Dan Watts Introduction

Welcome to the week after Labor Day...home stretch for the Holidays.

My name is Dan Watts and I have been in the Radio Industry (mostly) for more than 20 years. I have been on both sides of the hallway as we like to say.

Started out on the air at the campus radio station for Anderson University as well as a commercial station in town. The commercial station was Oldies and the first night I was on the air and allowed to play music I played a cut by Boston that was not on the playlist. Not surprisingly the PD was on the phone to me within :60...whoops.

I transferred to Eastern Kentucky University for my last 2 years of college. I worked on the air at the campus station there too and a commercial station in town.

After college, it was out into the "Real World" and doing mornings in the metropolis of Leitchfield, KY. I was LIVING making $15k per year and living in a tiny apartment. I couldn't believe it that I was actually making a living being on the radio...it was a dream come true. My career idol as a kid was Johnny Fever from WKRP.

Then I met this girl... (this is the point where most stories take a really big turn) and long story short I ended up in Washington Courthouse, OH doing weekend air work and learning sales during the day. That was 18 years ago and radio advertising has been my life ever since!

Radio Advertising has been a very rewarding career for me....not only financially but in many other ways as well. I have moved around the country (Columbus, OH...Wheeling, WV...Scranton, PA...back to Columbus...and now in Cincinnati.) I have had periods where we have made lots of money and periods where it was all rice and beans. I have worked with some wonderful Radio people like Tim Stinson, Dave Robbins, TJ Holland and Donna Gamblin....and some certifiable idiots who shall remain nameless. To have gotten to go to a lot of great concerts for FREE and have eaten at a lot of fantastic restaurants on expense accounts.

At this point in my life, I have gotten to the point in my career where it is more about what I can do for others and less about what I can do for me.

About two years ago, I started working with a radio station called WAKW FM in Cincinnati, OH. We are a Contemporary Christian Music radio station. I was asked to created a Business Development Department (essentially selling advertising on the station) from scratch. When I started here, they we doing a just a little bit of underwriting billing. We recently finished our 2nd full fiscal year and we finished at over $1 million in revenue. Our goals for this fiscal year are to exceed $ 1.5 million and we are on pace to do so.

So that's a little bit about me...my blogs on here will be from the advertising view of things with a focal point on Christian Radio.

I was thrilled to be asked by Charlie to be a part of this blogging team and hope that I can make meaningful additions to the blog. If you see something on here that you like (or don't like) please feel free to post a comment...would appreciate your feed back.

Blessings,

Dan Watts