Rock 99 - Chapter 9
By H.G. Miller
End Prologue
It certainly wasn’t the most daring stunt to ever hit the radio landscape, but when The Rock 99 in Los Angeles decided to forgo six hours of traditional programming in the evening time period and instead give its DJs the freedom to spin whatever tracks they desired in a free form forum, there was a noticeable hiccup in the local industry.
The money people who ran the conglomerate giant to which The Rock gave its profits had been looking for quite some time to increase revenue from the stagnant unit. Always number six in the market behind three Spanish-language stations, an urban rap setup and a top-40 outfit, the station had held steady in market share by the sheer number of teens in Los Angeles. Alternative rock was a strong sell, and The Rock didn’t need much more of a gimmick to keep its listenership.
But, the kids were growing up. Getting into NPR and jazz and top 40 and classic rock and every other niche station saw gains for a few years while The Rock’s audience began to shift.
Many wall charts and PowerPoint presentations had been born out of the need to successfully reposition the brand relevance of The Rock. How to keep those kids happy and get those growing out of it to stick around and come back.
And then, Jack Watley snapped.
The elder statesman of programmers in the area took over an afternoon show that had been abandoned by one of his disc jockeys and began to play music from just about every genre available. He also spewed enough anti-corporate propaganda to convince area listeners in the “rebel age” demographic (young males, age 14 to 17, upper middle class families, concentration in suburban counties, lots of disposable income) that he was a serious rebel himself, and they ate it up.
The suits saw ratings go through the roof and, lacking the foresight of most business people who dabble in the creative industries, took it to be the final solution to the problem of ratings decline.
So, The Rock went free form.
Cracklin’ Jack Watley relinquished some of his duties as a programmer and went back to the mic for four hours every afternoon, while his young protégé, Dale Powell, manned an evening segment that ran from 10 p.m. to 3 in the morning every night.
Soon enough, the novelty of an old man voicing rhetoric over the after school airwaves wore off, and the rating sank back to where they had been before Watley’s explosion. Dale’s show had a slight bit more success, as he was closer to the younger generation than the other DJs and had some insight as to what the teens actually wanted to listen to.
Those in charge felt they had a winner with Dale’s “Prozac Nation” radio show, but needed to phase out Watley’s afternoon segment before it fell behind in the ratings any further.
So, sixth months after the experiment began, Jack Watley was informed that he needed to come up with a way to sign himself off of the air and transition in a talent from Cincinnati who’d had success at the top rock station in Ohio. Jack took the news with a relatively somber attitude and seemed quite professional as he told his superiors that he understood their dilemma.
The next day, Jack Wately played some of the records that had made him fall in love with music so many years before. He politely acknowledged some of the people who had helped him climb through the radio ranks, and he gave Dale his last piece of advice:
“Keep fighting, kid. Keep fighting.”
Two weeks into his retirement, Jack Wately crossed some wrong wires while working in his garage and died with the radio playing a commercial for a local amusement park.
The old man was gone, but The Rock rolled on…