Westwood One's Dennis Green on Rick Dees, growth and the NFL

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As Rick Dees makes his return to LA on KHHT-FM for mornings, Westwood One is claiming over 200 stations nationwide are now airing programming from the company’s suite of new Dees products. Earlier this year, Westwood One partnered with Dees Entertainment to develop new Rick Dees radio programming, which includes: The Daily Dees, Rick Dees 80’s at 8, Rick Dees 90’s at 9, Classic Rick Dees Countdowns from the 80’s and 90’s, plus Kevin Dees’ Teen Countdown. In addition, Westwood One has also taken over syndication of the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 and Top 20 countdowns for CHR, Hot AC, and Mainstream AC Stations. 


RBR-TVBR asked Dennis Green, Westwood One EVP Affiliate Sales, how WW1 is selling Rick. How are they positioning him vs. some of the other countdown shows out there, and what does he bring to the stations in value?

“We’re positioning him as the best talent, combined with the best music and all of the classic bits – all of the things that made Rick one of America’s legendary jocks. We’re trying him back and offer stations an opportunity to program their music around him,” he said.

What are the biggest areas of growth right now with WW1? “We all need more growth from all of them, but in terms of the growth, we’re really very excited about our new Sports Talk show with Robert Wuhl. We see that as being a real powerful opportunity in Sports Talk as the format continues to grow and more FMs launch,” he explained. “We just think what we’ve done in the last couple of years is launching a lot of shows that have music around some great talent—our Country music show; our Classic Rock show and we just launched an Urban show with Rocsi.”

He says WW1 is trying to program those shows to the next generation of new technology and the different world with PPM: “A lot of music, personalities and just playing the hits.”

We also asked about how the NFL season did fpr them. Green said it went very well, but he certainly hopes they get the whole dispute settled quickly. They’re already out there selling it, and “We begin our affiliation process in the coming weeks. So from our perspective, we’re prepared for games and hope they play.”