Ross McIntyre, Imaging Director, 100.3 The Q, Victoria, BC, Canada
By Jerry Vigil
This month’s RAP Interview makes a return visit to Victoria, British Columbia, where we check in after 12 years with Ross McIntyre, Imaging Director at 100.3 The Q. The Q serves a market of just around 300,000, but there’s nothing “small market” about what you hear on the air. Ross, a 7-time RAP Award winner, is celebrating 20 years at The Q, where “local topicality” and self-deprecating humor are key elements in the imaging. If there is one station that best represents the definition and execution of “stationality”, it’s The Q. Ross gives us an up close look at the carefully and creatively implemented imaging at The Q and catches us up on some of the fun they’ve been having over the past decade. Be sure to check out the audio from Ross on this month’s RAP CD!
JV: How have things changed for you in these past 12 years?
Ross: Well, since we last spoke, the focus of the energy that I put into the station has changed. I switched hats from being the overall Creative Director and Production Manager about ten years ago to being the Imaging Director, and so I’m focusing my time and energy on voicing, producing, and writing the imaging and on-air promos for the Q. In addition to that, I’m doing a lot of voice work for other radio stations in Canada and the U.S. and television, as well. I don’t do any of the retail creative anymore. I’m aligned directly with the programming department doing strictly imaging and promotion as it relates to the programming department of the radio station.
JV: How did this move come about?
Ross: It was just a natural evolution. That was where my passions lie, was in helping to drive the programming of the radio station. It just seemed to be a natural evolution and something I preferred to do, something I enjoyed doing more.
JV: You hired a new person to do commercials I take it?
Ross: There was some movement from within. Doug Bidwell took over as Creative Director, and there were some other movements in the production department. Steve Shippanoski came in as the Production Director, and he has since moved on, and that position is currently held by Sheldon Hovde, our Retail Production Director. It’s a solid staff. There are three people in the retail creative writing department and the one producer, and then I take care of things on the Q side, as they relate to imaging and promos.
JV: Is there more than one radio station in the cluster there in Victoria?
Ross: Yeah. The Q has a sister station called the Zone, 91.3; it’s a modern rock station. The imaging for that is taken care of by Sheldon. He does the production and the writing for the imaging on that.
JV: One thing that stood out in our last chat was how the station’s personality and attitude was such a major part of the overall sound and the success of the station, and how you brought that through in the promos and the imaging was just amazing. Has much changed in this approach to the personality of the Q?
Ross: No. It’s still similar in the approach. The personality of the Q has remained true, probably for the most part because the core creative people are still driving that personality. Our approach might be a little less, you know, goofy than it was ten years ago, but it’s still fun. It’s still very self-deprecating, and it’s very topical locally.
JV: I was most impressed with the way you guys had mastered that art of coming off as the underdog station, with that humble attitude and using the self-deprecating humor. All the while, you’re kicking the competition’s butt! What are some fresh examples of how you use this approach to mold the station’s personality?
Ross: Well, we years ago decided that since we just didn’t have the budget to be big, we would try to be big by being small and try to win through humility, and we’ve continued in that path. We try to be local, we try to be topical. We look around at ways of tying the station into big topical local events or pop culture events. We try to look around the community and see what’s happening in the city — topics that have people talking, something that has been bungled locally that we can poke fun at or hitch a ride on so that we can essentially say to the audience, “Yeah, we live here, and what you see, we see,” or, “What drives you nuts drives us nuts.” To give you an example, we have a beautiful new arena which had its share of controversy when it was being built, and instead of doing the usual arena promotion of Seat Cushion Night, we did a spoof sweeper that talked about having “Install Your Own Seat Night.” Right around that time, we did a parody of “Macarena” called, “Hurry, Make Arena.”
JV: You’re not only being topical, but entertaining as well.
Ross: Oh, absolutely. We try to keep the imaging very entertaining as well as topical. We try to gauge it from what Conan and Letterman and Leno are talking about in their monologues. That’s a good way to gauge what’s current, obviously. But rather than being just plain mean, trying to skewer topical pop culture events, we’ll try to tie it into how it relates to the station. I’ll give you a couple of examples: when the Alec Baldwin controversy was going on, we did a liner saying that Alec Baldwin has as much of a chance of winning Parent of the Year as the Q has of winning Station of the Year. The Vancouver Canucks were in the playoffs, and everybody in Canada started jumping on the Canucks bandwagon. We did a series of liners that talked about the automotive modifications of that bandwagon, as if it was a real vehicle and had to undergo some structural modifications to handle the extra load.
JV: How do you position the music in the imaging? Are music image promos an ongoing thing there?
Ross: The imaging kind of breaks down into a few different categories with a lot of attitude — topical attitude, pop culture attitude. With the music imaging, we try to position the depth of our core artists with imaging that is designed to get out the simple message that we go deep with quality, heritage artists. The idea behind our music imaging is to position the variety without using the variety word, or the “V” word. And we have sweepers for every core artist that highlights very fast “nano-hooks,” if you will, interrupted by copy that reads like, “You know Led Zeppelin has more than one song; so do we,” or, “Lots and lots of Fleetwood Mac,” or, “Your Steve Miller favorites are our Steve Miller favorites,” “You know this one from REM – and these, this, oh, and this one, too,” “The Police have lots of great songs,” and we use really, really fast hooks. And the hooks I use aren’t necessarily a predictable part of the chorus. I’ll mix it up with memorable vocal-isms that are recognizable flashes from songs and put them together, and those are immediately followed by a song from that core artist. That’s how we handle usic positioning.
JV: What’s the station’s current positioning statement or statements?
Ross: The station’s current positioning statement is, as it always has been, simply, “The Island’s Rock.”
JV: What are some new ways that you’re creatively getting that across to the listeners?
Ross: Right now, we are running a campaign that lays claim to that rock position by saying, “You can’t be a part-time rock station,” and “This is what a full-time rock station is all about,” interspersed with song clips from big songs from our core artists.
JV: What fun have you had with pop culture lately?
Ross: Well, when Paris went to jail briefly, we took advantage of that and tied the radio station to that with a liner that read, “100.3 The Q – more songs in a row…than Paris Hilton days-in-jail in a row.” I think it aired maybe three or four times before the judge ordered her back. That is one of the conveniences that my PD Mark Adams enjoys – the immediacy of the creative. He can write a line or ask me to come up with an idea for something going on and doesn’t have to wait a week for the next session with out-of-town talent, he doesn’t have to explain the relevance of the local gag to someone who has to look up Victoria on a map, he doesn’t have to wait for the production guy to finish with his retail priorities. As our Ops Manager John Shields likes to say, “We can turn on a dime.” Mark is my most prolific writing partner – very funny, very smart guy, always great to go to when my mental well has run dry. But ideas can come from all over the building. Contributions are encouraged – it makes my job easier.
Prior to Paris, Britney had her issues, and after K-Fed and Britney split and then Britney went a little behaviorally challenged and buzzed off her hair, we had a topical self-deprecating parallel that went, “The Q’s announcers, now sporting easy-to-maintain, combat-ready spring haircuts, courtesy of our new staff stylist, Britney Spears” — not particularly funny, but timely and visual.
But you know, comedy burns really fast and topical comedy burns quickly, so you have to gauge when to get it off the air very carefully. Something like that might run a week, maybe two, if the story’s in the news cycle. Sometimes just a weekend. It all depends on the topicality and how high we will put it in the rotation. It’s kind of a gut-feeling thing, the way things are gauged. If it is local and topical, I go with my gut. If it is a topical pop-culture thing, I’ll see if it’s still getting some talk on Dave’s or Jay’s or Conan’s monologues, or ink on the newsstands. If it is a generic attitude line, of which we have a large collection, I’ll cherry pick which ones I want to fly in and out of activity – it’s a little like being a music director. How many spins has that one had? What’s the penetration? Does it still have legs? If the sweeper has served its purpose, I’ll take it off duty. I would rather have a simple positioning liner on the air, rather than run the risk of continuing to air something creative but tired.
The length of service is not the point. What matters is how fast we can react to a topic that is getting talk and somehow tie it in with the self-deprecating culture of the radio station.
JV: What about your sweepers and IDs that are not so topical, that are a little more generic; how often do you refresh stuff like that?
Ross: We have a pretty huge inventory of stationality liners, attitudinal liners, and if there are really current topical things to take advantage of, we will rest some of the more undated liners and troop in the topical; and then when that burns, we’ll get that out and troop back in the undated material. And if there’s not a lot going on, there’s nothing wrong with taking out anything that’s verging on burnout and replacing it with simple reminders of the station’s position. I would rather run a simple positioning message than run a tired, fun liner. So some of our IDs may be in the inventory for months, and some of them may take a rest and come back six months later. It all depends. There’s no rule.
JV: What are some memorable promotions you’ve done recently?
Ross: We’ve had some really memorable promotions. One that sticks out in my mind is “Little House on the Prairie,” where we gave away a house, and we kept the location of the house a secret. We never, in any of the promotional material, said it was a house actually in Victoria or on Vancouver Island or in British Columbia for that matter, and it turned out that it was a little house in a little town in the middle of Saskatchewan somewhere, that I think we paid $10,000 [Canadian] for. That was really fun. And then when we got the qualifiers together for the final unveil, it was revealed where the house was, and because of the heritage of the personality of the station, it was almost expected that there was going to be this switch at the very end. What’s the gag? People were waiting to see what the catch was, and the catch was that the house was a couple of days’ drive away. They didn’t know until the very end, and the winners and the runners-up were all flown out to this little house in small town Saskatchewan, where the morning show did a broadcast from. The keys to the house were given to the new owners. I believe we ended up giving the house away to the local community, and the winners took a cash reward, but the theater of the whole event was priceless.
Other fun promotions we’ve gotten away with recently? At Halloween we completely dress up the radio station as The Boo! It is a ton of work, using a completely different inventory of imaging and retagging every on-going promo with the alternate station name for just that one day. The music is all Halloween-themed, even the website and the URL changes just for that one day. But our listeners love it and totally get into it. I get into two or three different cheeseball Halloween characters to voice the imaging. All of the air staff change their names and buy into the act; for example, our morning guys transform from Ed & Cliff to Dead & Stiff. It’s one of those things where if you are going to do it, you have to really commit to it.
JV: How did you set the house up in the promos? Did you hint it was going to be this beautiful mansion or anything like that?
Ross: No, nothing. We let the listeners draw their own conclusions. We just said, “We’re giving away a house.” And if the audience wanted to make an assumption, well, that’s up to the audience. And the way we did it was very simple. We did dry voice promos that were of minimal copy, and the cue to call in and get registered for the draw was the sound of a doorbell. The promotion was huge. House prices around here have just hit an average of $500,000, so when you say you’re gonna give away a house, people get excited. But like I say, the Q has such a heritage of, “Here comes the punch line,” or “Here comes the catch,” that people were expecting it. People went along for the ride and people had fun, and that’s the key about our promotional philosophy: having fun. One of our rules is we always try to think of the radio user first and the contest player second. It always has to be entertaining for all the people who aren’t playing the contest.
One perennial favorite we have is called, “What’s in the van, man?” It’s essentially a bargain basement radio version of The Price is Right, where we travel around town with a vehicle, and contestants get the opportunity of choosing either what’s in the envelope or what’s in the van, and it could be several hundred dollars cash or a bag of manure. Or it could be one dollar in the cash envelope, and in the van is a home theater system… that kind of thing. You’ve got a 50/50 chance or getting it right or wrong. So there’s drama and there’s great fun and there’s audience participation. We trot that one out every year, and it’s hugely popular and often copied. The last time it was copied it became a little too close to home; one of our competing stations in Vancouver all of a sudden showed up with it, the exact same promotion, with the same name.
JV: You have a home studio you do some of the station work out of. Tell us about your studio and a little bit about the arrangement you have with the station.
Ross: Well, the studio evolved out of my freelance work growing, and it kind of necessitated itself, so that rather than me going back to the radio station every night and on the weekends to do my freelance work, I wanted to be able to spend time with my family. So the studio evolved into a very nice facility where I do most of the voice work for the Q, and I also voice about a dozen other radio stations. But I still like to do my actual production and mixing work for the Q at the Q.
It’s built around a Vegas PC. I like Vegas. I’ve been using Vegas since late 1999, and I’m now up to Vegas 6. We also use Vegas at the Q. There’s also a Pro Tools setup there, but I think it’s one of those situations where you get good and fast with a certain program, and it works just great, so why learn another one? I’ve already had to relearn production. I’ve been doing this for 25 years, so I started with mono reel-to-reels and razor blades. Vegas suits my needs very well. Also in my home room I have a few different mikes. I’ve got a Neumann TLM 103, an AKG solid tube, and an Audio Technica 4030. I have an Avalon Preamp that has a really nice sound, especially for doing voice-over. I saved my pennies for that one for quite awhile and was able to find a used one on eBay, but it’s been a worthwhile investment.
JV: How did you handle the acoustics?
Ross: It’s a combination of Sonex and fiberglass wedges, and I built a lot of frames using 1x3 cedar, and rather than gluing the Sonex or any of the sound treatment to the walls, they are friction fit into the frames and hung to the walls on 6-inch screws into the studs. Then I’ve got some base absorption in the corners and some panels mounted to the ceiling, as well.
JV: What would you say is the Q’s strongest weapon in its imaging arsenal?
Ross: It would have to be its local topicality. That’s what really makes it a local favorite, I think. I’ll give you another example: last summer there was a problem with the water supply at a destination town called Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Essentially, the town reservoir was not keeping up with the growth of the town, so the mayor decided to close all of the resorts and cancel reservations on the biggest weekend of the summer, and it was a huge controversy, with huge potential revenue losses; and it was a great local imaging opportunity, but you had to be here to get the joke, and there were many jokes. One went, “100.3 the Q salutes people who don’t plan too good – the guy who wrote Paul McCartney’s pre-nup, the guy who put Gary Cherone in Van Halen, and the current mayor of Tofino.” We did a series of those. Local topicality.
Here’s one thing that’s going on right now. The local police department spent millions of dollars on a new emergency radio system, and it doesn’t work very well. So we have a sweeper that’s running right now, where it says, “100.3 the Q, now broadcasting on the Crest Emergency Radio System,” except I took out every second consonant and replaced it with radio noise. And again, this has been front-page news, and it got to the point where several local police officers have contacted us wanting a copy of it. So it’s kind of fun to be able to say your imaging is wanted by the local police.
Here’s another example and a good example of reacting quickly to something hugely local and topical. A few years ago, the Premier of the Province of British Columbia got busted for DUI while on vacation in Hawaii. We live in the capital of the province, so that news was doubly huge. The news conference happened on a Sunday, I think. Of course, there were calls for his resignation. He refused. That night I wrote a parody of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” called “I Won’t Resign.” I called my wife into the studio at about 10pm to belt it out in her pajamas. It hit the air Monday on the morning show. It ended up being featured nationally on CBC public radio, and a bunch of other stations picked it up. It won a “special programming” creative award from the BC Association of Broadcasters and got The Q a lot of laughs. The Premier, by the way, survived, prevailed, and is enjoying a very healthy second term in office.
One of the things that the Q also tries to do to keep our image consistent in the community is keep our outdoor advertising in key with what’s on air, and it’s often self-deprecating and fun. We did a bus board campaign last year, for example, where we purposely defaced our own bus board campaigns with Photoshop spray paint by our in-house art department, and we took a bunch of Wal-Mart variety over-used radio slogans and defaced them, along with a photo of our brilliant morning guy, Ed Bain. Phrases like “More Rock, Less Talk” became, “More Rock, Less Talent.” We spray-painted over the “K” in “talk” and replaced it with an “ENT.” Or “More Rock, Less Talk” became, “More Spock, Less Talk,” with a spray-painted “Live long and prosper” hand sign and Spock ears. We had calls from people saying, “Oh, you guys must be really pissed off at those guys who wrecked your sign on the bus.” And we just dead-panned and said, “Sign on the bus? What?” We always just try to have fun, not so much be funny, but have fun.
JV: Kind of like a bunch of high school kids running the radio station!
Ross: Well, yeah. Take Mother’s Day. We try to get the audience involved as much as possible. We’ve always built the radio station on the premise that the audience is the star of the show, the listener is the star of the show, and we try to involve them in as many ways as possible. A recent Mother’s Day promotion was called Nacho Mama, and it was for ladies only, for moms only, and it turned into a nacho eating contest in our parking lot, and all the nachos were covered with liquid cheese. The prize was a trip to Mexico for Mother’s Day. It gave a good excuse for a bad parody of “Macho Man.”
JV: What approach do you take with the production of The Q’s imaging?
Ross: It’s not so much the production of the sweeper as the timing in the storytelling. A pause can be more effective in delivering a line than a bucketful of effects and plug-ins – if the idea, the concept, the script is smart.
Part of the signature sound of the Q’s Imaging is sourcing production music that is a detour from the Classic Rock/Triple-A feel of The Q. I’ll use show tunes, accordion music, surf rock, big band, acid jazz, lounge, 1960s or ‘70s Strip Mall MOR… whatever. My style tends to be fairly musical. I often let the time signature dictate the framework and pace of the delivery, but I always do the read first and look for music second. I’m always hearing the read in my head while auditioning music, so I know what style or beat might lend itself to supporting the piece.
I also like to put some negative space into things, allow punch lines to marinate and breathe for an extra beat. Negative space is a component of good print advertising design. I think it is a valuable tool in audio design as well. I’m a big fan of hitting the disc brakes in the middle of a piece for a full stop-down, make the punch line, allow the station to quickly take credit for the smile and get back to the next song.
There was an interview with Jamie Watson in a recent RAP. That really struck a chord with me because I like to do what he likes to do, and that is to find inspiration from everything. Sometimes I’ll lock myself in the sound effects library and just listen to random files to force the setting of a scene and go from there, as well. That also provides you with a good starting point from which to write.
JV: You’ve been the imaging voice of the Q for most of your term as Imaging Director. Describe the style of your read.
Ross: I have a bunch of different reads which get switched up, depending on the setting. Most of my Q stuff is very guy-next-door, sometimes over-the-top cheeseball, sometimes apathetic or disinterested, and sometimes something my friend Garner Andrews describes as “atmospheric,” which I think he means when I’m attempting my best intense movie-trailer guy. Anyway, I like to mix it up. I had one client tell me that I test well with soccer moms, which I suppose means that I’m approachable and non-threatening. We don’t scare people at The Q. At least, we try not to. We dial down the bombast, but it has its place.
JV: It’s the “Less Is More” movement down here in the south. Have you shortened your promos?
Ross: We try to keep our promos short – fifteen to thirty seconds. Rarely will you hear a sixty anything – spot or promo. Unless the concept has legs and we need a little more real estate in which to explore the concept, deliver the back-story and bring it home, we try to keep everything brief so that we can get back to the music. It’s always about getting lots of music into the hour. Of course, we sometimes have to make compromises to meet the demands of sponsors, but I always try to keep the Programmer and the needs of the listener in mind when editing down my own work to make things as short as possible..
JV: What advice would you give management in general about getting the most out of their Imaging directors?
Ross: It’s very important to understand what the personality of the radio station is that you are trying to convey, what the message is that you are trying to get across. We have had a consistent soul at the Q over these 20 years, and we’ve always tried to work within the framework of our established personality. That helps in your writing; that helps in the execution of the imaging because we know where we need to go. Management gives us the freedom to pursue that. Occasionally, we’ll step outside the lines – I mean, we always try to stay within the confines of good taste, but creativity is always encouraged. Use of technology is encouraged. Management at the station understands that I work well from my home studio, so it’s not an issue that I’m not actually in the building all the time. I am more productive because there are fewer interruptions, and yet they enjoy the immediate availability of my input. I’m just a phone call away, and because of that we can react to local events with immediacy. Something can happen in the morning, and we can have a fun liner on the air that afternoon or that weekend. We’ve always enjoyed the ability to turn on a dime, and it’s encouraged by station management. We’ve enjoyed people in managerial positions who are very open-minded over the past few decades. That’s been hugely beneficial in allowing people to rise to their creative potential.
JV: By the way, congratulations on your healthy collection of RAP Awards. Only Joel Moss has more trophies than you.
Ross: I’m stunned. Not just by the number, but by hearing you say Joel Moss’ name in the same sentence as mine. I’ve always been a huge fan of Joel’s. I think he’s a Vegas user as well. RAP has been incredibly kind to this place over the years. That it is a peer-voted process is probably the biggest reward. Because of that, I’m finding this interview to be intimidating. And there’s no way I’m going to take all the credit. I think the official count at the station is nine RAP trophies and fourteen RAP plaques. My name is engraved on six of the big ones and thirteen of the plaques. The others recognize the talents of guys like Steve Shippanoski, Matt Friedman and Rick Everett. And there are lots of good people who have contributed some ideas and scripts to that collection; Ed Bain, Garner Andrews, Shellene McConnell, Angus Noble, Doug Bidwell, Dan Kahan. I’m probably forgetting someone. It’s been a long time. Don’t hit me.
JV: You’re approaching your twentieth anniversary at The Q. You produced the sign-on. That’s a long time to stay at one place.
Ross: I’m not alone. One of the things that has kept The Q strong over the years is that there has not been much turnover in key positions. The flame of the sound, attitude and culture of the station has been kept lit by a fairly small core of stubborn people who refuse to leave. Some of the original architects of the sound, in particular, who have departed, are Garner Andrews who is now doing mornings in Edmonton at Sonic 102-9 and Dave Farough, who is now managing a four station cluster for Corus in London, Ontario. Our morning guy Ed Bain signed us on. Our GM Dan McAllister is still in the same position. I should poke him and make sure he’s okay. People tend to stick around because this is a very nice place to live. Unfortunately it’s also a very expensive place to live. But, hey, we get free health care. They stay because of the creative freedom that has long been encouraged by management. That and because of the electronic ankle bracelets.
JV: Some parting advice?
Ross: If you want a station to sound fun on the air, it has to be fun in the hallways.
