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Straight From The Mouth
The Morning Mouth's April Interview with Bobby Novosad
(Reprinted by permission; Copyright © 2006 Talentmasters Inc.)

Take us back to the start?

Started in November '84, mornings in '87 and P.D. in '91. I worked Sundays from 12pm-6pm while going to U.L. Lafayette because back then all of the airstaff wanted to be home to watch the New Orleans Saints. I've been here for 21 years, 244 days through four owners and five General Managers. Mary Galyean is our current G.M. and she's been here one year longer than me. She actually started on the morning show when KSMB was Classic Rock.

How does one survive this long at one station?

By never getting lazy or in any kind of comfort zone. I'm also the Program Director so I made a commitment to myself to never get to a point to where I'm overwhelmed with the duties of both job titles and something starts to slack. In the last couple of years I've learned to delegate. Five years ago I couldn't spell it. I also told myself that regardless of good book or bad true year in and year out.

Part of the success of the morning show is making sure we are visible. Myself, Cheryl Robichaux (formerly with B97 in New Orleans) and Producer Bill are always asking ourselves, "Is that something we need to cover?" You'll find us in the Lafayette Mardi Gras parade being exposed to 200,000-300,000 people but you'll also find us in many small town festival parades. I'm a club guy so I'm in 2-3 clubs a week. Our Friday night mix show is something I mix and produce so the excitement of the club scene is in my blood. That isn't the norm for most morning show guys but that's me. Most PD's will say only a small part of your audience goes to clubs. I look at it both ways. If that's true, fine. Suppose I grab the mike in front of those 1100 people and tell them who I am, the name of my station and why I'm there. If that doesn't work, I'll just whip out the t-shirt cannon!

What keeps you motivated?

The competition really keeps me pumped. I love the fact that the cluster down the road wants me out of the market. You find out a lot of things when someone has a drinking problem and likes to talk. All I've heard from them over the last 10-15 years. is "if we get rid of Bobby, KSMB goes down." You just don't realize how much that motivates me to make their job harder. KSMB will survive without me but right now I'm going nowhere.

I'm humbled to ask, but haven't you been to every Morning Show Boot Camp?

Yes, I was there for the first Bootcamp when I had to drive from Lafayette to Atlanta. I couldn't wait to get there. I remember reading your mailout and saying to myself, "It's about damn time!" The Morning Show Bootcamp should be an investment made by all radio stations if you value your morning show talent. Radio stations send their salespeople to all kinds of training. The engineers get training. The traffic department gets training but it blows me away that a station would invest in a morning show with billboards and TV commercials then not send them to the Morning Show Bootcamp. It needs to be treated as an investment not a line item. Personally, MSBC is a big jolt in the arm for me. I'm not exposed to good morning shows unless I travel or go

back to my hometown of Houston, Texas. The Bootcamp is one big morning show starring hundreds of people that all have ideas to share. The guest speakers, the comedians, the research information we get exposed to is unbelievable. I come home with a stack of notes four inches thick. I actually have all of my notes from the past Bootcamps on a shelf 5 feet from my desk, so when I'm in a rut I start digging. Nothing like a little recycling!

Tell us about the show, what keeps people listening?

We've gotten away from games and instead created some feel good bits. "The Single Mom's Surprise" is a major hit for us. We have listeners e-mail us stories about single moms they know that are having a hard time because they work and/or go to school leaving them very little time to deal with their kids. After that they're exhausted so we reward the single moms with a ton of stuff including a full body massage, their hair, skins and nails get done, new clothes, etc.

I do a thing called "What's On Gavin's Mind." Gavin is our 3 1/2 year old son and he has a lot to say. Every night when I put him to bed I roll a mini-disc recorder and ask him about him going to preschool, if Britney Spears is pregnant, going to Spring Break in Florida and the hot girls that will be there. Once a week I air the best responses. Women love it. I've always believed in superserving the female audience but the guys that call about the bit really surprise me. They can all relate. Any parent will tell you kids don't just fall asleep. There's drama before that and makes the bit that much better. I get more e-mails and on-the-street comments from listeners on this bit than anything we've done in a while. Every mom I meet has a comment about something Gavin said on the show.

Proudest on-air memory?

A few years ago a horrible fire just after Christmas claimed the lives of three generations of an African-American family. The story in the newspaper was very sad to read.. Producer Bill and I who at the time were doing the show by ourselves, decided to help with the burial expenses. It's was one of those mornings where nothing else mattered. We took requests were we played anything you wanted to hear for $100.00 a song. "Nights In White Satin" by the Moody Blues to "Supermodel" by RuPaul, we played it all. We stayed on the air non-stop until five that afternoon and ended up raising around $15,000.00. The funeral was held in the Cajundome that weekend and as

expected was very emotional. I received many "thank you" nods from those in the black community. It wasn't about ratings. Bill and I knew we had to do something so we went with it.

Lafayette post Katrina. Aren't you bigger now?

I believe Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans will all know the real numbers after the 2010 census but for Lafayette 15,000-20,000 seems to be the number. The biggest misconception was that all of those bad refugees from New Orleans were going to break into our homes and rob us. Overnight we were hearing stories of car jackings, stores being robbed, a local sporting goods store being cleaned out of their guns, a shooting at the Cajundome. None of it was true. I called it out on the morning show. I think I said, "White people are scaring themselves."

Most surprising thing about Lafayette?

This is where you get Cajun food. It all happens here. News Orleans serves Creole. We do Cajun.

I understand you're into style and appearance. Is this part of a business plan?

Why wouldn't you want to look your best being that you are the anchor of the radio station? That goes for anyone in any format. Yes it's radio but sales people have sneaky ways of not requesting certain air talents for remotes because of their appearance. Like it or not in our business, appearance is important. Being on the management side you understand an issue like this. At the end of the day, when a lot of people head Interview to the bar, I find the nearest gym.

But give me a basketball and I'll leave you standing in your shoes. That's my vice. One-on-one, four-on-four, full court, city league. I have this silly belief that if you give me six months at an NBA training camp, I could play in the NBA. Start, no. Play, yes.

Which shows do you look up to?

I'm a morning show geek. When I travel or go on vacation I show up incognito at other stations remotes or morning show stunts. I've burned many a vacation day over the years sitting in with John Lander, Rick Dees and before the whole syndication thing, Kidd Kraddick. I look up to Kidd Kraddick first because he went through a bad time where he wasn't working then came back with a vengeance. MJ at WFLZ, Elvis Duran at Z100. Sam Malone when he was at KRBE and Dwyers & Michael from the Quad Cities. Rocket & Teresa in Kansas City have a show that I would be a fan of if I lived in that market.

What about people in the industry?

I have great respect are Tracy Johnson and Paige Nienaber. Tracy Johnson's morning show books should be must reads before any morning show is hired. GM's should say, "We have a deal after you read these books." His knowledge of and working with morning shows can only do good things for you and your show if you read his books. Those stations lucky enough to work with Paige Nienaber know this guy is amazing. Though not an on-air talent, Paige's promotional background and knowledge has always had me gravitating towards everything he's talked about at past Bootcamps. You know that worn out phrase, "he gets it?" Paige is the reason those words were first uttered. You feel like all you will do is learn from this guy, no matter how long you've been doing this. What a great mind. Like the morning shows I mentioned above, Paige is someone whom I highly respect.

If you hadn't been in radio, what do you suppose you'd be doing today?

When I was a kid a put together a book on the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. I still have it today. After that I discovered the D.E.A. I wouldn't mind the C.I.A. lifestyle but it would give my wife grey hair. For five years I was a reserve police officer in Lafayette, working my way up to sergeant. It got to be tough because I was recognized in uniform wherever I went. People would ask, Is this a radio thing?" Also, it was kind of hard to give tickets to people as they told me how they listened to me every morning. One night I stopped a guy who had eight violations. No lights, no license, no tail lights, no muffler, etc...he recognizes me and I thought, this guy obviously is screwed. He can't afford to fix his car. He can't afford a license. He probably can't post bail and...he listens to me in the morning. I told him I wouldn't arrest him and instead followed him home. I resigned from the police department the next day. The love for law enforcement was there but in that situation I'm wasn't helping anyone.

Homeland Security fascinates the heck out of me too. If I won the Powerball jackpot tomorrow I think we'd move to Arizona so I could join the Minutemen and volunteer my time protecting our borders. We have some serious issues at our borders and they last time I checked, some guys in the Middle East want to kill us all. Let's prevent them from getting in illegally.

Read previous Morning Mouth interviews.

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