Originally published on June 27, 2008
Andy Denemark

30 years after landing his first syndication job,
USRN executive VP still ‘goes with his gut’

What do Dick Clark, Lou Dobbs, Alice Cooper, Leeza Gibbons, Dee Snider, Ramsey Lewis and many others have in common? Andy Denemark. Getting ready to celebrate his 30th anniversary in radio, Denemark is executive VP of programming for United Stations Radio Networks. He is responsible for the development, production and distribution of dozens of programs in virtually every radio format.

Liner Notes
Profile:
Andy Denemark
Title:
United Stations Radio Networks executive VP of programming
Favorite radio format: Triple A
Favorite TV show:
“Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Entourage,” “Flight of the Conchords”
Favorite song:
“Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star
Favorite movie:
“Wings of Desire”
Favorite book:
“Biographies of musicians, artists and inventors.”
Favorite restaurant:
“Hamasakula Sushi on Santa Monica Boulevard, west of Century City.”
Beverage of choice:
“Anything with lemon or grapefruit.”
Hobbies: “I’ve had a house in the woods for 20 years and I go up there and hike and bird-watch and try to be a country boy.”
E-mail address:
andyd@united
stations.com

Getting into the business: I grew up in upstate Pennsylvania away from major cities, so at night I got WKBW/Buffalo; WLS/Chicago; CKLW/Windsor, Ontario; and WOWO/Fort Wayne [Ind.,] on my transistor. I loved the magic of the far-away top 40 stations coming into my bedroom. I went to college at Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y., and I found the local, hip commercial station WVBR-FM was actually run by students. I promptly began ignoring my studies and hanging out at the station, and 14 months later I was the program director.

Your first job: The radio station subscribed to a couple of syndicated shows, “The King Biscuit Flower Hour” being one of them. When I was graduating the folks at DIR Broadcasting that did “King Biscuit” knew me as an affiliate and found out I was looking for work. So in the summer of 1978, 30 years ago next month, I moved to New York for my first job in syndication.

Joining United Stations: I was at Westwood One. It was a great, entrepreneurial company, but it had gotten to the point in the early ’90s where they weren’t growing and I found myself being more of a caretaker. The old United Stations, which had become Unistar, was in the process of being merged with Westwood One. Denise Oliver, who was a friend of mine, was in charge of programming at Unistar. We were on the phone literally dividing up our universe and I got a call from somebody saying, “You should be talking to United Stations.” And I said, “I already do; we’re merging with them.” And they said, “No, that’s Unistar, the old United Stations merged with Transtar; the guys who invented the original company are starting up again.” The opportunity to get into something that was a ground-floor, blank canvas seemed great, and that was a quick 14 years ago.

Long-range plans: Continuing to grow. Stations need Web content that goes hand in hand with an on-air product. Our comedy division recently launched a whole animation side so that the bits you hear on the radio can be provided for station Web sites. We’re adjusting to the demands of the new media. The search is for eyeballs as well as ears. Every talent wants to be in as many platforms as possible. We just got back into talk radio. I wouldn’t be surprised if we started adding more talk shows. We’ve been doing two rock dayparts for a while and we want to do more daypart programming. The company’s philosophy has been to be very star-driven, starting with Dick Clark, one of the original partners in the company. We try to see what people want at the station level and what people will be buzzing about.

Biggest challenge: Barter used to be seen as free programming, and it’s not anymore. With the economy, stations are not sold out and they won’t give up inventory, but there seems to be a lot of programming that could work if the local station didn’t rule out the barter model to begin with. And then the longstanding challenge of syndication is, does the station want to turn an hour or two or four or 25 hours a week to something they don’t control?

State of radio: I’m optimistic. I see a lot of creativity out there and a lot of smart people are still in the radio business. I do wish radio was a little more entrepreneurial like it once was and I wish it was viewed a little more as an art form.

Career highlight: The smooth jazz format is not at the peak of its existence today, but I’m really proud that when I was at NBC I was involved with launching a syndicated jazz show that David Sanborn was host of before there was such a thing as a smooth jazz format. Frank Cody, my boss at NBC at the time, watched the rapid success of that show, moved to KMET [Los Angeles] and changed KMET to the Wave. I guess in a weird way, Frank is the father of that format and I’m proud of being an uncle. We identified a niche with a specialty program and the specialty program exploded quickly enough that the light bulb went off to create a new kind of station, which then burst into a new kind of format. To watch that evolution happen quickly was pretty exciting.

Career disappointment: I’ve had a really good ride. Personally maybe there was a moment or two where I stayed with something a little longer than I should have. When you stop learning it’s time to move on, and I could kick myself sometimes for not paying attention to that.

Most influential individual: The two owners of DIR, Peter Kauff and Bob Meyrowitz; Norm Pattiz from Westwood One; Dick Clark and Nick Verbitsky here at United Stations. All entrepreneurs and I learned a lot from them. On the programming side, at NBC, I got to work with John McGhan, Frank Cody and George Taylor Morris. They all helped me shape a lot of my programming philosophies. Ellen Ambrose, who hired me at NBC. I knew networking and syndication, and she made me go through a six-week training course before I did my first call on a station—that was priceless. And lastly, I was deeply influenced by the late, great rock writer and Billboard editor Timothy White. I learned a lot from him about the creative process and he is still sorely missed in my life.

Advice for broadcasters: Do not be afraid of risk; use those instincts. A lot of people successful in business will tell you they went against the tide of popular opinion sometimes and that’s the idea that stuck or the thing that worked. You can’t stop thinking and dreaming and being creative and go with your gut.

‘We’re adjusting to the demands of the new media. The search is for eyeballs as well as ears. Every talent wants to be in as many platforms as possible.’
—Andy Denemark