to make a decision to go 100% Dolly. When Michael Jackson died, WCBS in NY went 100% Michael. There was a spike in ratings. Why wouldn’t every country station scramble to immediately play a lot of Dolly’s music if not going 100% Dolly?
Repeating: some did go All-Dolly quickly. They weren’t necessarily the stations one would expect to lead the way. Being two and three hours late after the death of a cornerstone of a format should be unacceptable.
Does all this mean that in the time of a weather crisis, natural disaster, act of terrorism, or war, your station will be unable to react? Will you be ready to react to a situation and serve your community? Dolly’s death raises that greater question in my mind, and it should in yours. The technology exists today that enables stations to update voice tracks, allow talent to work from home (local or faraway), produce new imaging, reschedule music logs, add music tracks into the operating system, and deliver content through the cloud. Websites can be updated from anywhere at any time. Same for apps and social media.
The absence of physical beings in a brick-and-mortar building isn’t optimal, but it need not be the reason for the weaknesses of today’s media to be a hindrance to your performance. Not being prepared, little communication about having a system or plan in place, and the lack of a chain of command are what I point to as the cause of such failure.
We should be better than this. We have to be better than this. And I’d like to believe that we can be better than this.
I was part of the recent Cumulus layoffs and would have been on the air, live and in the studio, when Ms Parton passed. It would’ve been so easy to insert Dolly Parton music and take phone calls. And put stuff up on social media.
But there was a full voice-tracked show already in place.
What’s even worse is when a country station has people in the building at the time the story broke and still did the bare minimum. I likened it to country radio malpractice.
I work at a Classic Rock in Milwaukee and I still played a handful of Dolly songs. Her cover of Shine (Collective Soul) among other more obvious picks. I played some of my favorite Dolly lines from Steel Magnolias and 9 to 5 and put listeners on the air talking about our loss. Notice how I didn’t say “the first thing I did was go to social media.” ya know, the already overcrowded mental whitewash where nobody remembers anything. I mean, go there at some point, but not first. thanx
Really appreciate your comment. I would have loved to have heard the programming you created on your station. Sounds fabulous. Is there anywhere online that I can hear it?
This is a really strong take, and I love every word of it.
Thank you Tony. I appreciate the comment and compliment.
Thank you for the insightful article, Mike. It is worth noting how many AAA and Classic Rock stations missed the moment following Bob Weir’s passing, much like the missed opportunity by CHR and Hot AC stations when Liam Payne passed away. Having monitored and listened closely at the time, the gap in coverage was noticeable. With that perspective in mind, and with all due respect to your tenure, I wanted to ask about the operational challenges behind these programming gaps. During your time as VP of Content and Programming around 2015, you worked alongside Lew and John Dickey when Westwood One talent was transitioned out in favor of Cumulus talent for the Storq formats, followed by local Cumulus air talent reductions the next year. Looking back at those decisions, do you feel that the shift away from local, live talent toward broader automation and syndication permanently altered radio’s ability to react to these major, real-time cultural moments?
I really appreciate this question and your comments. What you’re referencing was before 2015. More likely 2013, if memory serves me. The advantage of 20/20 hindsight is that we can see where things were, where they went, and where we think they’re going. Westwood One’s 24/7 Satellite programming was dominant in those days. The onboarding of Citadel’s stations brought top tier talent into the company and having them being able to be heard on many stations was in a lot of cases an upgrade. Now the surprising fact; Cumulus used very little of Westwood One’s 24/7 programming on their own stations. Very few Cumulus stations took advantage of the 24/7 satellite programming from Westwood One. At that time the strategy was to have talent in markets so that they could generate revenue from remotes and endorsements.
My Lake life themed streaming radio station based in Georgia was all over it with a produced tribute to her at 4pm. I posted an aircheck of it on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/RUcOSuu8ztU?is=2gYboeTKIJ2PWUMj
Thank you for sharing Mike Blakemore. Much appreciated. Will check it out.
Well said Mike. I lived in Memphis much of my life but Dolly had a much wider and deeper impact than Elvis. With Dolly it was the person more than the music…. which says a lot. Her loss is enormous. Station reaction to her death is history now. With Elvis you can still salute him in August and January each year but Dolly is different and there’s no way to redo a missed opportunity to honor her life.
Craig: Strong words that I truly appreciate. Your points are well taken. I hope that Dolly’s good does bring annual recognition to her for the many positive things she did for so many.
Hard to have a reaction with no local staff.
Just the Truth: Definitely difficult. That’s my point. We’ve gone beyond trimming to the bone. Since the pandemic, and the state of the economy, we’re sucking the marrow out of the bone. We need to take advantage of today’s technology to avoid missing such events in the future.
Too focused on digital first that first to foundational formatics suffers.
you too the words right out of my mouth, Erik. Social media isn’t working. If it was, then the industry wouldn’t still be firing by the thousands. We need live on-air talent. there’s no shortcuts.
The last folks to blame are those who are expected to do what a hand full of folks use to do…
Your review reminds me of why the good ole days were really better…
Best Always to You Brother Mike keep preaching the truth my friend…
Bruce: Thank YOU. Hopefully there are still some good days ahead of us for this industry.
God Bless friend. -M
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