Today's episode is a great listen if you've ever been interested in sales or the ad rep side of things. Scott Taylor, Class of 1993, has been at Katz Media for his entire 30 year career, since graduation.
We start with him following Larry Barron, Scott Meach, and Guy Cacciarelli, on the Michigan-to-Syracuse pipeline. So, he already knew about WJPZ when he got to campus. And while he started on overnights like many of us, sales soon caught his attention. This was especially true when Kelly Sutton and station management instituted a commission structure. He could make money for something he was already finding a passion for!
Scotty T served as VP of Business while his close friend Dave Gorab was General Manager. They were part of the team that stayed in Syracuse in the summer of 1992, giving away a convertible at the Great New York State Fair - the flamethrower days.
Scott thought he had his first job lined up several months before graduation. He was going to follow Kelly, Ken Scott, and Henry Ferri to Buffalo to do radio sales. But when Lynn Vanderhoek strongly encouraged him to meet with Katz Media at the CNY Consortium, his future changed. Several WJPZ'ers went to Katz Media in New York and found themselves in a slightly awkward situation. Because of their experience at Z89, they were hired as Account Executives, supervising sales assistants who were older than them!
Scotty walks us through his three-decade career at Katz - heading out to Chicago, then back to New York, and finally back to the Windy City, where he is now. And he talks about the lessons he learned at WJPZ, including how to be a good manager, that he still employs today.
Recently, Scott started focusing 100% on digital ad revenue, which served as a great jumping off point for us to discuss the future of radio, digital audio, and where they merge. He's hoping to return to Syracuse for Banque 2024, and we can't wait to have him.
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast Series is produced by Jon Gay, Class of 2002, and his podcast production agency, JAG in Detroit Podcasts.
Want to stay in the loop with WJPZ Alumni events? Subscribe to our newsletter on the right hand side of the page at http://wjpzalumni.org/
JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. One of the cool things about doing this podcast is I've learned about names that I didn't necessarily know before I started this project. And in talking to alumni from the first half of the nineties, a name that kept coming up as, oh my G-d, you have to talk to this guy. He's done amazing things at the station and since. That is Scott Taylor, aka Scotty T Class of 93, welcome to the podcast.
Scott: Thanks, Jon. Great to be here. I've been listening to these and you've been doing a great job thus far. I'm happy to contribute.
JAG: I appreciate that very much. Let's start from the beginning, Scott. How did you get to Syracuse and then find the radio station?
Scott: I like Matt Friedman, whom I think you've already interviewed. I'm an alum of WBFH Bloomfield Hills, which sent a few of us to Syracuse and at the time I got to know Scott Meach and Guy Cacciarelli were really the two older guys that you know I got to know and then I went to school as well, cause, you're in Detroit.
Dick Purtan, legendary personality. Our two high schools shared the radio station for the district. I knew Jessica and Joanne pretty well, so I got to meet Dick Purtan at the time and Dick had gone to Syracuse. So that was the icing on the cake. I wanted to be a sportscaster like many of your guests I've heard have.
JAG: Hang on a second. I've got a tote board in here. One more tick on the board. Okay.
Scott: Exactly. And for everybody listening to this podcast, you could hear my voice and probably figure that was the best move. Not to be a sportscaster, but those are the things that was the radio station new house that brought me into the snow. Otherwise, I was heading West.
JAG: When I first moved to Michigan, they were like, oh, are you ready for that Michigan winter? I spent first 17 years of my life in Boston, four in Syracuse, and seven in Vermont. I'm not afraid of your Michigan winter.
Scott: Because I graduated like I said, from Michigan.
Then they probably taught you the adage, hey, if you don't like the weather stick around, it'll change in 30 minutes.
JAG: Yep. Same thing as New England and Syracuse and so on and so forth. So you already knew about J PZ before you got on campus, right?
Scott: Yes. I mean from Scott Meach and Guy, and then you know through them, Larry Baron got to know Larry really well.
I was very lucky. I was focused enough, I'll use that word, that, when you make your little cheat sheets of where you're gonna go to school, what's important and all that stuff. I literally researched the radio stations at every college I applied to.
JAG: That's awesome.
Scott: Nothing was comparable.
JAG: World's greatest media classroom. What did you do when you set foot in the doors?
Scott: Scott Meach let me in the door before recruitment, if memory serves. , I'm not gonna claim I was the first, but I got a shift pretty early. I did the 2:00-4:00 AM's, and all that sort of stuff. And then, because I had done some research at the time of WHYT 96.3 in Detroit, my second semester, senior year, I literally went to high school until 1230.
Then I worked in the research department at HYT from two to six. And research at that point meant getting on the phone, blind calling people, and what stations did you listen to and blah, blah, blah. And if they responded with enthusiasm or didn't hang up on you, which many did.
Then you got the subsequent calls of, we played music snippets. Hey, do you like this song? Not like this song, whatever. The bottom line is I had some research experience, so I think I became research director by second semester of freshman year. Probably a job on the executive staff that was not popular. Nobody wanted it. I was quickly involved that way.
JAG: And what else did you do from there? Because you did a lot at the radio station.
Scott: Yeah, I ultimately got " better" audio shifts on air and such. I'm trying to think about this. I think I did Development director. Might have been my sophomore, junior. I'm trying to, it all blends together. But ultimately I was VP of business or whatnot when Dave Gorab was general manager. We had a blast like. A few of you've talked to, we all stayed there this summer of, I guess it was the summer of 92 before our senior year and gave away cars and all that stuff.
So I was in a fraternity there too. But JPZ was as much or a bigger time commitment than anything social, that was what I wanted to do.
JAG: So I think that's been a through line in the 50 years that we've been covering in this podcast. What are some of the significant events that happened at the radio station while you're there? You mentioned the car giveaways at the State Fair. Any other things come to mind for you, Scott?
Scott: I think we renewed the license while we were there at that point. That was important obviously for the future of the radio station. We went through the logo change. I think Mark Verone brought that up in, if I remember, in his podcast.
But we were involved in doing that. Matter of fact, we stole it. And got permission, I believe, from B96 in Chicago. Frankly, you're in Detroit. I think the original one Meach did was from the old Z95 or Q95 in Detroit. That was the red and black.
JAG: Before it was Channel 955 where it would end up working in 2011. Yeah.
Scott: Oh yeah. There we go. Yep. So that was a fun project. We did that and then, I was there. I think that might have been a junior or sophomore again, the years blend. But Henry Ferri and Kelly Sutton all of a sudden implemented commission for sales. So that was a big deal. Like all of a sudden, you would get paid for going out and doing something that you would've been willing to do for free.
Meaning, get revenue, sales sponsorships all that stuff. And I'm sitting there going, okay, wait a minute. I love this. The on-air stuff was fun, but I was never gonna make, enough money. I'm not that creative and, all that stuff. But I can sit around here and get paid for selling spots and they weren't, commercials per se, the development spots and I'm like, all right, I'm in on this.
So then I started making money. Like money just became a focus of that. So major market coin, but that was a serious transformation. We were financially independent, which I think we all credit Meach for doing and all that stuff. , but we had to sustain it. We had big bills and all that kind of stuff, and so we really had a dedicated sales staff, so I'd like to think that was a big deal.
Then Dave Gorab and I ultimately had a relationship. We formed a relationship with somebody from Merrill Lynch. We actually put away money, all that kinda stuff. I think we were pretty good contributors to the financial bottom line and again, I credit Henry Ferri, Kenny Scott, Kelly Sutton, some of those guys were really good at that, and paved the way and taught us a lot.
JAG: It's funny when you look at the different bookends of the time where the station was financially independent of the university. You're thinking about the alums from the seventies and early eighties who were getting by on duct tape and bubblegum.
I know in the late nineties and early two thousands when we were there, when we were stealing printer paper from the Kimmel computer cluster to printer Selector logs, you're talking about putting money in a Merrill Lynch account. You just blew everybody's minds.
Scott: Yeah. Like I said, we were lucky. From that standpoint, it was a good time and all that stuff, and to be candid with you. Then all of it went away and that was disappointing. It's a learning process, right?
JAG: Absolutely. So you talked about you're really moving over to the development side of things from the on-air side of things and finding a real passion for it. That aside from, giving college kid money to walk around with, on top of it.
Scott: It's the original NIL money.
JAG: There you go. Now you're brought a full circle. Tell me how that informed you as far as getting into your career after Syracuse. It sounds like that was a real pivotal moment for you and what you've done since.
Scott: It was, and to be honest, again I keep saying the names. It was Ken, Henry, and Kelly, and they all went to Rich Broadcasting.
At the time it was WGRF and WEDG. I don't know if the call letters matched the time. That's ultimately, and they went over there and sold spots. So it was almost like Syracuse West.
JAG: What market was this?
Scott: Buffalo. So my senior year, we had, and again, I've heard this on the podcast too, we had radio and records, right?
So there were the classified ads, like needing sellers. So I literally sent probably 25 to 30 letters to the top CHR stations. I was willing to move to New Orleans, Raleigh, I don't care. I just wanted to be an AE, at a top station. And those guys worked at these rock stations in Buffalo and I went out there, met the GSM, a guy named Bill Sauer, who's turned out to do very well, and I was fortunate.
I got offered a job, and I was like, gonna make X and be with people I knew and it was like, I'm done. This is like February or March, I'm done, I'm set. I can enjoy the last few months, carefree, at Syracuse. And then they had the Newhouse school had the Central New York Consortium or whatever, and they would bring in broadcasters and it was Syracuse that hosted it. But they would have, Cornell, Ithaca College, Colgate. And interviews and Lynn Vanderhoek quite might still be there. I'm not sure.
JAG: Yep, she is.
Scott: Yep. She called me and said, hey, there's this company called Katz Radio, Katz Media, that's coming and they want to interview, and I think this would be a good fit.
I'm like, I've already got a job. When is the interview? Friday. But Friday I work at the bar. What? No, thank you.
JAG: What were you doing at the bar? Let me ask, lemme stop you there.
Scott: I was a dj, believe it or not. I did the Friday night. Which bar? At the Olive and the Orange. The O and O, which I think is now the Orange Crate, my fraternity brother actually owns it, but it's the Orange Crate Brewing company, I think is what it's called.
JAG: Yeah. Across from Faegan's. Okay.
Scott: Yeah. Anyway, so I'm like, no thank you. And almost will you please come, whatever. And I met this guy, Glen Cornelius, G-d rest his soul, cause he ultimately passed.
But I was just blown away by knowledge, passion for the business, all that stuff. And, learning about what a rep firm was and all that sort of stuff. And so there was like 10 of us that got invited to. Come back to New York City and interview. And ultimately there were four of us from Syracuse that got jobs and started the training program together.
So it was Dave Gorab, a guy named Andrew Field, both in my wedding, and Brian Benedik, who is now, you probably heard that name. He's the Chief Revenue Officer at Audacy, and I've been with Katz coming up on 30 years in June.
JAG: Wow. So what do you start out doing when you get hired by Katz?
Scott: I was fortunate because of my experience at JPZ, I was able to start as an AE. Most of the time you started as a sales assistant, you move up, et cetera. I don't wanna speak for Brian and Dave and Andrew, but sales assistants were older than us and we all, because of JPZ, started right in. So I think there was a little, I don't know, it was a little awkwardness there, having an assistant that's older than you when you're like 22.
But yeah, so I started as an AE in New York and I subsequently was moved to Chicago cause they needed somebody. I was great to have mentors in both places. My original New York manager is now the CEO of Katz Media, Mark Gray is his name, who I've been close with for 30 years. And then I went to Chicago.
I ended up coming back to New York after I got married. Met my wife in the business, decided I did not wanna be on the East Coast, so they moved me back to Chicago. I went up and managed our Minneapolis office. And then I've been back in Chicago since 2000. I got like a regional VP gig and then I have since moved over.
I'm all digital as of the last 15 months, like I straddled both radio and digital audio sales, and now I'm strictly digital.
JAG: That came up a lot, as you mentioned earlier, in the episode we did with Mark Verone from the class of 95. Talk to me a little bit about the change in, from your perspective, of traditional radio versus selling digital and where the world is.
Scott: Yeah. Look, first of all, I will tell anybody, anytime, I'm a radio geek. Sure. I'm the one that knows the call letters, all that stuff. We had to learn all that. If you don't know, Katz Media's a national rep firm, so we represent multiple properties across, all the markets in the United States.
An advertiser like Walgreens wanted to spend money in radio in the top 20 markets, as opposed to calling every radio station, quote for rates, all that stuff. You'd come to the rep firm, we'd say. "We represent Beasley in Philly. We represent Emmis in Indianapolis." And so forth. And so forth. So the net net is you had to learn all that stuff.
So I have a fond appreciation being a radio geek and a former on-air guy. All the personalities and all that sort of stuff, for that. And I've heard this referenced in your podcast before too. The consolidation of ownership beginning in the Telecom act of 96 and all that stuff.
When we had to learn how many owners there were in LA, it was like 31 . Now there's four or five of significance. You know what I mean? I think it's sad what's happened, but I will say digital audio has never been hotter. A lot of these broadcast companies are not seeing themselves or even positioning themselves as radio companies anymore. I think iHeart has done a great job. The iHeart app has transformed everything from being Clear Channel Radio to iHeart. And look, Townsquare is doing the same thing. They consider themselves a digital company that owns radio stations. I think that's the transformation.
So I think that's very exciting. I have three kids, 24, 21, and 17. All into podcasts and all, it's proliferating in a different way, which is exciting, being the 52-year-old guy still in the business to you get reenergized.
JAG: And similar to the other companies you mentioned just a few weeks prior to us recording this, Audacy put the domain radio.com up for sale. They we're no longer interested in being radio.com because they see themselves as a wider digital audio company, correct?
Scott: Correct. And the content is no longer on the air. It's all the podcast that you're having all the personalities do. I've heard people talk about that your content is just not what's on the dial position anymore.
And I think that's where it's expanded. I don't think radio is bad, per se. I'm not, again, I'm a lifer. I work for a company that, that's a large part of our revenue is the linear business. I like to look at it, it's almost like radio plus. You get the streaming in, some of these guys have secondary HD2 channels that are technically, they're on the air, some radios are hard to find.
They're definitely, they're streaming. You can multiple streaming channels. Like I said, I think it's a transformation. I think you gotta look at that in a positive way. It is definitely a reorg. Where's your revenue coming from? There's been casualties of that. The number of employees at radio stations and all that kind of thing.
But what's really cool, especially about the podcast business, in my opinion, is you're almost seeing like a Wild West. Look, you have Spotify with the Joe Rogans, all that stuff, but you're doing it now. With all due respect. I can start a podcast tomorrow. The barrier to entry is low now.
You have to get critical mass so you can monetize it and all that sort of stuff. In a regard, it's cool. No FCC restrictions, I don't know. I think it's exciting.
JAG: I think a lot of this is Darwinism. It's adapt or die.
Scott: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And look like every other company, you're gonna have people that couldn't and they move on to do other things or don't grow or whatever.
JAG: As you look back at 30 years, what are some of the lessons you learned in working at a radio station and with people at WJPZ that you feel have served you well over your career?
Scott: I think the biggest thing simply put, especially being a manager, is never ask anybody to do something you wouldn't do yourself.
And frankly, the summer of 92 taught me that. When you had to be all things, good god, there's maybe, there was six of us that were there the whole time. We had Dan Austin, he was like in high school coming over and helping us. When you're spread thin like that, and you are lucky enough to have a staff that volunteers, by the way, you know for you. Because you know they're not getting paid.
You can't sit there and go do this, do that. You've gotta be willing to get in the trenches. And that's how, in my opinion, good managers operate. I mentioned the name of my boss at Katz. I always felt like he would get in there and get in the trenches with me if needed. I think that's the most important thing.
And I think, because these guys, not only are your coworkers per se at the radio station, they're also your friends. A lot of people could go to work and go to home and have separate lives and, that's all great. Even separate personalities. But here you're going to class with 'em, you're going to the bars with 'em.
You might even live with them, be roommates or whatever. I'd like to think it taught you how to treat people well, and I think we, I've heard a number of stories on your podcast. I think we all had our lessons. Yeah. None of us were perfect, but I think that was the biggest thing I would say. You asked for one.
JAG: It's funny you think about that crucible of the radio station because to your point, you're hanging out together. You're all living either on campus or near campus. It's not like you're, driving half an hour home to go hang out with your wife and kids. You're around these people it feels like 24- 7 in some cases, so you better be able to get along with them.
Scott: Absolutely. Look, were we all best friends? Definitely not. But we did a lot of stuff. Especially I go back to that summer cause I think that was a pretty impactful cool thing. We learned a ton. Somebody organized, and they might have been Larry Ross, I can't remember. We had a softball team, and we played and frankly we had some listeners that came out that was a little scary cuz you know.
But it was fun. Like I said, it, I had probably had two sets of friends at school, my fraternity and the radio station. And I probably keep up with more people from the radio station than I do the fraternity.
JAG: Who are some of the people you still stay in touch with?
Scott: Dave Gorab and I are very good friends. Brian Benedik, who I mentioned earlier, Matt Friedman, I've known for a long time. Shoot. I'm gonna, obviously Beth Russell, who became Beth Gorab. Gosh, I know I'm gonna forget people's name, but those are the ones I talked to quite a bit For sure. Let's see. Ben Vandenbelt was in my wedding.
Dave Levine, he was in my wedding. When I was the VP of business, he was the development director. I had very good friends like Joanne Porcelli, who worked with me as well. We had a lot of good people.
JAG: It sounds like you and I have the common thread of having mostly JPZ folks standing up in our weddings
Scott: For sure. I have not been good. I've heard a lot of people about the Banquets and all that stuff. I went to the, a few early in that adult life and, one of my daughters born on March 1st, but early on my wife went to one. And we went through all the things, went to the student gathering with the panels and all that kind of stuff.
And my wife's holy crap. Like everybody's doing stuff here. And she's in the business. It was, Larry Barron, G-d rest his soul, all those guys, it was just so impressive. To see the talent there and what became of it. That's what I'm most proud of.
Like this is a badge of honor, man. And frankly I think it made everybody better. Cause everybody was so talented. There was competition. Dave Gorab, who was in my wedding, one of my best friends to this day, just saw him in New York a couple weeks ago. We both vied for the general manager job.
And if you were a part of the senior staff, and forgive me if I don't remember what you did, but if you were part of being voted on, you had to go outside, right? Dave and I went to Breakfast on M Street at Cosmos for an hour and a half while they decided, because, they were trying to figure out, and ultimately he got the number one job and I became VP of business and that was decided like in five minutes.
JAG: So he tells that same story in his episode as well. And remembers that just as fondly, that you guys could have been really at loggerheads, both vying for the GM job, but it wasn't the case at all.
Scott: Yeah, and we were very, we're like, okay, if you get this, I'll be VP of business and I, if I can get it, you'll be programming and we'll have running for, you know what I mean? Like it was all figured out. It was just a matter of making that selection.
JAG: The only sad part about that story is that Cosmos is gone.
Scott: I know. I know there's a lot of things that are gone. 44's and all that stuff.
JAG: Related to that, are there any funny stories that come to mind when you think back on your time at the station?
Scott: I'll tell a funny story about my good friend Dave. So he was never on the sales team. Dave grew up and when he became sales manager, we're both there for this summer. Dude, you gotta go get a list. You gotta hit the streets, you gotta drum up revenue. And he came. He was so excited. Scotty, I got a deal at Faegan's.
I'm like, great, what is it? A thousand bucks. Awesome. It was all trade. So I still to this day, give him grief, I'm like, dude, your first deal is a hundred percent trade deal. How do we make money? Just dumb stories like that.
JAG: Sounds like a great place to have an exec staff meeting.
Scott: Yeah, those would be part of the giveaways and all that stuff. And we, we were a local station needed that stuff. But no, that summer of 92, I think we gave away a Mercury Capris convertible, like one of the 89 days of Summers thing. That was pretty cool. And then another side story is Beth Russell.
We also not only gave away a car, we got use of a van, like a promo van for this summer. And one day she called me and she's Scott, I got in an accident. Oh, we had to deal with all that stuff. But again, it was all fine. Thankfully not hurt, nothing. You know what I mean? But it was just enough to have Are you gonna drive the car again? No. You're not allowed.
JAG: I at my very first paid gig, at my very first full-time gig, at 92 1 KISS FM for ClearChannel in Burlington, Vermont, I cracked up the station car. It was a PT Cruiser, and if you're familiar, the PT Cruiser, the front of it is all plastic. It disintegrated. I think the GM was already having a bad day. She was less than pleased when my program director had to give her the bad news. No, some of these stories are universal.
Scott: Yeah, those are great. And obviously you can't do a podcast. I can't, without acknowledging Rick Wright. He was fantastic. God love him. I still have like voicemails on my phone that I have kept for 10 to 15 years.
He used to call me on my birthday, all that stuff. And he gave us, Dave and me specifically, a lot of leeway, in terms of whether or not we attend class or cuz I would come back in a suit and he'd be like hey Scott. Hey, did you make some money for the radio station today?
I'm like, yeah. I was out in, wherever, Liverpool trying to close the deal. Did you close the deal? Of course everybody else I think hated us, whatever we were doing it, what I'd credit him was he knew that was part of the education, right? Was going down and doing it.
And that was more than, respectfully, he could teach. You could show us, but you can't, you can lead the horse to the water, but you can't make it drink. We all had to do that. So I thank him for that. I think I recruited for my company probably about 10, 15 years ago. I haven't been back. It's terrible and I plan to change that and I thought I was gonna do it this year, but my youngest is now gonna be a freshman in college.
We have to go on a college tour that weekend, finalize that. So hopefully in 24 I'm back. If they'll have me.
JAG: We look forward to having you. I'm glad you mentioned Rick Wright because as we've gone through this podcast, I graduated in 2002, so he wasn't as key at that point in his career as he was in the seventies, eighties and nineties.
And I'm really glad that we have an appreciation for everything that man has given to the radio station over its half a century history. So I'm really glad you brought us full circle for that.
Scott: No I could do a separate podcast on that. I really could. Like I said, he'd showed us the way, let us do it. Helped us when we had our failures. By the way, I haven't listened to every podcast. I think that's another important thing. If you wanna say, what did you learn from your time at JPZ is how we reacted to our failures, because we did a lot. Yeah. We have talented people who did some incredible things, but we also messed up.
Or we didn't get it right, but we had to learn and there was no SU money to fall back on if we couldn't pay the license fees or rent, whatever it was. So I think that's probably an under-recognized achievement by everybody that's been a part of this radio station is that, I dunno if people realize it, but I think we learned a lot from our failures.
JAG: And I think that's a credit to you to phrase it that way. And in doing the podcast we started out as it gonna be like a 50 for 50, like ESPN's 30 for 30. To your point about so many talented people having come through the halls of WJPZ, there was no way we were gonna keep this to 50 cuz there's so many all stars.
That we've had graduate and gone into amazing careers in all kinds of different businesses, present company included of course. And we really appreciate you spending a few minutes with us today, Scott.
Scott: No, it was fantastic. Like I said, glad to contribute to anybody listening. I miss you and I do hope to be back in 2024.
JAG: We'll see you then.