Jordan Capozzi grew up in Syracuse, and like many Salt City Natives, did not know WJPZ was run by college students. When his high school guidance counselor released how much he liked to talk (sound familiar?) she recommended he look at SU. When Jordan learned that he could work at Z89, the station was one of his first stops.
He got involved in sports, music, and the morning show. Jordan talks about the inclusive and welcoming environment of the station to students of all majors. Before long he was on executive staff, starting as public service director and working his way up to VP of Operations. In those roles, Jordan was sure to pay the education forward.
Following graduation, Jordan employed his WJPZ skills in landing work locally at Galaxy Media. He started as a board op, doing everything he could. He worked his way up to his currrent role, executive producer of Cuse Sports Talk.
We spend some time asking Jordan for his perspective on the radio industry, as someone who's currently working at a live and local station. And we wrap up by revisiting the classic April Fools Day Western flip of the station.
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast Series is produced by Jon Gay, Class of 2002, and his podcast production agency, JAG in Detroit Podcasts.
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JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am John Jag Gay. Today's guest is a Salt City native and he used a career at Syracuse and at WJPZ to work in media in his hometown. From the class of 2019, Jordan Capozzi. Welcome to the podcast.
Jordan: Thank you for the invite, Jon. I very much appreciate I've been seeing the big names coming on, so it's an honor to join them.
JAG: Well, so tell me, you are a local. How did you end up at Syracuse and then at Z89? Did you know about the station growing up? How did it all start for you?
Jordan: So I knew about the station growing up. I had no clue what it was. Going to the YMCA after school and on the bus, I'd hear Z89 and never had a clue it was all students. It was really shocking to me, actually, when I came and found that out in terms of choosing Syracuse. So in elementary school I had a teacher by the name of Teresa Wildhack. Yes, those Wildhacks. And she knew that I wanted to talk a lot. She knew that I loved sports and she highly recommended I go to Syracuse. So as I was making that decision, I was kind of between Oswego, Ithaca, and Syracuse and ended up having to go with SU.
Jordan: As soon as I got on campus, I got involved with Z89. I got involved with the sports side a little later, actually. But right when I came in, Z89 was my main activity. Started on New Music Mondays and moved up from there. But yeah, Syracuse was recommended to me very early on, and Z 89 was the next step. And my mind was blown when I found out that I could be that person that I was listening to on the bus as a little guy. And look where we are now. Right?
JAG: So I talked to your Z Morning Zoo co hosts Melody Emm and Baymes recently. So what was first, music, on air? Morning show? Take me through some of the stuff you did at the station.
Jordan: So the first thing I did at Z89 in terms of hosting was New Music Monday. My cohost was Denise. It was one of the newer shows we were doing under Sam and Matt. We released a bunch of different shows, but that was the one that we were doing. So we chose a bunch of new songs every week. I may have embarrassed myself doing like freestyles on the radio, but that's in the past now. Hosted that with Denise, really wanted to do a Morning Zoo and I had the privilege of starting out on The Morning Zoo with Hannah Butler as my first lead host and her positivity dancing on the chair to Charlie Puth's attention every morning, kept doing The Morning Zoos, and got to lead host one of my own. But on the way, I did a ton of different positions on exec staff, highest one was vice president of operations. I was a simultaneous legal director and office manager, which was cool.
Jordan: I actually wasn't really on the sports side too much. I was trying to work my way up at WAER at the time. And then Drew Carter, who if you watch ESPN, you see that guy. He's all over the place. He was like, dude, are you not doing Z 89 sports yet? You got to get over here and get involved with Talk, because while everybody knows AER is the big sports station on campus. At the time, they really weren't that heavy into talk radio. That was more Z89, the sports talk. Only after I left did they really start trying to make that a priority. So got involved there.
Jordan: I was producing a show on Mondays that ended at midnight, so that was a fun one with Chris Lucy, Jonah Carp and Anthony Mazini. Got to host some of those shows. And yeah, the sports didn't come first. It ended up being what I do now. But my bread and butter at Z was introducing Justin Bieber songs and making funny jokes from six to ten.
JAG: I love it. Talk to me a little bit about the vibe and the atmosphere then, Jordan. We've had so many different iterations of the radio station in 50 years where we've had so many different ebbs and flows to things. Talk to me about the vibe of how things were when you were there, and if there are any other names of people that you worked closely with that we haven't mentioned yet.
Jordan: It was amazing. You go in there and as a college student, you don't know what to expect, and when you hear it's fully student run, you're just shocked. What really impressed me the most off the bat was how many people were involved in Z89 that weren't your typical, “I want to be on air.” A ton of PR majors, a ton of people who were in Whitman. just doing different things. But they all added different elements to the shows and the stations. It was really like just a big melting pot of everybody at SU who wanted to get involved, you talk about other names.
Jordan: One guy who was just instrumental to my experience was Ethan Charlip. As soon as he came on our Morning Zoo, he was a producer. I did it with CJ Santosuosso, Ankita Varman, Hannah Butler. And we knew when he produced our show that he was just going to be big, but we didn't quite know that he was going to be the GM superstar that he turned out to be. But he was just such a fun guy to work with, great attitude, and then he became the head honcho there, but the vibe there.
Jordan: What was really cool about it is, as I mentioned, without having a leader, per se, who wasn't a student, you really just felt like everything that was going on, you were directly contributing to it. And I think it made everybody a lot happier and a lot more eager to come in and do more. Whether that's going in after your classes for a 07:00 PM Planning meeting for the show the next morning, which honestly just felt like a group meet up, grab some food and just talk it out. Or whether it's after the show I did at midnight putting together a podcast at 12:30 AM.
Jordan: Nobody has an issue with it because you know you're really a part of something and it's an experience that you couldn't get and really can't get anywhere else on campus.
JAG: How important was it to you when you came in as a freshman and then you end up in a leadership role, office manager, legal VP of Ops, to pay it forward and make the classes behind you feel welcome? I mean, that had to be important to you, right?
Jordan: Oh, yeah. That was massive for me. And some of the stuff I did too. I started as public service director. That was my first exec staff position because Kerri McAneney came up and said, we need somebody to do this. I think you'd be good for it. And you move up. When you keep moving up and you stay with Z, you start to see all of these students coming in who are super eager to work and you naturally want to help them. Like one great example, Cole Weinstein, who I know you've had him and Carl on the pod.
Jordan: When he came in, he was just an eager kid. You can tell that he had a lot of interest and there were some things that he would want to button up, which he clearly has. I mean, geez, just working with the Chargers and NFL right now, but he was our producer. He added a lot of energy. Legendary story. We had him do his weekend review because he was a big movie buff. And it was a review of some stuff that happened this past weekend and things to look forward to.
Jordan: It was more of a preview, actually. He did this entire segment about a spelling bee only to find out live on air at the end of the segment that the spelling bee, it was literally a play that was going on. He thought they were pitching some spelling bee that everybody could go watch. And it turns out that was the play. But that's where we started. And Cole came up to me after his time as an AP, and he's like, hey man, I really want to host. I think I've got it in me. I'll give you all of the effort I have.
Jordan: And I backed him and it was one of the best things that we ever did. Because through hosting these shows, Cole gained a ton of confidence. He became the star he is. He wants to go and help others now. And if you've met him, you know he is the most eager guy to just chat with you, whether it's networking, whether you have a question. And he's one of those guys who, if it weren't for Z and all the people who had helped me, he's not somebody who I'd still be talking to another person who really impressed me, who fits that role as a younger person with passion.
Jordan: Megan Fitzpatrick, who moved her way up the station. It was the first time anybody had ever asked me, hey, could we set up a meeting just to talk about this? She wanted to be Vice President of Operations, and that was my position. And I was ecstatic that somebody wanted to chat with me about it. Not only the altruistic feeling, if you will, of helping, but for me, it's cool too. And I'm sure everybody who does this knows it's an honor when people start coming to you asking to chat and for advice and for your thoughts.
Jordan: So that was a big part of Z 89, just going and seeing all of those people who start as producers move up and really get their personalities, their voices, and the list goes on. I mean, Chris Sacchi, who's working with the Savannah Bananas right now, he was a producer who went on to host and do a bunch of big things. That's really what you're there for, is those relationships and trying to help people like you were helped by others.
JAG: Are there any lessons that you can think of, Jordan, that you remember from your time at the radio station, stuff that has served you well in your career thus far?
Jordan: I think the biggest thing for me is just being on the inside of something that's so big. And when I say that we all know Z89 for the radio, but we also know that one thing that they've been trying to work on, that we're trying to work on. You always want to be engaged in the community and going out, and we DJ’ed chili cook offs while I was there. We set up DJing dances. So being on the inside of something that has so many different departments and things that you do, and working at Galaxy Media right now, events are our bread and butter when it comes to actual revenue. So you learn about that, but you look at something from the outside and you see it a certain way, and when you're on the inside of it, you learn how to get past the imperfect moments.
Jordan: So when I was there, we had a lot of different people on exec staff and positions changing. We had like, a mid-semester GM swap. So there were people who thought they should have gotten roles, and they ended up not getting them. And you have to learn how to console people and help people understand that you're still valuable, even though you might not have gotten this specific role. There's still time.
Jordan: We all probably remember being in Watson really late doing all of those, voting for exec staff and geez, it felt like The Breakfast Club. But you don't see from the outside all of that disagreement and struggle to make things as good as they come out. And being a part of that was really helpful, especially for my career. Now, me and Pauly Scibilia, the legend himself, we duke it out all the time, just with different ideas. I mean, just this morning we were trying to come up with some segments over the summer, and we were going at it because he wanted to do a certain thing. I didn't want to do it. I wanted to do something; he didn't want to do it.
Jordan: And being a part of that at Z, understanding that these are necessary parts of the industry to get the finished product was something really helpful to me. And then just also, I know it's repeated in the media industry all the time, but just getting your foot in the door and doing everything again, I never would have thought that I would be the public service director, reaching out to different organizations to do 30 second spots for them to air on our radio station.
Jordan: But doing that helped me advance, evolve, learn. And right now I started as a part time board op. And one summer after, I text Paulie and I say, I will wash your car if you want, for a full-time job, I need something. Now I've had the opportunity to interview Derek Coleman. Etan Thomas, Buddy Boeheim, Joe Girard. I produce our twelve to two show every day. I never thought I would get to where I was from, where I started.
Jordan: But at Z 89, you learn that you really just have to get your foot in the door. People gain respect for you, they gain trust in your abilities, you learn more about what's happening around you, and then you can kind of go up from there.
JAG: Well, you kind of got me to my next question, which is, if you would, Jordan, take me chronologically through the different roles you've had over there at Galaxy and what you've done since graduation.
Jordan: Yeah, so I spent about a year or so after just not doing much.
JAG: Many of us did.
Jordan: Yeah, right. I was doing overnights at Planet Fitness for a while. I was just scraping by. I had an interview over at Cumulus and I ended up here. I'm glad I did. No shots being sent, but live and local is the way that we were taught, and that's the way we do it here at Galaxy. But I started as a part time board operator, which is not very involved. There is an automated feed. You get it on, you sit there.
Jordan: And while I'm doing that, I'm coming up with anything I can do to pass the time. I'm making goofy Syracuse memes and tweeting them out. I'm writing blogs for an unpaid NBA humor website that I was a part of, so I was just doing anything. Then eventually it got to the point where I was working more than 40 hours a week part time, between coming in for shows, doing men's basketball, women's basketball, lacrosse, this, that, the other, and they finally offered me a full-time job. I was the executive producer of Cuse Sports Talk, which is our Twitch stream, our simulcast that we do. And content is king. We've heard that a time or two at Z 89. And that's really what we're doing now, is we're just trying to find ways for people. Maybe you're not in the car listening to the radio station, but you want to watch what's going on. Well, you can just go to our stream and watch.
JAG: So is it on the radio and streamed on Twitch simultaneously?
Jordan: Yeah, we have it set up. Our engineer, Tim Backer, absolute wizard, but we have it set up. So the sound is coming from the radio directly to VMix, VMix Video Call is what we use to make it all happen. But yeah, it's a simulcast. It's actually a little ahead of the radio, which can be problematic for call in contest, for example. But we're doing that. We're trying to get out clips and just promote it.
Jordan: Like I said, I produce the twelve to two show every day, which, humble brag, we've gotten two straight best radio show in the mid-market category in the state of New York, not just sports radio. So we're kind of doing something right. But I book all the guests.
JAG: Who are the hosts you're working with?
Jordan: There the great Steven Infante from News Channel 9. Best dude in the world. Beyond work, best dude in the world. And Paulie Scibilia, who is operations manager at ESPN Radio, program director for here and Utica and Sunny 102. Another radio cliche. You got to wear many hats. Those dudes both have multiple full time jobs by title or not. And before that, Seth Goldberg, who was an SU guy, he was the host.
Jordan: He moved on. Pauly was hosting, and it's kind of an odd couple situation. Paulie's, like the shock jock, known a lot for his K-Rock work, and Steve's just the straightforward newscaster. So, yeah, that's kind of the balance that I've been working to achieve these last couple of years, is, how can we make it so we're delivering news, we're staying on topic, but we're also making sure the personalities mesh. How do we get Steve out of his shell without driving him crazy?
Jordan: How do we set Pauly up to have fun moments during all of these serious segments? And we've had a lot of crazy stuff. I mean, with Jim Boeheim not the head coach anymore, that was an interesting one to where you want to have fun with it, but it's also very serious. And everything surrounding it was uncomfortable at times, just to be straightforward. So that's really my main hustle here, but we have a lot of other things going on. I just presented the Galaxy Cup to the Crunch the other day as owner Ed Levine coming on in for a second, but the executive producer of Cuse Sports Talk is my title.
Jordan: But there's a lot that we're doing. Taste of Syracuse starting up in a month. You'll see me out there part of the events too. So wearing many hats, as many would say.
JAG: You mentioned wearing many hats and the fact that Galaxy is involved in a lot of local events as well as the radio. And you mentioned the Twitch stream and all these other things. Talk to me about your perspective as somebody who's only out of school four years now, is working at a live and local media company about the general state of radio and the folks who are calling for radio's demise and Chicken Little and the sky is falling. What's your perspective on that?
Jordan: I'll say that it's definitely changing and there's ways to get around it. I wouldn't lie to myself and say radio is the same as it was before I was born, for example. But we're in a weird state now where some people are thinking of broadcast television as the new radio in the sense that you want your stuff on demand, as we all know. You want to stream; you want to choose. But what you can do in radio is not just diversifying the content itself, but making the content a part of something bigger, like local events.
Jordan: And that's kind of what we're trying to do with our video simulcasts and with going and doing live stuff at Taste of Syracuse, for example, which obviously the remote is nothing new, but the way we try to do it with the visual stream and all of that is a little bit new. I wouldn't say radio is dying by any means, and if you argue that, just look at how much revenue we're pulling in from selling Yankees games on the radio.
Jordan: But it's definitely a different challenge. I mean, people aren't getting their news from the radio anymore, for example. So the show before I took over, pretty straightforward program, it was a little more newsy, a little more educational. And that's one thing, I think, in radio, that you can do to keep listeners and to keep people interested. People don't need you to tell them the news, for the most part, at least not in Syracuse. If people want to just hear facts, they'll go on their phone and look them up, they'll read.
Jordan: But what you can do is you can be a personality. You can be somebody who, hey, I don't need you to tell me what's happening, but I need your take on it.
JAG: Right.
Jordan: And I think that's what's separating radio stations that are succeeding and those that aren't is you need to have talent that is engaging as opposed to worried about educating and that's like something quite frankly, that's really scaring me because you're seeing it around the country. Local talent who have been doing what they do best for a long time are getting let go with very little explanation, whether it's budget cuts, whether it's we don't need a two host format when we can pay one person.
Jordan: And if something is going to be the actual demise of radio, that's what I'm afraid it's going to be like. Look, a lot of stations do simulcast national shows. That's cool. We do syndicated ESPN radio shows in the morning. But once radio stations start letting go of all of these personalities who are really people who listeners have built a connection with a relationship, that's why they're tuning in.
Jordan: It makes me nervous that this is a nationwide trend, that companies are not trusting their talent and they're going for a cheaper route. I think radio can succeed, but you need that personal connection to do that. And if we get away from that, that's what makes me very nervous.
JAG: Before I let you go, Jordan, any funny stories from your time at JPZ that haven't come up yet that you look back on and laugh a couple of years later and say, remember the time when?
Jordan: Oh, jeez, I mean, I made a fool myself enough times, but I've got plenty of them. I want to do two very related things that, ironically enough, don't necessarily involve a member of WJPZ, but it shows just how open of a place that was. My friend Tom Vesterman, who came over from Israel when I was in high school, we had the flip. Everybody knows the flip. We changed our format and we did a Western Z. Haw. The reasoning for that was because I was the crusader for the song Old Town Road, I had it on our station before it charted, and when it was number one, I let everybody hear about it.
JAG: By the way, for anybody listening who's not familiar with this is more of a recent thing, is the station flips every April Fool's Day and does an April Fool's Day stunt. So this was the year that you went country western for April Fool's Day?
Jordan: Yes. And Old Town Road, there's no way you don't know, but it's the Lil Nas X song. And Billy Ray Cyrus hopped on and the horses were in the back and the horse tack was attached, so I was big on that song. I thought it was the funniest thing in the world. So we did the Z 89 flip, and we needed someone to voice the promos, but we didn't want a voice that everybody had already known doing like a Western impression. We thought that would have sounded very goofy.
Jordan: So we bring in my friend Tom Vesterman, who records these legendary promos of him going, Get along, little doggy. And they were the funniest thing ever. They aired for the full day. We had a really good time with that and the entire flip, everybody seemed to love it. And then one day, Z 89, I had to skip a morning show. It was to get digital coverage of a contest going on here at Galaxy. Digital coverage, networking. Wink, wink. Yes, meet Josh Grosvent and try to get a job.
Jordan: But they were doing tickets to WrestleMania, and I was there just to film. And I was asked, do you want to participate? So me and my friend Tom did. Tom doesn't care about wrestling at all. I tend to be a fan. I lost the competition, and Tom, who knows nothing about wrestling, wrestling, trivia, anything, won the whole thing somehow, and we ended up going. But just the fact that Z 89 not only allowed me, but allowed my friend, who wasn't even in radio, wasn't even at SU, feel so involved.
Jordan: I think that's kind of what radio is about, is bringing everybody in a community together for one reason or another. And those just so happen to be two preposterous things that occurred. But shout out to Ethan Charlip and Melody Emm, who were above me at the station at the time, letting me skip for that, and shout out my boy Tom Vesterman.
JAG: Well, Jordan Capozzi, class of 2019, doing his native Syracuse proud, working in the market as we speak, joining me from the Galaxy Studios. Thanks for your time today. We'll talk soon.
Jordan: Yes, sir. Thanks for having me. Jag, keep up the podcast. It's been really fun. Thank you.