Innovation by its very nature is about bucking the current trend, zigging when others are sagging, or turning left when most want to turn right. Zach Sang, host of the nationally syndicated night show Zach Sang & The Gang (Westwood One), is doing that in more ways than one.
First, he’s just 22 years-old. At a time when many claim that broadcast radio has little relevance to young people, Zach started his own show online at the age of 14 out of his parent’s home in New Jersey. He quickly became an Internet star, organically attracting thousands of followers. As a result, he was able to secure interviews with many of the stars from the Disney and Nickelodeon shows that were popular at the time.
From there he went to GOOM Radio, an early online radio venture to host “Zach Sang and the Student Body.” He eventually parlayed that into executive producer and music director of Zang Radio, one of the largest online teen radio stations at that time.
But when GOOM Radio ended, he again went against the grain by launching a terrestrial radio show with, at the time, Dial Global, which continues now with Westwood One. When many personalities like Adam Carolla, Tom Leykis and Phil Hendrie are moving from terrestrial radio to digital platforms, Sang has done the opposite, opting to make traditional broadcast the base of his brand. That’s one of the man reasons we’re highlighting him in this week’s edition of Radio’s Most Innovative.
Some of you have seen Zach speak at conferences like Convergence and the Conclave, and he’ll be on stage at other events later in the year. He’s a true presence, and a bona fide innovator, so let’s find out what motivates him and why a young twentysomething is carving out a very different path – in broadcast radio.
JM: Let’s start with the obvious. What attracted you to radio?
ZS: For me, it was so many different things. I loved telling stories and I was always serious. I love the human connection, but I also love news. It was like an equation: curiosity plus human connection plus being relevant and newsworthy and being yourself equals radio for me.
But really it was the human connection. I love learning about someone. Everybody has a different story, everybody comes from something different, and everybody has a different viewpoint and a different opinion. And nobody was speaking to teenagers at all. Then I realized I could put all of these things together online.
JM: Who were the media people who influenced you?
ZS: I was obsessed with the local news from a young age. I studied Al Roker and was obsessed with Bill Evans, the weather guy at ABC 7 in New York. On the radio, WPLJ was my station. Every morning I would listen to Scott and Todd.
Now, every summer there was a PLJ versus ABC7 softball game and I was obsessed. All I wanted to do was be on the news or on the radio. So I forced my mom to take me and I’m being a fan boy. I’m stalking Todd; I’m begging Patty Steele to say my name on the radio the next morning, begging them to sign my shirt. I would go every summer. That is one of my earliest memories of truly being in love with radio.
JM: Who else is on the air today that influenced you, or that you respect as a host?
ZS: Howard Stern and Elvis Duran. I admire them for their skills on the air and off the air as professionals.
Howard is the greatest entertainer to ever live. He sees broadcasting and media differently. The way he approaches his show is so real and raw that it’s beautiful, it’s artistic. And I’ve learned to appreciate Howard for many reasons. The chemistry he has with his team, it brings me to tears. We’re talking about 35 years of greatness.
Then there’s his ability to tell stories and his unreal interviews. I mean, he is the greatest interviewer ever. I also respect his loyalty to his team. You know, people try to emulate Howard by being dirty and cursing on the air, and playing dirty phone parodies. And Howard does that, but he is so much more. There’s a realness that lives within his world and you can’t fake reality.
With Elvis, there’s just nobody better in this world at doing a morning show than him. He is unbelievable. He is really good in the way he works the team and the way he works on digital, as well as FM. It’s beautiful, and it’s seamless.
It’s so great to have people like them to look up to but it’s not about copying them; I’m not plagiarizing, I’m learning. And that’s the difference between a real radio show that is here to stay and a radio show that could just go away. Radio shows that can go away copy and plagiarize. Shows that are here to stay, learn. They take knowledge and make it their own.
JM: How is communication with the audience different at night than in the morning?
ZS: At night, you’re talking to a younger audience. The average high school student’s commute is short. There’s not much time to engage them. I want to speak to that 18 year-old female, and at night that’s when they’re listening. And the way to structure that, at least for us, is content first, music second. We let our content shine, but we still have a great deal of music, 11 or 12 songs an hour.
JM: Where have you found the people that make up your team?
ZS: None of my team right now is originally from radio. Two of the people who have been doing it the longest, their only radio jobs have been working with me. And my Visual Producer and my Lifestyle Producer both came from a television background having worked for Nickelodeon.
JM: OK, those aren’t typical job titles. What do the Visual Producer and Lifestyle Producer do?
My Visual Producer, Keith Weiner, is a professional videographer and photographer who handles everything visual that happens within our world, any photo, any video, any bit. Before working with us, he worked for Dan Schneider who created all the big hit Nickelodeon shows like “iCarly” and “Sam and Cat.”
Our newest addition, Jill Gutowitz, is our Lifestyle Producer. Before joining the show, she was a web producer at E! and then she also worked for Dan Schneider as a web producer. She’s also a comedian and a writer, and now she does all of our funny bits.
For example, when Hilary Duff was coming in, Jill said, “You know, Hillary Clinton and Hilary Duff, they have a lot of stuff in common. Both came on the scene around 2001 and both are making a comeback.” So we ended up doing a game called “Hilary or Hillary” with Jill dressed up as Hillary Clinton.
The game was simple; I would ask a question like “Who was first to support LGBT rights, Hilary Duff or Hillary Clinton?” The answer is Hillary Duff. She did a PSA back in 2003 telling people not to use the word “gay.” Jill is also great on the show. She’s 23 years-old, and she’s openly gay on the air. So she’s both a great character and a great asset off the air.
JM: How would you define the goal of the show?
ZS: It’s my goal every night to capture what 2015 is. The show symbolizes 2015 and what people in their early 20s are going through on a daily basis.
JM: How do you define the people on your show to the audience when you have so many and are playing 12 songs an hour?
ZS: We work very heavily online. Deanna (Felker), our staff queen, is probably just as popular on Snapchat as she is on the air. More than 15,000 people a day watch her Snapchat life story, which is our Snapchat life story. That’s how she’s building her personality.
But we also live our lives on the air. Heather Connor, the technical producer of the show, is in her first relationship. She’s a tomboy, her boyfriend is a curmudgeon, and they worked their relationship out on the air. It’s the same thing with Dan (Zolot), my web producer, web director and digital producer. So we cover the gamut.
JM: So why is it that the radio industry in general has such a hard time finding talent and you don’t? What are you doing differently?
ZS: I offer a future. When I talk to my team, and when I get people to work for us, they see what this can be. For us, this isn’t just solely FM radio. This is a well-rounded brand that covers many different media that can work to our benefit. We see this more as a lifestyle rather than a show and that’s cool for them.
We’re also very visual and very digital friendly. We’re doing podcasts. We’re doing videos and we’re doing the FM show. For Jill and Keith, radio was never on their mind until they met me and I explained my vision and how I plan on building this show. That’s what got them to sign on.
JM: So there is a difference between being the main focus and just a piece of the puzzle. Where does radio rank among all the pieces?
ZS: Oh, my God, #1. That’s because that’s where people are. But it’s all about taking the power we create off of FM and bringing them over to our digital platform, our Facebook, our YouTube videos.
JM: So what’s the advantage to moving them to the digital side? Why the emphasis on that?
ZS: It makes for a well-rounded brand. But also, one of the lessons I learned at Nickelodeon is that there’s only so much time on the air for us to speak. I’ve got to play 12 songs an hour so I only have so much time to create programming on our main station. Digital needs to be a place to really shine creatively. We need to do a kick ass show on FM and then bring them over to digital where we can grow our content even more.
JM: Interviews play a big role in your show. Talk about their value to you at a time when a lot of radio people are shying away from them.
ZS: The conventional wisdom is PPM numbers go down when it comes to interviews and that is 100% right. But our interviews are so unique and interactive, they flourish so beautifully on digital. So, for example, Selena Gomez came in.
We do about a 35 minute sit down interview with her, and then we play a game of Mario Kart with her, which is so much fun. So right there, it’s already different and we’re close to 85,000 views already. People say teenage girls don’t have an attention span. I call bull swash on that. They just watched a 35 minute interview. Then what we’ll do is cut out four or five different two minute pieces which we will air over the course of an hour. That’s how it airs on FM.
But with the online, we get such great afterglow. Like when Cody Simpson came in right after the scandal with Justin Bieber and Niall Horan where someone snapchatted a video of them playing a song together and there was a weed pipe on the table. We get Cody the day after and do a 35-minute interview where we talked about Justin, Niall and that photo. That interview alone made like 40 or 50 different news outlets. E! News played it twice; so my video, my logo and the name of my show came up three times.
Iggy Azalea came in right when she decided to walk away from social media. She could’ve gone to anybody else, but she came to me, which was great. That 40-minute interview made the Daily Mail UK, USA Today, Yahoo and Entertainment Tonight. Hot 97 even aired a clip on their morning show.
Plus, we are working on doing these interviews live. We have an incredible online platform that hopefully we’ll be launching soon at Cumulus called Rdio, and I plan to make that a very big part of our brand. So when Selena Gomez comes back to do an interview and play Mario Kart, we’re going to do it live on Rdio and the phone lines will be lit up with fans calling in. We’ll have a hashtag trending on Twitter; it’s going to be a giant, all-encompassing conversation because that’s what we do best.
In part 2 next week, Zach talks about youth, radio, and his advice to today’s radio talent about how to “embrace 2015.”
Thanks to Mike Stern for putting together this week’s RMI.
INNOVATION QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The greatest invention in the world is the mind of a child.”
Thomas Edison
More of Radio’s Most Innovative
- Radio’s Most Innovative: Joel Denver/All Access
- Radio’s Most Innovative: WTOP Digital
- Radio’s Most Innovative: Zach Sang, Part 2
- Radio’s Most Innovative: “Radio’s Best Friend” Art Vuolo
- Radio’s Most Innovative: Fun Kids
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Great read Fred and Mike, thanks.
Zach Sang wasn’t on my radar until I read today’s blog but there is a lot of great insight here. The biggest take away for me had to do with how he assembled a team of people to serve the audience, notice I did not just say listener, and didn’t limit himself by only hiring talent with a radio background. That’s a great lesson no matter what business you are in.
It also hit home with me that Zach’s team engages the audience wherever they are and adapts their content to fit each platform. It’s not about the easiest way to repurpose content but instead they are super serving their fans to create a connection. This morning I happened to be listening to the Nerdist podcast interview with Hannah Hart and I left off in the middle of a conversation Chris and Hannah had about building a community through their various channels. It sounds like that is what Zach is doing and when at it’s best that is the definition of great radio.
Sean, thanks. We share the same takeaways about what Zach is doing and how other radio hosts might modify their approaches to reflect an “audience first” POV that truly reflects where they are, what they want, and their gadgets/outlets of choice. Appreciate the insights and you reading our blog.
I videotaped Zach at The Conclave last month and just watching it wore me out! At my age, it wows me to see such love for radio and his boundless energy is simply beyond belief. Now, I need to find someone like him to take over for me in archiving the radio industry on video!
The modern version of Radio’s Best Friend! Thanks, Art.
An hour on your average CHR and you’ve got maybe a lame quip about an artist, a short plug for a contest happening tomorrow and a short plug for a giant music festival in Las Vegas, all amid 11 or 12 songs.
An hour of Zach’s FM show and you’ve got news, jokes, entertainment, interviews, calls, games, questions…all amid 11 or 12 songs.
Yup, there is that content thing and not just the chatter that typifies so many stations thinking they’re appealing to teens. Thanks for the comment, Brandon.
I love your show. If your are gay or straight, if doesn’t bother me. There is an undertone for love and forgiveness, of which you naturally fit. You’re an attractive, smart guy. Too bad that I wasn’t born later. Lol. I love ya!