The Moo Crew
Radar, Scott & Karen
WMIL
Milwaukee
http://www.fm106.com/pages/MooCrew.html

Interviewed by Steve Harmon

Harmon: Describe your cast and members.

Scott: Karen-like the energizer bunny. always thinking, always moving

Karen: I'm the high energy workaholic and probably the best at multi-tasking. Super driven to the point of annoyance at times! Scott is the perfect balance...calm, cool and funny as hell! Radar is the party animal and our resident Nascar expert. He's the show producer so he helps us keep it all together.

Radar: Karen (spaz), Scott (Mr. Mellow) and Radar (God). Ok, I went a little overboard. The three of us handle the show, news, traffic, website and carpet cleaning. We're pretty versatile.


Harmon: Bit that helped you win your city ... and you knew it!

Scott: We sat in every seat in Miller Park and raised 50 grand for the prevention of child abuse. The coolest part was they allowed us into the stadium a week before opening day in 2001. No one else in town had seen the park. All four tv stations covered it. Newspaper and even a little national pub.

Karen: There's been quite a few over the years like Squats for Tots when we sat in every seat at our new baseball stadium for Child Abuse Prevention. It helped to invite local TV newspeople to help and we had coverage for three days! (raised $1 per seat for a total of $50,000) Or our "Drop Your Drawers" broadcast when we collected underwear for the victims of Hurricane Katrina

Radar: When we sat in every seat (42,000 of them) in Miller Park, before opening day for our Milwaukee Brewers. The team wouldn't allow any media inside. They wanted to unveil it on opening day. We gained access, since we were raising money for our charity. The only way the news media could gain access was if they filmed us. Every channel showed up over the three day sit down

Harmon: How long together?

Scott: 10 years March 1!

Radar: 8 hours or more each day. Actually, Karen and Scott have been together for 10. I have been the third wheel for 8.


Harmon: Person on your last nerve?

Scott: We have a prize pig named Darla. She's tricky. She'll call in with about seven different aliases and even uses different accents and dialects.

Karen: Right now, the guys holding my broken snowblower hostage!

Radar: Any sales person that can't/won't/doesn't want to help the show. But if they need something.......


Harmon: How do you keep it together on days when the show seems to be going nowhere?

Scott: Fortunately, Karen always comes loaded for bear. She's killed several small forests for show prep so we always have something to talk about.

Karen: We come in really prepped and have lots of extra arsonal ready when a topic flops. On those occasional mornings when nothing seems to work, we are happy that we get to try again tomorrow!

Radar: Don't dwell. Chalk it up and move on. Otherwise, you ruin your whole week. One bad day can spawn another. Some days are not going to work because of weather, holiday's or just dead phones. We just plan for the next day and always seem to rebound.


Harmon: What's the worst job you've ever had outside of radio that reminded you what spoiled moneymakers we can be?

Scott: Two of em'. Bailing hay and pouring concrete when I was growing up in Iowa.

Karen: I can't remember life before radio! But whenever we drop off lunch for Milwaukee businesses and tour area factories, we are often reminded how good we have it.

Radar: Milkin' cows. Did it in high school. It's a 24/7 job. And I hated getting up early. Wait, I'm doing mornings now.


Harmon: At ten o'clock or <whenever you're done...> how do you know it was a good show?

Scott: I'm the wrong guy to ask because I suffer from short term memory loss.

Karen: There's a nice, warm feeling!! Seriously, when everything gels we sense that it was a good day...but the real indicator is when you meet a listener a few weeks later and they bring up that day. If listeners recall, it's always a great sign we touched them.

Radar: By the volume of emails on topics we covered. If it was compelling/funny, we'll get slammed. Or, if we say, "THAT is going on our CMA Award entry".


Harmon: Do you try to work in items from the morning paper?

Scott: Always. In this town, your local or your dead. Ask the 17 syndicated shows that haven't worked here. (Mancow, Imus, etc)

Karen: More than anything else!! Our priority is local news so we use the morning paper alot.

Radar: Yes, especially if it's front page! Things happen after our show all the time. We like staying up with what is happening now!


Harmon: What's your biggest challenge day to day?

Scott: The station is always on promotion overload. The challenge is coming up with creative morning show bits to sell it.

Karen: Getting out of bed!! A 3:30AM alarm clock hurts your head


Harmon: Give an example of a day you "owned the market".

Scott: You can never go wrong with the military. We had a local army company home from Iraq and we gave a bunch of them front row for Kenny Chesney. The tears were flowin' and every one was watching. TV, newspaper were both in the studio.

Karen: In November, FM 106 won the 2007 Large Market Station of the Year Country Music Award. We made our usual trip to broadcast from Nashville but were followed around by the local ABC affiliate since they carried the award show. Congratulatory e-mails flooded in from listeners and even our competitors in town reached out to let us know it was a big deal.


Harmon: The "Internet" how much time do you spend on internet features from podcasting..pictures..diaries..blogs?

Scott: Radar spends a ton of time on all of the above. Our website is a big part of our show from contesting to videos of things we've done to blogging and pictures.

Karen: Ever since I bought my Flip Video and new digital camera, I've been uploading morning show stuff like crazy but Radar really spends the most time keeping our page current and it looks great!

Radar: A lot! We're constantly driving listeners to our site. I've got show stuff, podcasts, pics, videos, etc. If it's 2pm, people will go to our site to see what we did or are doing the next day. If it's not there, they may just give up. I try to give them what they want on our site. Don't want them going to another station site to get news or entertainment.


Harmon: Anybody ever call and say, loving your HD channel?

Scott: Ha! Good one Harmon!! Our boss Kerry Wolfe is the only guy I know with an hd radio.

Karen: Not a word!

Radar: No calls...but I like it.


Harmon: What else can Bitboard do for you?

Scott: You can never get enough lifestyle interviews. Always good to see names and emails or phone contacts for lifestyle stuff that we can use.

Karen: See Radars answer on this....I lOVE his idea of doing a morning show reality series!! Everyone wants to see the behind the scenes of a radio station.

Radar: Develop a TV show. Seriously...a show that features morning radio jocks doing bits.


Harmon: Best idea you used from Bitboard?

Scott: Too many to mention but Three Eyed Turtle and Walking Naked bring back fond memories

Karen: We rely on Bitboard SO much but one that stands out it the St. Patricks Day "Biggest Green Thing" idea. We had front row Rascal Flatts tickets and TONS of creative entries. Lots of TV coverage on this promotion.

Radar: We've used many that were great...but most recently, it's Hannah MAN-tana for Hannah Montana tix. We were on it (thanks to Bitboard) before any other station in our market. Of course, they all followed with the same idea.


Harmon: Has your show gotten a chance to check out Daily Dose on Bitboard?

Scott: Yes....I'm gonna miss the daily Britney section and hope it never goes away.

Karen: Yes and we use much of it on the show!

Radar: Yes, it's great! We use it in addition to our daily prep.(did we suck up enough, Harmon? World Class!!..Harmon )