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| In the spotlight.... |
 Wank & O'Brien WENS Indianapolis www.real971.com Interviewed by Steve Harmon
Dave: We first
hooked up in 1996 at WRZX in Indianapolis. Wank was on a show with
a woman named Vanessa Wilde and future "Celebrity Justice" anchor Carlos
Diaz. When Carlos decided to head for TV O'Brien stepped in and
took over the third wheel role. When Vanessa left shortly after
Carlos we just started the whole "Wank &O'Brien" thing. It clicked and
took off like crazy. After hitting #1 18-34 and beating our sister
station (WFBQ - flagship of the Bob and Tom Show) in that demo we were
wooed by KCNL in San Jose, California. We put in a little over a
year there working with a lot of great people like Gary Schoenwetter
(Sirius Satellite Radio) and Jim Richards (CC/San Diego). We were
wooed back to Indy by Emmis Communications' WNOU in 2001 where we hooked
up with the amazing Kassie the Producer. She was originally
supposed to help us for a week getting settled into our new digs but we
were so impressed we stole her for our own evil purposes! We spent
three years at WNOU before shifting over to Emmis sister station Real
97.1 (WENS) in May of 2004. We went from a younger targeted CHR to
an adult targeted Hot AC that better fits our style.
Harmon: Describe your show and cast.
Wank - Larry David, but shorter Harmon:
How long in your market?.
Dave: We're at our third station in Indy, 2nd station at Emmis.
Been here since '96. Left for San Jose for one year and came back
in 2001. Harmon: Introductory Bit?
Dave: Good lord - at which station? 'Drunken American Idol'
opened our most recent stint on Real 97.1. Basically, it was do a
shot, sing a song badly. Do two shots, sing another song.
Our contestants got plastered by 8 AM.
Dave: We just finished running ads for a fake candidate and didn't
comment on 'em for 2 weeks. The guy was running for congress and
had these absolutely stone-age policies he was espousing for the entire
campaign. We'd get call after call and told people we were
'looking into it'. The day after the election we said the guy won
and we'd have him on with us live in the studio. Our candidate (
actually one of our sales guys) answered a couple questions before we
exposed it all as a hoax. It's all we've heard people talk about
outside the presidential race. It was huge!
Dave: That's pending - we're revamping things. Since we just
started with Real 97.1 a couple of months ago we're rebuilding our web
pages and re-thinking the way we target people. The best marketing
tool we use with the internet right now is simply answering all of our
e-mail! Dave: Write for 'em like we do! We get published in several
places here. We also have built great relationships with all of the
TV stations and let them know about everything we do. Harmon: What's your biggest challenge? Dave: This market is more competitive than you'd expect for #41.
You gotta be totally unique to stand out. There's a lot of shows
making noise without much content and getting heard around the noise is
our challenge. Harmon: At ten o'clock, how do you know it was a good show? Dave: If we're all exhausted, grinning, and hungry. And if we have two hours worth of e-mail replying ahead of us.
Harmon: "The best BitBoard bit we ever tried was....." Dave: The fake candidate!
Harmon: "When the room's tense we break it by..." Dave: Beating the shit out of each other. Or just by doing the next break. A great break can eliminate all problems.
Harmon: "I wouldn't miss BFD because..." Dave: It's a great opportunity to spread misinformation about your show! And we get to spend even MORE time with other members of the show! Man - nothing brings a morning show closer together than sharing a hotel room!
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