WRVQ-FM is a heritage Top 40 radio station in Richmond, VA O&O’d by Clear Channel. It is the second-oldest FM station in the city, signing on in August 1948. Originally it was owned by Laurus Brothers Tobacco, as were sister stations WRVA-AM and WRVA-TV. In 1968 the stations were sold to Southern Broadcasting. WRVQ has a grandfathered signal, being allowed to transmit at a whopping 200,000 watts. The station has been some variant of Top 40 since 1972. Phil Goldman, WRVQ’s first GM, is credited with the station’s initial success, from 1972-1993 (he had the station boasting an 18 share at one point).
Some history excerpted from Wikipedia:
The original 1972 airstaff was Bob McNeill in mornings, Jim Edwards (aka Jim Campana) in mid mornings, Program Director Bill Garcia in middays, Dave Collins in afternoon drive, Lee Grant in evenings, Chuck Woodson in late nights, and Doug Riddell in overnights.
At first the station billed itself as “WRVQ Stereo Rock” and “Fun Lovin’ Super Q”, but in 1974 began billing themselves as “Q94” which continues to this day. The station maintained a standard Top 40 format through the seventies which brought them high ratings.
Popular personalities from the 70s included Randy Reeves, Bob Somers, Steve Hendrix, Dr. Rock (aka Ralph Wimmer), Jeff Jackson, Steve Kelly (coming from sister station WRBQ in Tampa), “Cosmic” John Barry, Ron Bates, Kevin Connors, Tim Watts, Tom Ogburn “BTO”, Rick Shaw, and Bruce Kelly.
When Q94 signed on in 1972 they had two Top 40 competitors, AM stations WLEE (1480) and WTVR-AM (1380). By 1980, both stations abandoned the format and WRVQ was the lone Top 40 station in the market.
Q94’s first female air personality, Karen Fredricks, began in 1979. Other female personalities have included Joy Van Der Lyck, Q-ZOO voice characterizationist Rita “Betty Bodine” Bentley, Robyn Bentley, Shannon, Lisa McKay, Su-Anna, Dee Stevens, Gia, Becca Scott, and Melissa Chase. Currently, Chase currently hosts Morning Drive with partner Sid.
Q94 has had a few African American announcers during its history, including Bill Garcia, Chuck Woodson, Tim Watts, Kirby Carmichael (a local radio legend who spent over 20 years at Q94, and whose September, 2006 termination caused some local listener outrage and several newspaper stories), Carter G (Garrett), and Bryan Rock (B. Rock), along with former News Director Treeda Smith and current news director Sheilah Belle.
In the early 1980s in response to a growing disco backlash which had dominated top 40 radio, as well as the sign on of Richmond’s first full time Urban station, WPLZ “Magic 99”, then-PD Bill Thomas shifted Q94 towards a more “rock-40” sound (a move some have said was an overreaction). The shift away from rhythmic music was also in response to in-roads made by AOR competitor WRXL (XL-102). The Rock 40 approach lasted for a couple of years and pulled less than spectacular ratings, but Q94 remained the number one FM in the market, but lost ratings ground to XL-102, Magic 99, and newcomer, Churban-formatted “Kiss 96”, WQKS-FM, out of Williamsburg. In 1982, Thomas left, and morning man Jeff Morgan became PD, moving Q gradually back into a mainstream Top 40 format, and started the first “Q-Morning Zoo”, taking a cue from the originators of the “Zoo” concept, Scott Shannon & Cleveland Wheeler, at their sister station, WRBQ in Tampa, FL. The first hosts on the “Q Morning Zoo” were Corey Deitz and Jeff Morgan.
In September 1983, Bob McNeill, who programmed Q94 in its ’70s glory days was named Program Director. He teamed up with Deitz and the transition to a mainstream Top 40 (newly coined “CHR” for “Contemporary Hit Radio”) format was completed. Ratings rose in response, and the mainstream approach has been maintained ever since. Around this same time, WRVQ and WRVA-AM were sold to Edens Broadcasting, headed by Gary Edens.
Popular personalities in the eighties included Music Director Steve Kelly, News Director Treeda Smith, Corey Deitz, Garret Chester, Jay Hamilton, John King, Q-ZOO voice characterizationist Mike “Music Michael Flowin'” Rivers, David Lee Michaels, Norman “Bob-A-Lou” Freedlander, Steve Davis, Tom Ogburn “BTO”, Mike Day, Kenny Durbin, Mike Gettings “Mr. Badjoke and Shadow Murdock”, Shotgun John Staton, Bill “Slam” Duncan, Jim Payne, Jon Barry, Lisa McKay and Roger St. John.
In 1993, WRVQ and sister station WRVA-AM, were purchased by Clear Channel. The purchase signaled the end of an era at Q94, with the departure of Longtime General Manager Phil Goldman, who had been with the station since its beginning in 1972 and was widely credited with the station’s overall success.
Last year, The Virginia Association of Broadcasters awarded Goldman the 2008 C.T. Lucy Distinguished Service Award. Named for the founder of the VAB, the award honors a broadcaster who spent a significant part of his or her career at one or more Virginia broadcast properties and who has become a leader in the state’s broadcast industry. Goldman began working in television in 1953. After almost 20 years in various radio and TV jobs including programming, news, sales, and sales management in Monroe Louisiana (KNOE Radio and TV, working with his father), Texas and Miami (WOCN-FM, now WMGE-FM), Phil came to Virginia in 1972. He served as the 40th President of the VAB in 1983. He is a past board member of groups including the National Designated Drivers Association and the Catholic Charities of Richmond, which provides adoption services, family relocation, and other community services.
Here, we interview Goldman:
So what happened after you left Clear Channel in 1993?
We sold to Clear Channel in ’92. I had a one year contract to stay with Clear Channel and then I left at the end of that year in ’93 and I bought Channel 65 up in Ashland, Virginia — which is just north of Richmond. I sold that in ’97 to Lockwood Broadcasting. It’s now CW. As a matter of fact, Lockwood just sold it for $47 million dollars to Raycom. It’s run in conjunction with Channel 12, same owners.
Channel 12, that was originally owned by Laurus Brothers Tobacco — it was built by Laurus — which was the company that originally put WRVA-AM and later WRVA-FM on the air in 1948. In 1925 WRVA went on the air and was Richmond’s first radio station. Interestingly enough, for the first two years they were on the air they just operated it as a public service. They didn’t even sell ads or anything. Radio was kind of a hobby then.
In fact, I’m a second generation broadcaster. My dad got into radio in 1928 while in college in Atlanta. I think it was called WJTL and was owned by Oglethorpe University. JTL later became WETL and went commercial and was sold by the university to somebody else.
Why did you leave Clear Channel after you were there for a year, just because of the TV station option that came along?
I just did not agree with the way they wanted to operate the station. I had to stay with them because I was contracted to do so. Then I had had a bypass heart operation and just didn’t feel like I wanted to go through that rigor of what they were doing. I believed a lot more in localized radio and even though we were owned by big companies before Clear Channel we operated just like we were a small local business. We had our own local bank accounts. We did everything locally. Clear Channel did everything out of San Antonio.
I believe that hurt your local feeling in the marketplace.
Exactly, exactly, and which is why we were not able to maneuver the way we were under Southern and later Harte-Hanks and later Edens, you know. The local managers under Southern, Harte-Hanks and Edens were given basically complete control over operating that radio station.
And that’s how it probably should be, right?
And that’s how it should be because in reality radio is a small local business.
Yes, and if you compare the playlist like co-owned Hot 99.5 here in DC to Q94 today they’re pretty much identical. There has got to be a difference in the Richmond audience than here in DC, but you don’t notice that as much anymore on the song lists.
In other words radio today has become “McRadio.” Listen, financially, I think they’ve been very, very successful. I think the hierarchy at Clear Channel is probably very talented in ways that we weren’t financially and they know how to put deals together.
When they consolidated everything, sure.
I do think a day of reckoning is upon us here and radio, in order to survive, is going to have to become what it once was — which is a locally owned, operated and focused medium. We need to remind folks just how much fun and interesting our world used to be — and I believe can be again — if we get back to what radio is and should be, the local peoples’ medium.
Even if it’s owned by a big company it can still operate that way.
Even if it’s owned by a big company…you know Clear Channel’s statement to me was, “Well, we can’t let people in 30 or 40 different markets run their own business.” In fact, I can tell you the first thing they did when they took over — and I was at that time both the seller and GM because I owned part of Edens — they said, “Okay we want you to turn in every credit card that everyone has. Turn in the keys to everybody’s company car and close every local bank account that you have.” We always kept a local cash account for opportunities that would come up. We had local money to spend — a couple of thousand dollars as a local slush fund.
Yeah, if you wanted to do a quick promotion.
There was no more of that. If you want to spend anything over $100.00 you have to contact San Antonio and get permission. As the operator of the station for 20 years I could spend up to $10,000.00 without getting permission from anybody. So if we wanted to do a local promotion and it cost us a couple of grand to do it we didn’t have to call and go through a series of people and get permission to do that.
By the time you got permission the promotion — the event — was already over.
Absolutely.
You’ve got to be able to think fast and move fast in this business.
Absolutely. I’ll give you an example. Shortly after the Clear Channel takeover Steve Davis was my Program Director at the time. Steve is now a consultant with Guy Zapoleon. He comes running in my office and there was a group coming into town. I forget who it was, but they had a softball team on the road and they wanted to play a softball game with us. It was going to cost us a few hundred dollars to get the softball field and pay umpires, you know get everything set up. Well there would have been no hesitation under the old way we did business. We would have just said, “Yeah, absolutely.” Well I called San Antonio and by the time all this rigmarole…listen, I paid the money out of my pocket and went ahead and set the thing up because I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to give our listeners a chance to see our DJs playing softball against the group. We were pummeled, but you know if I had waited for Clear Channel’s answer I’d still be waiting today. Again, be that as it may, they have their way of operating. They certainly were enormously successful for a long period of time. I enjoyed great success with some of their stock that I had which, fortunately, I sold at the high. I think it was about $82 or somewhere along in there and I sold it. I also bought Radio One at $3.00 a share and sold it at $15 so I’ve been lucky in life.
You’ve been smart too.
No, not smart, just lucky. I mean, listen, it was a good life, we had a really great run. It was time for me to leave. There comes a time in everyone’s life when it’s time to say good-bye. Well it was time for me to say good-bye in 1993. January 1 of 1994, along with a partner, I bought Channel 65 in Richmond for $750,000.00 and we sold it four years later for $11 million. We were having fun and I’ve always felt like when it ceases to be fun it would be time to get out. And to me the radio business is not as much fun as it used to be.
No, and you were definitely there when it was fun and you made a lot of money for your superiors.
Really from top to bottom at Clear, at Southern, at Edens, at Harte-Hanks Radio, our philosophy was we know we have to do the work and get the job done. That’s number one, but let’s have as much fun as we can while we’re doing it.
Then came “Corporate Radio”?
Then the people running it were just bean counters. I have to say up front, I’m not a proponent of a lot of regulation, but I think the way they deregulated broadcast — and particularly the radio business — hurt. A certain amount of deregulation was helpful to the industry. But I don’t think it’s a good idea for companies to be able to own six, eight, ten, twelve stations in a market. That doesn’t help, that doesn’t promote any diversification of formats.
And they can drive other broadcasters out of business if they want to.
It makes it difficult for new people wanting to come into the industry. The business is kind of eating its own young. That’s not good. There are some markets across the country where literally you’ve got two or three operators controlling the whole market. Richmond is not an unreal example. You have COX, Clear Channel and Radio One and that’s it. I guess you add in Mainline, they’ve got four stations.
You go to the AM side there are still smaller broadcasters around.
AM radio — this is why I had so much fun and enjoyed so much the last five or seven years working with Hispanic radio, because it was a chance to reinvent radio on the AM dial. It was a lot of fun and it was like the old days. We were doing a lot of the same things, you know. Old promotions never die, they just get reinvented. We did the same things in Hispanic Radio in the 2000’s that we were doing in the ‘70’s in Anglo Radio, and it was fun.
Tell us more about how you made Q-94 work so well.
I think our success was in being able to get close to our audience and being able to have our audience feel like they were a real part of the radio station. That’s what we worked with that’s what we had. We were guerilla promoters, if you will. Go up and down the street, bang on doors and ask for the order. And our air people were really local personalities, stars. I mean they were recognized. They were out in the clubs doing club nights every night of the week. I just don’t see that anymore. It’s almost like radio moved into an ivory tower somewhere and it became separated from its audience. When that happens you lose something.
You lose ratings for one thing.
We did “Q Morning Zoos” around the country (which we did in Tampa and here) and we had kind of a variation on it with Dick Lamb down in Norfolk. Those were programs that really reached out and not only touched the audience but grabbed them. People felt like they were a real part of what was going on.
We started a thing back in the late or mid ‘70’s that we called the “Q94 Advisory Board.” We never, ever promoted it on the air. It was strictly off-air. Anytime anyone would register for anything or win a contest or be involved in any way we would send them a letter inviting them to join the advisory board and at one time in Richmond we had over 3,000 members. I used to get phone calls — I said to the switchboard, “Anybody who calls and wants to speak to the General Manager put that call right through to me immediately. I don’t care what, even if I’m sitting on the toilet I want that phone call.” So I would get phone calls from people who would start off my saying, “Hi, this is so and so and I’m a member of the Advisory Board.” So that’s how close they felt to the station. They’d tell me about something that’s going on in their neighborhood or did I know about this or that? I mean they were really looking out for us. I can’t tell you how powerful that was for us. That’s what enabled us to get 18 shares — that Advisory Board was literally 3,000 people who were out in the community promoting our radio station.
Brilliant!
We’d send mailings to them and as part of our sales operation we would say to an advertiser (because we ran all these things through the computer) that we knew how many people liked to go to the movies; how many people bought records, etc. Bill Thomas was the guy who put this all together. He was our program director/operations manager at that time. Bill knew how to manipulate these things. He would say to the sales department, “Okay, I’ve got a list here of 500 people who buy records on a frequent basis so, if you’re going to sell a record store we can do a 500-piece mailing for them and offer the new Michael Jackson album on an advance buy situation.” I mean it was a powerful tool. Stores would get 30, 40% return on the mailings. Let me tell you, Bill Thomas — I don’t think he invented that but he certainly invented it for our company and it clearly kept us in the mainstream of what was going on in Richmond.
No kidding.
We hired one girl, Rita Bentley — she was “Betty Bodine” on the air. She ran that aspect of our business. She sent out all the mailings and she did everything with the 3,000 people that were on our list. By the way, we were not the only station in the world doing these kinds of things.
Yes, but at least we have people willing to talk about it to teach some of the new people in the biz how it’s done.
You know I feel sorry for new people wanting to come into radio because I don’t know how they learn. Unless you can land in some place where you can go on the air and be syndicated around the country, I guess there’s really no local job security. Unless you’re a monster in the marketplace and have been there years and years and years, for somebody new coming in to get a shot at getting on the air development…where do you do that? We had people at Q that walked in off the street; had never been in the business before and we’d give them a shot. They sounded good and we put them on the air and we’d hire them part-time on the weekend or something. Are they doing that these days?
Who is the GM for the 1320 frequency in Richmond? I know I’ve talked to him.
Right now it’s Jim Jacobs and at the time I was involved with them it was Mike Mazursky.
He’s the one — that was like four years ago.
At that time I was working with Mike and helping the Davidson people establish a number of Spanish language stations. For example I went and opened up Norfolk for them and we bought the old WCMS-AM in Norfolk (1050) and turned it Spanish. I went down to Fayetteville North Carolina. We put an FM on the air down there. I went over to Nashville and we bought two AMs there. We turned one of them gospel and one of them Spanish language. I had a lot of fun doing that and did a little bit of traveling.
Well it’s good that you’re bilingual.
It got me out of the house, my wife was happy for me to get out of the house. Anyway, Mazursky now owns this local Hispanic Supermarket that I do marketing for. Mike is like me, he’s a second-generation broadcaster. His dad was one of the founding partners in Lotus Communications, which is a Hispanic language medium. So yeah, we have a lot of fun.
If you’d like to reach out to Phil, his email address is [email protected]
–by Carl Marcucci
