TANGENT SUNSET CLUELESS RADIO by Alex Cosper

Clueless Radio is a fictional story about an alternative station failing in ratings
and sales but experiences occasional flashes of success. At one time the station had great
ratings and dominated the market but a new regime with a new focus has erased the station's
influence in the market. What could they be doing that is so wrong?
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Chapter 1: A Peak Inside The Madness

Who controls the music? Is music controlled by individuals or empires? Is music important to the development of culture? These were the questions that puzzled Bizz Barker, former PD at Clueless Radio. In the 90s the station had great ratings, peaking at a ten share, for all persons in the 12 and over age group. It led the market, beating all competitors. This ratings peak was a time marker that would soon be smothered by madness.

Part of the station's success had to do with adventurous music and creative personality. All the jocks sounded like flawed characters with a sharp wit. They sounded fearless yet human. The music was reflective of the market while incorporating a degree of experimentation. Clueless was a launching ground for new artists. The station had influence in the industry as well as in the market. But now the station just sounded flawed, according to Barker. He observed recently in a "where are they now?" story that the station, once the pulse and the soundtrack of the marketplace, had lost its soul.

Although no one is absolutely clear why Bizz resigned, everyone agrees that Bizz had lost touch with the industry, the music and possibly his own mind. Ratings had peaked, competition was coming on strong and Bizz didn't like much of the new music that was coming out. Bizz liked songs that told a story and had a unique melody. Bizz had held all along that substance was more important than style, but he sensed a different wave coming on that he did not even want to understand.

After Bizz left everything changed. The backdrop of the industry merged into an era of consolidation. The once independently-owned station was sold to a bigger company, known at the time as Bordle Communications. Then it went to Greenfinger Entertainment before finally landing with an investment firm called Bailey, Morgan, Knupples and Smith, who merged all their radio groups together to form one giant company called Consolidated Broadcasting. Each new company decided to keep the call letters and the station name "Clueless," which had been engrained in the market. What's funny about the name "Clueless" is that it's supposed to make fun of itself. What became bizarre with the latest administration was its shift in making fun of the audience. That way, they reasoned, it would be understood that the station wasn't necessarily clueless, just its listeners were.

It was ratings day and Tim Jarz was optimistic. It was his first book as a PD. He felt good because he knew he had carefully implemented what he considered safe policies he had learned over his short career. He had tightened up the music. No longer was the station playing deep album cuts of the top artists. No longer did the station experiment with new music. No longer did the station play exclusive b-sides. No longer did the station support local artists. No longer did the station play anything older than two years. Even though the station stopped giving prizes away over the air, Jarz still ran promos of long forgotten winners to create the impression that the station was still doing contests. In the last book the station had fallen a point. No place to go but up, Jarz believed.

But Tim Jarz felt a shock to his system when the numbers rolled in. Clueless fell from 5.1 to 2.9, its lowest book in a decade. As the consultant Jeff Paneela read the advance results over the phone, Jarz's mind began to whirl with anger and confusion. He was kind of angry at himself for allowing such a downfall to happen on his watch. But he was also disappointed that Paneela had not given him full reign in decision-making. On top of that, Jarz started to reflect on how upper management had kept a strict, tight promotion budget.

Even more disappointing was that for the first time ever, Clueless was beaten by both competitors. One was Steel 95, the rock station. Steel signed on nine months ago and in its third book it moved from 2.7 to 4.0 while The Goldfish, a softer more adult version of Clueless, inched up 2.9 to 3.0, its best book ever in its twenty year history. All Jarz really cared about was staying ahead of his old top 40 station BEST HITS, which even beat Clueless for the first time even though it fell 3.9 to 3.1.

Jeff, in his usual calm eloquent voice told Jarz, "look, Tim, it's your first book. The station's now had four different owners during the past few years. We'll get the numbers back up. I've got great research. I assure you everything will be just fine. Now...(long pause) The only way I know for sure that we'll get back up is for you to follow my lead. Tim, I know you're very knowledgeable about the business, but I've been in this business for thirty years and I've seen all the highs and lows. Tim, some day you'll be in my position and I want to prepare you for that."

When Jeff finally stopped to take a quick breath, Jarz jumped in, "Jeff, you're a great inspiration, but.."

Then the consultant resumed, "but it's going to take a lot of work from both of us and we need to be on the same page. Now, I've already discussed this with Heichman and he's given me the green light to take charge here. From now on, I will be calling you Monday afternoon with the adds. You will report only those adds to the trades. It is very important for your success in this company, and for our relationship for you to follow my instructions. Now, you and whoever you hire to be MD will still have input on the music. But you'll need to let me know your picks by Friday. I will then consider it and make a decision over the weekend. By the way, Tim, speaking of the MD position, I'm going to be sending you some packages that were sent to me. I'll be in town Wednesday so let's plan on a meeting at noon and try to bring this to closure. I gotta go, man, but I'll see you Wednesday so just hang tough."

Jarz hung up the phone feeling disillusioned. Before that phone call, he felt good about his job. Now he
felt useless. The news about the ratings had a sickening ring to it as it kept echoing in his brain. It felt
like such a blow. His mind began to drift through a haze of imaginary scenarios that comfirmed his fallen
stature. After a few minutes of contemplating whether or not he was now a certified loser, Jarz flipped on
the radio to listen to Clueless.

"It's your Clueless connection, where you become Clueless if you miss 35 minutes of nonstop Clueless music
every hour. I'm Joe stepping in. Stay with me for lots of fun, music and prizes. Keep it here on Clueless."
Joe was the afternoon jock. His real name was Joe Schwertzensomething but on the air he just went with "Joe."
Joe had a great sense of humor off the air but every time he cracked the mike he would freeze up. Usually he
stuck with the basics, which is what Tim Jarz wanted anyway. Jarz didn't like humor. Jarz thought it was
an interruption.

It's amazing how close the mindsets of Tim Jarz and Jeff Paneela were. They actually agreed on almost
everything, which is why Paneela recommended Jarz to Clueless GM G.W. Heichman. Three years ago Jarz
had been Paneela's Music Director when the elder statesman had programmed a top 40 station called
"BEST HITS 96." Paneela actually had a relationship with Heichman dating back to college when the two
talked about going into radio together.

When Heichman Broadcasting sold to Bordle, part of the deal was that Heichman would stay and serve as GM
and he was given carte blanche autonomy in programming. But after a short period the company realized they
had grown too big too quickly so they sold off several of their properties, including Clueless to
Greenfinger Entertainment, who had no previous experience in radio. Greenfinger got so nervous after a
series of six straight down books that they sold to Consolidated Broadcasting, who agreed to let Heichman
keep the GM position only if he agreed to hire a consultant, Program Director and new morning talent.
Heichman chose old college friend Jeff Paneela as his consultant. He then left the rest of the hiring
up to Paneela, who in turn picked one of his loyal cronies who would agree on doing two separate jobs
for half the pay. The budget surplus was a measure of success for the consultant and bonus income
for Heichman.

Tim Jarz was in his early twenties. He had not yet developed a track record. After he was blown out of BEST HITS due to budget cuts, he was out of work for a long time. But Paneela saved his career. Radio was Tim's life, his dream, his reason to get up in the morning. Tim Jarz was so dedicated to radio that he didn't really know much about anything else. He was a research smack, a production wizard and a media-holic when it came to public appearances, even at quiet car wash remotes. Jarz also did the morning show, just as "Tim" in the team of Tim and Candy.

The Tim and Candy Show was the only thing left on the station that was still a hit. The GM couldn't understand it, the consultant lived with it and the audience loved it. It was just so off-beat. Everything about it sounded wrong. That's why it was so funny. You could always expect the least expected. Tim mostly talked about the music whereas Candy knew very little about the music. The show had a kooky chemistry between a music head who was otherwise barerly educated and an astute college student who had no idea about what was hip. Then again, Tim wasn't that hip himself besides being able to memorize songs and chart positions.

The perspective of most of the audience was that both Tim and Candy were just laughable wacked idiots. But since all the other morning shows were so bland and predictable, enough people tuned into Tim and Candy to make the show a whopping number 14 in the market, which was now the highest rated show on Clueless. The two were so naturally awkward with pace that it literally came off as clueless simply by the two responding to each other. An example was the morning after the book came out.

"Yeah, we're kicking our competition's...ass," Tim choked with laughter after the produced legal I.D. Candy laughed, like she always did. Her scratchy raspy voice made her sound like a muppet. Then Tim said, "honey, drink some water." He then hit a splash sound effect and said, "Let's get clueless!" Taking her cue, Candy read her news report. Since the station was too cheap to buy into a wire service, Candy simply ripped off news she read from the morning paper - sometimes it would be verbatim.

"Good morning," she began. "I'm Candy with your Clueless morning news report. The race for mayor
is in a dead heat. Election day is a week away and according to the latest polls it can go either way."

"Which one listens to Clueless?" interjected Tim.

"I'm not sure," responded a puzzled Candy.

"Well if neither of them listen to Clueless then they each lost my vote," Tim quipped, expecting Candy
to get into the next story.

"So are you saying...if they both listen to Clueless you'll vote for both of them?"

"Absolutely, why wouldn't I?" But after a second Tim's voice slipped out of character, "I mean,
no...I mean..."

"Okay here's one for you," Candy said shifting from news to a trivia contest designed to make Jarz look like a fool. "Name one of the original thirteen states."

"Like, who cares about that anymore? Why don't you ask me something more current?" Jarz diverted.

"Okay, how many U.S. Senators do we send to Washington from this state?"

"I don't know, there's so many it's hard to count."

Candy cut him off with laughter. "You don't know anything about anything except music, now do you?"

"Well at least I can name at least one song we're playing on this station," Tim said busting up over the intro of the next song. Tim frequently cut Candy off, even in the middle of the news. He really didn't care for his partner on or off the air. Candy's employment at Clueless was not so much based on talent as it was compromise. You see, she was the daughter of a divorced lady who the GM was trying to impress even though he himself was still married. Both Tim Jarz and Jeff Paneela agreed that the show would be so much better without the young yet nerdish Candy.

Tim wanted to do a music-intensive morning show, tightly formatted with minimal commentary. Heichman, on the other hand, thought Paneela should be working toward efforts in phasing out Tim Jarz, whom Heichman suspected was gay. Heichman believed the management had the virtue of creating its own agenda. At the top of Heichman's agenda was the goal of conquering other human minds through subtle intimidation.

"Why doesn't he ever play off the male-female relationship?" Heichman asked Paneela in a phone conversation. Heichman, an extremely bad actor, tried to put a threatening underworld tone to his voice and overall demeanor, always taking the offensive in his sessions with Paneela. But Paneela used the sidelines as his secret defense. He knew from years of battling with other minds that laughter was a good segue for anything. "He sounds like he's attacking her instead of acting interested," Heichman snapped. "He sounds a little out of touch whereas she sounds very intelligent and quite frankly, rather delightful."

Jeff Paneela always offered a contrived snicker and proceeded to change the topic, which is actually what kept the show on the air. Because the GM and consultant never reached a conclusion about what to do with mornings, the show lingered on. Candy had been with Clueless for several years, mostly as news director, but sometimes as substitute overnight jock. She liked doing her own show.

The following Monday morning Tim Jarz got off the air early, as usual, to take the morning conference call with Paneela, Heichman and some corporate guy. Jeff did most of the talking as he listed off the five new records for Tim to put in.

"What was that last record?" Tim asked.

"Black Leather Blondes," answered Jeff. "Now let's talk about increasing the spot load."

"Before we do that," Tim said in an apologetic tone, "could you tell me the songtitle? That's the only record you named that I've never heard of."

Jeff paused for a moment and then said, "I'll email it to you." He then changed the subject to adding a fifth stopset during prime time hours and how it was going to meet corporate expectations. The conference call lasted over an hour.

As soon as Tim got off the phone he said to himself, "man, I could've gotten so much work done if I didn't have to take that stupid call." He searched through all the new CDs for Black Leather Blondes but he couldn't find it anywhere. Then he started looking through a few trade magazines to see if he could find it, but with no luck. Then he went online and ran a search on Black Leather Blondes but the search produced zero results. "Whatever," Tim sighed.

On Wednesday Jeff showed up at noon to meet with Tim. For a second Tim was surprised to see Jeff, then he remembered the appointment. "So what's up?" Tim said as he faked a cheerful tone. "Hey I never got an email from you about the Black Leather Blondes record."

"Oh, yeah, right." Jeff pulled out a copy from his briefcase.

Tim looked at the CD and saw that the title of the song was "Spank Me."

"Pop it in," said Jeff excitedly. "These women are hot. You're gonna love'em."

"Goose Juice Records?" Tim asked as he tried to temper Jeff's excitement. "I've never heard of them."

"Look, it's a local band on an independent label," said Jeff who sounded like he was really saying "you idiot."

Tim threw his hands in the air and said in frustration, "I thought we were done with local music!"

Jeff gave his best chuckle and explained. "Tim, for the most part that's true. Once in a while, however, we're going to make exceptions to the rule. In this case we're dealing with some very hot women. Just look at the cover! Who is going to say that these women aren't hot? Heh?" There was silence in the room.

"Okay, let's hear it," said Tim as he popped the disc in the CD player.

The first five seconds were strictly swirling effects with heavy delay. Then high metal strings sparkled. Then all the other trash instruments kicked in as the singer began to scream. After a minute's worth of guitar riffs that sounded borrowed from some soundtrack metal hit, the song shifted into jingly melodic pop with sweet female vocals. The drum track was actually repeated sounds of a whip sample.

"I can't believe this," Tim groaned as he slapped his hand over his eyes. "This is so embarassing. Why do we have to play this crap?"

"Tim," Jeff countered, starting to raise his voice. "We have a shot at breaking a new artist here. Now you may not be able to figure it out yet, but I'm telling you these women are hot. In case you've forgotten your research, hot sexy women sell. I realize you have certain values, which I find to be very noble. But you gotta remember, Tim, we're not programming this station for you, it's for the audience. Now I've been in this business too damn long to not know what the hell I'm talking about. You, on the other hand, still have a lot to learn...and for your own good you need to learn quickly. Remember, I pulled you out of nowhere. I went to bat for you. Now I think it's time you paid me a little respect and gave me credit for knowing what I'm doing." Jeff paused to check Tim's reaction.

Tim said nothing for a full minute as he turned his head to look out the window. He started thinking about how bad it felt to be out of work. No one would hire him, not even fast food restaurants.

Finally Tim turned back to Jeff and said, "you're right, Jeff. Sorry for being a jerk."

Jeff smiled and then tried to comfort Tim by saying, "it's okay, kid. I was once there too."

Later that night Jeff went to dinner with G.W. ("Wally") Heichman to talk about the direction of the station. For the past few years the station had gone several directions under several owners. Back in the day, Clueless was simply a guitar-based music-intensive station that took music seriously, but nearly everything else as a joke. The jocks made fun of all political parties and just about every religion. But they always pointed back to the music as a tool for keeping society on track. Whether or not the songs had deep meaning, the jocks gave the songs special meaning by always treating them as cultural treasures and not just the latest hits. Most of what Clueless played were hits with surprises sprinkled in.

The direction of Clueless changed after Bizz Barker left and Heichman had seized control of programming. For the next few years the station went through three owners yet had no PD. Heichman made all the music decisions. He even went to dinner with record reps. Heichman loved attention from the industry even though he didn't know much about the music. He would add a record not on the merits of the record itself, but on how he was treated by the reps. At 55 years old, Heichman never went to shows or even listened to much new music. But anyone who talked with him about beautiful women sure had a good shot at an add. Because the music selection became less focused, the overall sound of the station was in a state of continuous drift.

For awhile the station played a lot of female artists. Then when research showed they had over- done it with females, Clueless began to mix in a lot of ska and swing. Then the station switched to a lot of quirky novelty songs, then the station began mixing in rap and metal. Now the station was strictly playing crossover hits that were called alternative by the radio industry and a very short list of new songs.

Heichman told Paneela, "this new book is very disappointing. We've been dropping for awhile now, but not this quickly."

"Yeah, but like we discussed," Jeff responded, "I'm going to implement all the policies that I know will work. I think you'll see a quick turnaround."

"I do share your optimism," Heichman asserted. "But I'm going to have to step in here and define the framework for where we need to be headed. I know you said that you trimmed the playlist down to 30 currents. I've been reading a lot lately about some of the early pioneers of top 40 and it appears they had incredible success by trimming the list even further, down to say 15 songs."

Heichman had no idea what the station's playlist looked or sounded like. He hated looking at a playlist and seeing "PD: Tim Jarz" above the chart. The name "Tim Jarz" just looked wrong, he felt. Heichman secretly wanted it to read "GM: George Walbert Heichman."

"Well that's a little tight for an alternative station," Jeff snapped. "Besides, you're talking about an earlier era when AM didn't have competition."

"I'm talking about an era when radio was about greatness!" Heichman pounded his fist on the desk. "I've been around for awhile too, you know. And I heard more great radio then than I do now. Jeff, remember that I'm the one who gave you a shot at consulting. Now work with me a little on this. I only want a few things changed with programming. First, I want to trim our list to 15 songs. Second, I want Jarz out by the end of this month."

Jeff, who actually felt no loyalty to Jarz other than he was supposed to be his puppet, began to think of other people who might fit the job. Jennifer, he imagined, the midday girl, might make a good PD/morning talent. "Okay," said Jeff, "will do."

End of Chapter 1. Continue to Chapter 2

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