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 8: "The Show Must Not Go On"

So Bizz took the blame for the down trend, even though Bizz never worked at Clueless during the period the trend represented. During his entire four-week comeback as PD, he never added a single record to the playlist. All Bizz basically did was further chop the library down, weeding out stiffs. It was ridiculous to say Bizz came in and wrecked the sound of the station. Now Clueless was going through another PD change due to factors completely beyond his control.

Jennifer called a full staff meeting on her first day. She introduced herself as the new PD and laid out her plan for the rest of the quarter. It was at this meeting that she announced the station was planning a summer festival. The perception among the staff was that Jennifer was responsible for coming up with the idea.

After the meeting Jennifer took a call from Rosswick. The indie explained very carefully how they needed to work closely together to make the show happen. Jennifer went along with the game completely. All she cared about was getting noticed by the industry. She was willing to add any record to make somebody happy if it made Rosswick happy. She understood that Rosswick was close to the most influential people in the industry. She had a good feeling that if she did what Rosswick wanted, her career would blossom.

In Jennifer's first week as PD Rosswick asked her to add nine records. She had not heard any of them and agreed to all of them, just as Bizz had. Rosswick still would not say who the headliner would be, but kept saying "we're close." He said all nine records were necessary to secure at least one "A" band.

With the new line-up, Jennifer returned to middays, following the Bizz Barker morning show. She told Bizz, "I'm sorry about your situation. I've been there too. Hopefully, we'll be successful and I'll move on to another market and you'll get to move up again."

"You know," answered Bizz. "I really don't want to program anymore. I just want to concentrate on the music. I'm looking forward to working with you."

"That's great," said Jennifer. "But you won't exactly be working with me directly. You'll be working more with Python. He's the new Assistant PD."

Bizz could not believe what he was hearing. "What?" he blasted. "How did he get that gig? He hasn't done anything."

"I know it's hard to take," said Jennifer. "But that's how it is."

Bizz felt he had suffered too many blows at this point. It was at that moment that he told himself he needed to get the hell out of Clueless fast. He rushed home and started throwing together packages of airchecks and resumes. The next day he fired off about twenty packages in the mail to radio stations around the country. Unfortunately all the good jobs in radio had been taken at this point, so his efforts proved to be a waste of postage.

The irony to the Jennifer-Bizz relationship was that Jennifer secretly admired Bizz. She understood that it had been Bizz in spite of Heichman that had made Clueless Radio the kingpin of cool back in the day. She wished she could bring herself to comment on her feelings to Bizz but that might be surrendering or admitting something. She still had to convince herself that she could be the boss of Bizz Barker.

On the following Monday Rosswick told Jennifer "we need to add eleven records this week."

"Sure," said Jennifer, who again had not heard any of them. Jennifer began to fall into a pattern of following Rosswick's instructions on which records to add and what rotations to put them in. Jennifer then ordered Python to schedule the music while Bizz simply was in charge of keeping the music library in order and presenting charts and research for music meetings. Bizz now had zero input on the music selection.

After awhile the station's playlist had become incredibly long. The list was up to 60 current songs. Only about 15 of those songs were played in regular rotation around the clock. The other 45 songs were played mostly late night and overnight like every three hours. Most of the records on the Clueless playlist proved to be flops. They were bad bets from the start.

"But it's not just about playing the hits," Bizz told Jennifer, assuming the tone of a scholar or professor. "That's only part of it, and that's what they don't understand."

"Who do you mean by they?" she asked, side-stepping the opportunity to rip on upper management.

"Upper management," confirmed Bizz. "Specifically, Heichman. I'm not really ripping on him or anything, but he's not too clear on how this station made it to the top and then descended to where it is now...near the bottom. He tries to brag about how he turned the station into an empire and somehow the forces of stupidity made him a victim of bad PDs and consultants. He needs to wake up to the fact that he needs to let someone besides himself make programming decisions."

"He's letting me make decisions," Jennifer lied, almost to playfully embarrass Bizz or maybe just to remind him that she's his boss now, no matter how smart he thought he was.

"Like what?" asked a shocked Bizz.

"Like with the staff, music, the rotations, the promotions..."

"Wait a minute. He's letting you decide on the music?"

"Yeah, don't you like all the killer new songs I put in?"

Bizz opened his mouth wide but nothing came out. He was stunned that Heichman had the audacity to give Jennifer power to add records, while Bizz clearly had a deeper sense of the industry, the music, the format, the market and the station yet he was denied that opportunity. Bizz actually believed Jennifer so like a fool he confronted Python with the information.

"So Python," said Bizz, trying to sound like a friend, "Congratulations on your promotion to APD."

"Thanks," said an upbeat Python. "Sorry things didn't work out for you."

"Oh it's totally cool," said Bizz, trying to match Python's energy level. "I'm glad I only have to worry about the morning show and the music...well not even the music since Jennifer's making all the music decisions."

"Well, actually she's working with this consultant," said Python.

Bizz nodded, "Oh no, that's not a consultant. What, is that what they told you?"

"Yeah. The guy's got a funny name...something like Red somebody."

"Red Rosswick."

"Yeah, that's right. Red Rosswick."

Bizz felt the thrill of knowing something that Python did not. It kind of revealed in an obvious way that the chain of command was now in ridiculous disorder. "But Jennifer just told me that she's making the music decisions. If that's true then her decisions are not gonna save this place."

Bizz kind of blew it by saying all that because for one thing, Jennifer had lied about having power over music. It was understood that Rosswick could confrim an add with a label before even telling anyone at Clueless. Another bad reason for Bizz unloading his paranoia on Python was that Python went straight to Jennifer and told her that Bizz had been talking about her behind her back.

"Yeah," said Python, expecting to pick up good narc points. "Bizz told me something like 'the station is never gonna go up again because of your programming.' He was totally going off on you."

"That jerk," said Jennifer. "Then he's out. I'll go to Wally with this right away."

Even though Jennifer had admired Bizz as a radio legend and she had grown up listening to him, she had a very short fuse when it came to someone talking smack about her. She had a fairly high opinion of herself on the surface, but she failed miserably at handling criticsm or misquotes. "I'll end that fool's career right now," she said, punching in Heichman's private number on her cell phone.

"Yeah," whispered Heichman in his cheesy covert voice.

"Can we talk in your office right now?" she asked in a demanding voice.

"Sure, come on in."

Jennifer hurried into his office and shut the door and began speaking loudly. "That's it. I'm done with Bizz Barker. I'll do mornings and Sherbert can go back to middays. I just heard from Python that Bizz Barker is going around the station telling everyone that I don't know how to program. I can't have this. I mean he was even talking trash about you, Wally. Do you agree with me that he needs to be gone?"

"Absolutely," said Heichman. "I'll even let you have the honors."

"What do you mean?" asked Jennifer, expecting Heichman to be the hatchet man.

"Well, you're the one having a problem with him. I'm letting you take care of it. That's part of your job," Heichman said laughing. "You know, I was done with Barker long ago but thanks to that idiot Paneela we brought that egotistical fraud back for no apparent reason. I still feel bad about the way Paneela treated you and then to have Barker turn around and pull this kind of nonsense...this must be a nightmare for you. I really am impressed by the way you're handling this."

"Thanks," said Jennifer. "Thanks for respecting me. I really can't thank you enough, Wally, for this opportunity."

The turn of events was unfortunate for at least three individuals in a classic Clueless lose-lose-lose situation. It was unfortunate for Bizz, that he was now going to lose his job. It was unfortunate for Heichman that he was going to lose the last person on the staff that at least had a clue on how to turn Clueless around. It was also unfortunate for Jennifer that now Heichman was falling madly in love with her.

Jennifer went back to her office to take a call from the indie - Red Rosswick. This time he had 15 records to add - all for next week. If Heichman had only known about the stacks of greenbacks Rosswick was raking in. "We need these records this week and 15 more next week to secure the venue," claimed Rosswick.

"So, who do we have for the show so far?" asked Jennifer.

"It'll be a winning line-up," assured Rosswick. "So far we've got Mr. Peroxide, 7 Spy 5, Suckhouse and by the end of the day I should have a confirmation on John Western Mills."

"Wow," said Jennifer, not even realizing that so far the line-up completely sucked. Not one of the bands that Rosswick mentioned had ever shown up as anything in any trade magazine and not one of the bands had a realistic draw of even ten people. To Jennifer it sounded like big news because they all seemed up and coming, like on the cutting edge of tomorrow. To Jennifer, new was cooler than old. In fact, she hated anything that was not part of a current trend.

Jennifer called Bizz but she got his answering machine, so she left a message that he had been terminated but that his check would be waiting for him tomorrow. Bizz got the message late but it did not come as a surprise. He began to reflect on the golden age of Clueless, the first time he had programmed the station, years ago. It was funny, exciting and topical. The music was a steady flow of hits and unique songs that fit between the hits. Then Bizz left and it became an awkward blast of generic songs that weren't even hits. For awhile Clueless listeners hung on but then people began to notice something. The radio wasn't really talking to them anymore. It was just liner card personality set to a predictable jukebox of short music sweeps interrupted by lots of commercials. And it wasn't really playing an interesting mix of music anymore. Bizz just laughed at how pathetic Clueless had become. He decided to flip on Clueless to hear what a joke it was.

The end of Mr. Peroxide segued into a promo produced by Python: "Clueless Radio brings you the biggest surprise of the year...it's bigger than life...it's what you've always wanted... it will blow your mind...it's better than sex...listen Friday afternoon for a mum-mum-mum-mum major announcement...on your number one station for big surprises...Clueless Radio."

"Oh, it's the show," said Bizz. "I can't wait to see them try to pull that one off."

After weeks of planning and begging, the show's line-up still did not have a headline act. In fact, all ten bands that Rosswick had lined up each had one single, and each of those singles barely got airplay on Clueless since they all were just bad records. Even the research clearly confirmed the listeners did not like any of the ten picks. The day before the major announcement that Clueless was teasing on the air, Rosswick threatened the management of the artist with the number one song in the country, that Clueless would drop that artist's entire catalogue of hits if that artist did not headline the Clueless Festival.

Shockwaves echoed around the industry that Clueless would do such a thing to an artist that attracted what little audience the station still had. The band not only refused to play the Clueless show, but threatened to file a complaint with the Justice Department. Rosswick shrunk from the reaction and even offered an apology.

The venue that Rosswick planned to secure held 20,000. Cost of the venue, security, event staff and everything else was astronomical. Rosswick convinced the promoter to set the ticket price at $30 to maximize profits. Rosswick projected gross revenue of $600,000 on ticket sales alone. The station would split the profits with the promoter after cost. All the bands would agree to play not for pay, but for exposure and more importantly...airplay. Rosswick figured in his cut as part of the cost, since he had to "work" at lining up the bands.

Rosswick was close friends with the concert promoter. In fact, Rosswick worked out a deal so that the promoter took the entire financial risk for the show in return for the hundreds of free mentions on Clueless to promote the show. But since the promoter owned the venue, no money really had to be put down for a deposit. Tickets would go on sale three months before the show and if sales were low after a month the show would be canceled and something else would take its place that Clueless would have to promote.

On Friday came the big announcement on Joe's afternoon show. Since the festival still did not have a headliner, Joe announced the ten committed bands and said "more bands will be announced soon." Despite an annoying out of control rally by Joe, the phones did not light up. But that was no longer strange. Most jocks on Clueless averaged three calls per hour. From the time Joe announced the Clueless Festival to the end of the night, the station did not receive a single call about the show, despite promos every ten minutes. Tickets went on sale the next morning, but not a single ticket was sold all weekend.

Rosswick was furious. He called Jennifer and said, "from this point on, I want you to yank everyone off the air that's not doing the show and I want you to put all ten bands that are doing the show in high rotation."

"All we're gonna play is the same ten songs over and over again?" asked a worried Jennifer.

"You got it, sweetheart," said Rosswick. "Airplay drives sales."

"Well that's cool," said Jennifer, pretending to understand Rosswick. "I like everyone on the bill. It'll give people a chance to become more familiar with our bands." In reality, it gave people another reason to give up on a station that now only played songs that no one liked.

End of Chapter 8. Continue to Chapter 9.

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