July 6, 2011
At one time, Skip Mahaffey was living the radio life to its fullest. In 1996 he won the CMA Broadcast Personality of the Year. In 2001 and 2003 he would win that award again, this time at Country powerhouse WQYK in Tampa. In 2001 Mahaffey would tack on Country Air Personality of the Year for Billboard Magazine. At the time he was working without a contract for CBS. Clear Channel came knocking on his door planning to blow up its rock station and flip it to Country. Mahaffey took the big morning show money from Clear Channel and four years later he was fired. Mahaffey tells Radio Ink the facts may come out a little different depending on who you ask but that's how he sees his radio career going from winning awards to sitting on the beach.
Mahaffey was in a difficult position for talent. He wanted to get back on the air but I had a year left on my contract that Clear Channel was paying. If he went back to work, he would lose a substantial amount of money, so he had to sit it out and take the cash. But a year off the radio is like a decade for talent. Out of sight, out of mind. It just makes getting back in the business that much more difficult. Mahaffey spent my time writing and publishing a book. "It's the story of my brother and me growing up in a dysfunctional divorced household in the 60's."
Yesterday, Mahaffey was back on the air in Tampa after a short stint in Tulsa. He has to purchase his airtime now, but whatever it takes to get back on the air. He says he owes a lot to the folks at Journal for helping him get back. "I have to say thank you to Bill Berry, the late and very under appreciated Tom Land and the people at Journal. KVOO was a wonderful experience and I will always be grateful for them picking me up and bringing me into their family. But being away from home was difficult and they understood and appreciated my position and were kind enough to give me the freedom to step away and come home."
"But really, the answer to this question comes long before my time in Tulsa. After I was fired from Clear Channel, I found it very difficult for any station to take a hard look at adding me to their station. Many times I was told 'we can't afford a Skip Mahaffey' to which my response was always, 'I make $300 a week off unemployment...you can afford me!' Difficult was an understatement and I found myself in a position that many very talented professionals are in, so I had to do something drastic. I knew the key was to re-invent my program, but to what? That was the question."
"I knew what I wanted to do but I wasn't sure how to execute it. I have to give credit to Mike McVay, Heather Cohen and the Weiss Agency and more than anyone, Gabe Hobbs for helping me understand that the talk format was indeed where I needed to go and give me the encouragement to step into that arena, and to venture out of the comfort of three decades of Country radio. I had been in conversations with Salem in Tampa since late 2009 about doing a 'live and local' talk show in town. We all agreed that Tampa needed someone who was more concerned with the local audience than the national. We had come to terms as to what we wanted to accomplish but I just couldn't get a commitment from them and I had to pay my bills. That's when KVOO came along. Nine months later, it was apparent that I was going home and I reconnected with Salem. In a very short period of time, I found myself right back where I was a year earlier, we knew we wanted to do the show, we knew that Tampa needed a live and local talk show but I just couldn't get them to commit to a date. By the end of Spring, I was at a point where something needed to happen...NOW!"
"It was by total coincidence at that point that I was contacted by Brenda Lynn (BL of The Sportschix fame) asking me if I would sit in as a guest with her. She told me she had started a show on WTAN (best known for bartering 'Ask the Expert' and 'Let's Talk Bowling' types of programming.) I had such a great time, it fit like a glove. I knew this was something I needed to explore further. After weeks and weeks of anguishing over stepping into the bastard step-child of radio 'barter' I remember Gabe telling me 'do whatever you have to do to establish your platform and get your product on the air.' So I sucked it up, used money from my unemployment checks and a leap of faith from a couple of sponsors and in I went. Forty-five minutes before I returned to the air in Tampa, the verdict came down in the Casey Anthony case. It was another example on the power, immediacy and intimacy of radio. My audience wanted to vent, and I was able to give them that forum."
Mahaffey says his show theme will be values without judgment. "The line between the value system of the Country listener and that of the Talk listener is razor thin. I've talked to thousands of Country fans across the country and PPM shows that the P1's and P2's spend a lot of time jumping between News/Talk and Country. My goal is to provide a bridge to cover that jump. I think radio in general is so focused on competing with Smart phones and Pandora, that we have forgotten that a large part of our job is to serve and entertain our community. We spent over a dozen years in this market building a brand of being the place people turned to when something happened, good or bad. PPM killed that aspect of local radio. The SkipShow will bring back that platform for the community. People equate 'Talk Radio' to 'Political Radio,' that will NOT be the case with the SkipShow. If the main topic of the day in Tampa is political, then I'd be wrong to ignore it. But the two words you won't be hearing out of me on my program is 'conservative' and 'liberal.' Because when you do (according to Holland Cooke) you immediately alienate one-half of your potential audience. That's not smart."
After all he's been through, the ups and downs, the big money and the unemployment checks, Mahaffey returned to sometimes brutal business of Radio because of he loves it. "I realized that I have no other marketable skills whatsoever! Seriously, I love and still believe in this medium. Radio is personal, it's immediate and it still provides a one on one connection between the 'content provider' (us) to the consumer (them) that NOBODY else can provide. Brutal is an understatement. I can name half a dozen talents in Country radio worthy of a million dollars a year (Johnson and Johnson, JD Pellitier, Bill Whyte, Chad Mitchell and most recently Becky Brenner) who are not working. I can't speak for them but I know them all well enough to know that that fire still burns inside them and that their best days are still ahead. Maybe I'm being a Pollyanna, maybe I'm an idiot. I believe in what I believe and I am passionate about the profession. Besides Home Depot Orange does not look good on me.
Skip Mahaffey can be heard on WTAN (1340 AM) at 4PM Eastern and on the WTAN website www.TanTalk1340.com and www.SkipShow.com. Reach out to Skip at skip@skipshow.com
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