NYC Radio: Scott Shannon...Listener Relationships Are Still Key

At 70 years old, WCBS-FM Morning host Scott Shannon is as close to DJ legend as there is, having manned the mic at many stations since he left home at 17. For the last four years he has been berthed at Entercom's Class Hits WCBS-FM, which bills itself as the home of "New York's greatest hits."

"This is our 912th show," Shannon tells Judann Pollack with Ad Age as Joan Jett's "I Love Rock and Roll" starts playing. Shannon leafs through a sheaf of papers that contain clips from the morning's newspapers, the New York Daily News and the New York Post, along with his hometown Journal News, to use as fodder for the patter. Today's topics include a coyote found in a museum in Albany; a tape of former senator Al D'Amato screaming at his wife during a hospital visit; and the end of "Sharknado" ("I don't hate anybody, but that Tara Reid is easy to dislike," he quips on the air.) It's opening day for the Mets, so John Fogerty's "Centerfield" spins. It's 8:11 a.m., he tells listeners.

Shannon, and others like him, are radio's ground zero. They are the ones that create enduring relationships with consumers, they are the cultivators of that curiously intimate relationship that audiences feel with radio hosts they have never met. "When you have a successful morning show, people feel they know you," says Shannon, who reaches 2 million people a week.

"The radio stations that just play music aren't going to do that well because there are plenty of places you can go and get that same music without all the commercials," says Shannon. "But if you have a personality on the air that can give a different slant to a story, or can tell his or her own story, you can't get that anywhere else."

Asked about radio audiences aging Shannon about radio audiences aging,  "I used to play 'In the Still of the Night' five times a day, and unfortunately a lot of the people who love 'In the Still of the Night' have passed on to the still of the night," he says. "Because of the demands of the advertising community you can't have an audience of 70-to-80-year olds. They are not gonna pay for it.

But those listener relationships are just as key. Shannon knows this as well as anyone. "It used to be that you could turn on a radio in New York and listen to WABC and you would pull up to a stoplight and there would be five or six other cars there with the same thing on," he says, "but the industry has grown so much that they have a lot more choices."

But he's convinced that if you establish a connection, people will listen. It does not matter whether the audience is tuning in on a cellphone, desktop or a battered transistor radio.

"It's not like it used to be," says Shannon as the red light winks out. "But it's still a really great business."