I first met John Van Camp years ago at Martini In The Morning, an online radio station that plays Standards 24/7; John and I are both Weekend Lounge hosts. John is still on MITM, and has gone on to launch his own station, the fabulous Boss Boss Radio ("Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffett is playing as I type this). One of the things that is so great about John is that he is talented not only on the air but also with the programming and engineering side of things, so there is some great info in this interview to inspire you if you've been thinking about launching a station of your own.
1. What is Boss Boss Radio? Can you tell us a little about the jocks and the music and what sets you guys apart from other stations?
Boss
Boss Radio is a full time internet radio station playing top 40 hits of
the 1960s and 1970s, that celebrates the type of radio most Baby
Boomers grew up with, a true variety of hit songs, from Frank Sinatra to
Led Zeppelin, presented by exciting, fun and entertaining deejays
called the Boss Jocks. Over the years, radio stations have diluted the
entertainment value of the presentation out of the mix and left a mostly
music juke box, consisting of tight playlists of about 500 songs that
rotate over and over.
When
we set out to create Boss Boss Radio, we didn’t want to copycat the
most significant thing to happen to radio since Marconi: the original
Boss Radio format. Launched in the 1960s, Boss Radio was a format
produced first by Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs. After test runs at stations
in Fresno and San Diego, CA, the official Boss Radio launch was in the
spring of 1965 at Los Angeles’ KHJ radio. The format, featuring tight
and bright disc jockeys (called Boss Jocks), the top 30 current rock n’
roll songs with a mix of hand-picked “goldens” and super short station
shotgun jingles turned the world of radio upside down. In Los Angeles,
KHJ went from almost last to first in the ratings in its first 6 months
on the air. While the owners of
KHJ made quick work of converting their other radio stations (in San
Francisco, Memphis, Detroit, New York and Boston) over to the new Boss
format, stations across the country soon caught on and emulated their
own “Boss Radio” formats.
So
Boss Boss Radio is more of a tribute to those heydays of rock n’ roll
radio, back when the car radio was king, and kids dictated musical
trends…the Summer of Love, Woodstock, the Vietnam War, the
singer/songwriters of the 1970s and the hedonistic days of Disco before
Boss Radio gave way to FM. The specific Boss Radio era of the 60s and
70s changed the way we listen to radio, and the music changed our
lives. We’ve hopefully built a radio station that recalls those days
with wide,
sweeping playlists, songs that never get airplay on today’s Classic
Hits radio stations, YET are fondly remembered by our core audience,
songs that conjure moments in our lifetime, presented by entertaining,
energetic and fun modern day “Boss Jocks.” We think we’re probably the
only internet-only radio station to have dj-hosted shows around the
clock and on the weekends.
2. What is your background, and how did it prepare you for running your own station?
Fortunate to have grown up in the shadow of the San Francisco Bay area of California during the late 60s and 70s, I caught the radio bug by age 10, as most of us do. We hung out at the local “Boss Radio” station in Monterey, everywhere we went we took our transistor radios, and once I made it to high school, I scored a choice internship at the number one radio station in town. I spent time as a DJ in the Central Valley, places like Merced and briefly in Fresno in the disco days of the late 70s before settling into a long run in Monterey radio and television before coming to work at The Walt Disney Company in Los Angeles in the 1990s.
Radio
never left me, and in the early 2000s, I was reconnected with an old
friend from the Monterey days, Brad Chambers, who was programming for
Clear Channel in Los Angeles. His career path would lead to the budding
Internet Radio industry and I lent a helping hand in his endeavor
online.
My
entire adult life has been spent in media of one sort or another,
starting in radio, leading to television, studio and network TV,
printing, graphics, web development, online radio and online content
publishing. As is the nature of media, it’s constantly changing, and I
assume I’ll change with it as I have all my life.
But
first love is and always has been radio. I’ve managed, sold,
programmed, produced and hosted radio in most formats over the years,
and am now in my eighth year in online radio.
3. What was the moment you decided to start Boss Boss?
In
the back of my mind, I’ve always wanted to “own” a radio station. I
told my fiancé (now my bride) nearly 30 years ago that I would one day
own a radio station. Now, 28 years of matrimony and four kids later,
we’re doing just that. BBR was an idea I had more than 10 years ago.
It’s formulation has been in the works for those years. The internet
allowed us to produce a radio station without having to be backed by a
huge corporation. The format really culminated from my youth, and those
great AM Top 40 songs, heavily influenced by R & B, Pop and even
Country and Jazz. The image song that was playing over and over in my
head was “We Were Always
Sweethearts” by Boz Scaggs. Not a huge national hit, but in the bay
area of Northern California, it was a monster! The “happy-go-lucky”
feel of this 3 minute gem of the early 1970s contains the entire “feel”
that I envisioned for the station. It’s arrival on the scene was a
welcome change of pace to the heavy anti-Vietnam war sentiment that had
crept into our popular culture at the time. “We Were Always
Sweethearts” still takes me back to those cool California summer days,
mindlessly escaping from the politics of the day, every time I hear it.
Great inspiration for a station!
 |
| You can hear John every morning on Boss Boss Radio! |
4. How did you snag some famous names like Ben Fong-Torres (from Rolling Stone magazine) to work for you?
I
often
joke to my wife “we couldn’t have done this without the internet.” Of
course, there would be no Boss Boss Radio, naturally without the
internet, but we’d also have no instant resource and history lesson to
build upon, because, after all, this is a modern-day tribute to Boss.
The other missing element would be Social Media. How did we “find” our
Boss Jocks? Everyone is a different story, but three of our most
“famous” Boss Jocks (whom were NEVER Boss Jocks but have a long pedigree
in radio, each one) we found because I reached out to a Facebook
“friend” whom I didn’t know...sound familiar?
Free-form
FM radio co-founder, and 4 decade radio star, TV entertainment
reporter, author and film maker
Raechel Donahue happened to accept my friend request on Facebook some
years back, as many radio folk do, especially if you think the request
is coming from a fan, or fellow radio industry-ite. I happened to see
in my news feed that Raechel’s current position in 2012 was ending, and I
reached out to her on Facebook and asked if she would be interested in
“playing” with us. We weren’t even on the air, but when we discussed
the format, and she heard a sample stream of the playlist, she jumped on
board. And the rest is history…
Because
of Raechel, she immediately offered up her contacts from her KSAN FM
days in San Francisco, which spanned back to the 1970s. First came
former KSFO/KSAN and K-101 Morning DJ
(and major film actor, and acting instructor) Terry McGovern, the voice
of the Storm Troopers, the man who fired Robin Williams in Mrs.
Doubtfire, the voice of Disney character Launchpad McQuack from Duck
Tales (which co-incidentally was my show while working at Disney, though
Terry and I never met). For about 9 months she “worked” another big
name in San Francisco radio, who happened to have a pretty stellar
career in rock radio and music: Ben Fong-Torres, former Sr. Editor of
Rolling Stone magazine. He was hesitant, with writing a new book in his
workload at the time, but when Raechel Donahue asks a favor, most
people come running.
But
perhaps the biggest and brightest star on Boss Boss Radio is a woman I
know from my days as a graphic designer. She would send me graphics
jobs, and I realized that they were all for radio stations. About 10
years ago, Bonnie Stacy (currently mid days on BBR) and I chatted about
radio, and when I asked her 3 years ago if she’s be interested in
playing with this, she quickly volunteered. Bonnie’s career spanned
radio in Texas throughout the 1980s, including Dallas, where she does
her daily Boss radio show today.
Plus
the others, afternoon Boss Jock “Uncle” Wyatt Jennings; 4 decade radio
veteran (and probably the only true former “Boss Jock” on our staff from
his days in Sacramento and San Jose AM radio in the 1960s and 70s)
Peter Boam (Peter B on the air), Canadian radio personality Mike Cowan
(Big Mike on the air) and myself, round out our Monday thru Friday
hosts.
Every
one has a story, including the “voice” of Boss Boss Radio: Roger
Jones. Roger and I worked together in radio as high school kids and
through much of my 20s in the Monterey market and, thanks to Facebook we
reconnected about the time we were putting the finishing
touches on the station. I sent him a demo of the station, and he
quickly replied the station sounded great, but that the image liners
sucked, and he wanted to step into that position. Rockin’ Rog has been
the image voice of the station since before day one, and continues to do
a weekend shift on Saturdays.
Plus
Jamey Karr in Amarillo Texas, who is the only person on staff working
for a terrestrial radio station today, full time. Jamey programs “The
Eagle” in Amarillo, a Classic Hits station there.
From
time to time, you’ll also hear the voice of former Boss Jock Bobby
Ocean, courtesy of Ben Fong-Torres. Bobby does some bumpers from Ben’s
show and sound Boss on the air here. We’ve talked to two other veterans
of KFRC San Francisco during the 1970s (first female Boss Jock Shana and
long time San Francisco stalwart John Mack-Flanagan), we’re hoping to
get all three of them to do shows on the Boss. And we’re always looking
for more!
It’s
only fair to point out that we don’t pay any of our talent, they give
us their heart and soul out of love for radio and the format. At some
point, we have plans to pay them, as soon as we have a sufficient
revenue stream.
5. What is a typical day like for you?
Wow.
The days run together. I do a five hour radio show Monday through
Friday here on BBR, then I have a “day job.” I still operate and run a
graphics design business, which is a full-time job. So my day is
interspersed with a lot of “balls in the air” from design jobs, my
content publishing jobs, and, of course, programming an online radio
station.
Because
I’m the station owner, program director, promotions and production guy,
and show producer (we produce a
weekly Boss 30 countdown show and a 6 hour Saturday Night program from
here, in addition to producing Ben Fong-Torres’ show every Sunday)
there’s a lot of time spent researching, writing, finding music, and
scheduling this all to run. Plus developing playlists for the rest of
the day on air, scheduling djs, and rescheduling for vacations, etc.
I also do a couple hours a day preparing my morning show. It’s a long day. Wow, I need a nap!
At
the end of the day, we hope we’ve provided a
product we can be proud of and that offers something unavailable
elsewhere. It’s thanks to the tremendous talent of the people here that
help us make this sound so Boss.
6. How much equipment does it take to make Boss Boss happen? Is this typical for running a station from your house?
Technology
continues to evolve on an hourly basis. Which is also how we were able
to make Boss Boss Radio happen. Even when we were getting started
nearly 8 years ago with Brad Chambers’ “Martini In The Morning dot com”
station, things have evolved to make this much easier to do from a home
studio.
Without
giving away the “secret sauce” of how this works, suffice it to say,
you can operate a music streaming project from your home PC, it’s
rudimentary, but it’s possible. We partner with a few companies to
make this happen, from the streaming server hosts to the advertising
insertion companies that place the commercials on our air, to the folks
at TuneIn Radio and our app partners at Nobex Technologies and of
course, the folks at Apple, who have been a great proponent of online
content, and provide a great point of discovery for us, it takes a
“virtual village.”
The
collaboration that is going on,
on our behalf, is amazing in a world of heavy competition for the same
dollars and sets of ears (and eyes now). Our ad insertion company has
worked directly with all our other partners to custom-tailor our
particular solution that works in concert with all the moving parts,
including our station software, for example.
I
want to add that ALL of our Boss Jocks produce their shows from their
home studios. I think we had a former jock that had access to real
radio studio, but the other 10 of us do our thing in a room in our
homes, or in Terry McGovern’s case from an out building on his property
in Marin County California that he has converted into a studio among
other things…fondly referred to as “Dad’s pad when Mom’s
mad.”
The
world of voice over talent is such now that the people with the voices
just need a decent place to record their work, and most of them do it
from home now, including you Lara! (Yep...I have a studio in my bathroom!)
7. What advice do you have for someone that wants to get into radio and/or start their own internet station?
I
think we (collectively the internet broadcasting community) all wished
we had an endless bucket of money to do this when we started. But at
some point everyone’s bucket runs out of funds. And what we
haven’t seen yet is the first internet-only broadcaster to make a
killing in this. While internet broadcasting is enjoying the fruits of
an advertising community that embraces it’s spot on metrics (the ability
to know exactly how many listeners vs. sample based estimates, weighted
by companies from a cross section example such as Nielsen’s Arbitron
service for broadcast stations) and it’s affordability (cost per
thousands reached is pennies), we still need tens of thousands of
listeners to be viable commercially, and that also takes money to
promote and market.
Hope
is on the horizon, in the car-radio market. Soon, internet radio will
be “standard equipment” in new cars. Already, a handy
smartphone user can connect their phone to their car stereo and stream
Boss Boss Radio and thousands of other internet radio stations really
easily over their car speakers and it the sound quality can be better
than satellite and broadcast stations as well.
I
can’t (or won’t) speak for the current conditions of getting started in
my beloved radio (broadcast) as corporations have made it pretty tough
to break-in.
For
budding radio personalities, the internet is your best option for
getting started, but don’t expect
to receive a pay check for your efforts. There is no farm system in
place any longer for radio personalities as there was for more than 4
decades in broadcast radio. It used to be possible for a personality to
get started in a small market on the air and hone their skills well
enough to score better opportunities in larger markets on up to the big
time. But that system is no longer viable due to the current state of
broadcast radio programming and ownership.
8. And finally, where can we find Boss Boss Radio online? Web addy, email, twitter, etc.....
We
like to say that Boss Boss Radio is Everywhere You
are…and that’s true. In today’s highly connected world, it’s pretty
tough to find a place where you can’t listen. We have listeners in
every country on the globe (except Greenland for some reason)
organically. We’re listened to in all 50 United States and it’s
territories as well.
To listen while at work, home or at your computer, there are a few options: Our website at www.BossBossRadio.com
has a player and several player options (RealPlayer, Windows Media,
WinAmp, etc.) On iTunes from your Music Library, click your music
library, choose “Internet.” From the list of genres, you’ll find Boss
Boss
Radio in the Golden Oldies section. If you don’t see “Internet” on the
middle menu of your Music Library, go to preferences and check
“Internet.” You can also listen via tunein.com, a convenient link to our
tunein.com page is on our home page as well.
On
the go: You can listen on any smartphone, or mobile device. TuneIn
Radio is a free app on all platforms that you can download to your
mobile device, search for Boss Boss Radio. We also have our own mobile
app for iPhone, Android and Blackberry. Search for Boss Boss Radio in
any of those three app stores.
Back
yard, doing housework, background to your house party, out in the
garage: Because we are available on all streaming apps, you can
literally listen to the Boss anywhere there is a WiFi connection.
SmartTVs, iPads, Kindles, iPods, Roku devices, Apple TV, any thing that
uses WiFi can receive Boss Boss Radio.
You
can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/BossBossRadio and on Twitter
@bossbossradio, we’re on Google+ and follow us on TuneIn as well.
Our
common email address is bossbossradio@gmail.com.
Thanks so much, John!
