Road Construction

At last, I have a little time to take you behind the scenes of creating the single biggest country music radio channel in North America -- The Highway. (Although I should note, we were already Top 3 at least before the merger.) I'm so excited about what's been created, and how all of our jocks have this massive audience to talk to every day.

This is part of my personal journal, entitled "The Journey" that I wrote while in the middle of a very long, stressful month that at one point didn't look like it would have a happy ending for me. Technically, my ending is still unwritten, but I'm happy to have made it through the complete lifespan of XM as it's own entity. I was contacted by one of the country music trades last week asking if I was ok and saying they'd be happy to help put out my new contact information. (Which is what they do when someone loses a job.) What's that line about 'reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated?' I tell everyone - I'm going to keep working until someone tells me to stop. LOL So far they haven't. So here's a little peek into my world lately.

This was written 11/5 - a week before convergence.

- J.

From the outside there's a lot of "oh this channel is staying, that channel is going" assumptions about what it all is going to mean. The reality is, 98% of the rumors are wrong. Most of the music channels switched over to our programming system, so even though a channel name (Prime Country) came from Sirius, the music database carried over from US Country, so on that channel, it's exactly the same except for new production. As many of you know, I never liked the USC name, so I was particularly pleased with that decision.

EVERY channel had to have their entire production library re-done. Bluegrass Junction might still be around, but nothing could say Bluegrass Junction on XM... or Track 14... or use our nifty, 7 note audio logo. (There's still hope it will be back, but there are copyright issues that still have to be cleared.) I worked on production for a solid week... and even after I'd gone through everything and wrote, re-wrote, dug up soundbites, and tasked it to the production team, I'd discover pieces that I'd completely overlooked.

Obviously, my vantage point only encompasses what I see in the country neighborhood. I can't begin to imagine how they dealt with things - and continue to do so - in the talk world. There are still contracts to be worked out, shows that have gone away that may or may not return based on whether a deal can be worked out, and every channel continues to be a work in progress.

As I've mentioned here, the message board rumors on what was supposedly happening with The Roadhouse provided nightly entertainment for me.

The Roadhouse has been completely rebuilt. This is what Kyle Cantrell has put hundreds of hours into over the past several weeks. He has built, completely from scratch, the classic country channel that neither satellite service ever had. It is incredibly pure. For those who don't know, Kyle spent years at WSM-AM and the Grand Ole Opry, so this is a labor of love, but also a matter of reputation and personal pride for him. I'm so excited for everyone to hear the end result!

I've saved the best story for last - the naming of The Highway. Early on in this convergence process, Jon pledged to keep the Highway 16 formatics... not only was this his baby, but it was the better brand, the stronger shows. However, we thought we were going to have to move to a new channel number, possibly Highway 60.

One night, I had a dream... and in my dream, I told Jon that a great name for the new channel would be "The Highway" because that way if it had to move again as this merger stuff shook out we wouldn't have to rename the channel again. So the next day at work I told him about my dream. He wasn't too crazy about the idea, he liked identifiying the channel name with the channel number. A couple of weeks later, he learned that the channels would NOT be numbered the same on both services, and voila, The Highway was born.

The funniest thing to me though, is how very unobservant our listeners (YOU GUYS!) are. For the past couple of months, going back as far as the Darius Rucker Driver's Ed, and everything since, we've dropped the "Highway 16" out of our specialty shows, as well as references to the "XM" studios or the "XM Nation." It's JUST been "Driver's Ed" or "ShortCuts"... with casual references to hearing things "here on the highway." In reality... that was so those shows could run again... "here on The Highway!" It forced me to completely re-think my writing... and no one even noticed. Yet the new channel name was right under your nose!

So... where do we go from here? UP! I'm crazy giddy excited about the possibilities. We are the biggest outlets for our respective formats anywhere. Our audience almost doubled overnight. For the Sirius gang, it more than doubled. For the air talent that survived, it's an incredible opportunity to be heard by more people than just about anywhere else, including most syndicated radio. When we encore a Highway 16 show... it's brand new to half the people hearing it. It's been a tough road, and is probably going to get tougher for a while, but I'm so proud to be a small part of this awesome team of programmers. I hope you love what they've put together for you half as much as they've loved creating it for you.