July 16, 2018, Issue 610
The Wolf Turns 20 (Pt. 2)
Twenty years ago, Susquehanna’s KPLX/Dallas had fallen to third in the market behind KSCS and upstart KYNG “Young Country.” Ratings were down, revenue was falling and in desperation, management authorized and encouraged a huge gamble called “The Wolf.” As detailed in this space last week, a lot was riding on the launch of a brand with no track record. The cart was loaded, the button pushed and then... “I started getting emails and they were nothing but complaints,” says then-GM Dan Halyburton. “People were raking us over the coals. ‘You have lost your frickin’ minds! What have you done with KPLX?’ I never showed anybody those, and I wrote back to every single one. I do remember sitting at my desk one night about 11:30 and I actually started crying. What if this doesn’t work? What if it fails? We hadn’t tested anything.” PD Brian Philips: “The initial reaction was shock and horror. We got ripped apart by Dan Halyburton Mario Tarradell at the Dallas Morning News, who suggested the station was so bad it had to be a stunt. He thought it was a smokescreen. Plus, any time you flip a Country station in Dallas, there’s a sleeper cell of folks who inevitably chime in, ‘Wait a minute! That was my favorite station of all time!’ Unfortunately, they weren’t tracking in Arbitron. It was a flat and diminishing cume.” Philips credits Halyburton with uncommon Brian Philips stoicism. “Dan had the only email address the public could find, so all the wrath and anger over flipping KPLX fell to him,” he says. “He was getting pounded, but never passed the pain on. We would talk in the hall every day and I’d ask how we were doing. He’d say, ‘Oh, everything’s good!’ He understood the esprit de corps and wanted to keep our momentum and magic going. He shielded us so we could stay on course and was the manager we all strive to be.” Both Kinds ... Country & Texas: The (continued on page 5)
Voorhees A Jolly Good Fellow: RCA’s Miranda Lambert (c) with WHKO/Dayton’s Frye Guy and Nancy Wilson at the Cincinnati stop of The Bandwagon Tour Friday (7/13).
Lambert, LBT Open Tour
Capitol’s Little Big Town and RCA’s Miranda Lambert kicked off their co-headlining The Bandwagon Tour late last week, with added emphasis on the prefix “co.” “It was absolutely incredible!” says WSOC/ Charlotte Mktg. Events & Promotions Dir. Chele Fassig, who saw the show Thursday (7/12) at PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte. “The stage contained a gigantic video screen that gave the fans an up-close,
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