People: Doug Balogh
THE FUTURE OF ROCK AND ROLL
You want to start an 'alternative rock' FM station. You want it to become a national force. So you buy a station with a limited radio signal, one in the middle of Ohio farm country, a conservative advertising market. Right? Of course not. Of course, that's what Doug Balogh, '64, and his wife Linda did in 1983. And did they ever succeed.
Today WOXY (97X) in Oxford, OH, is rated among the world's most influential radio stations. Four times since 1990, Rolling Stone ranked 97X among the nation's Top 15 stations. WOXY was the first to broadcast such 'alternative' artists as Madonna, Prince and Cyndi Lauper. In the Oscar-winning film Rain Man, the autistic character played by Dustin Hoffman reiterates, '97X . . . bam . . . the future of rock and roll.'
How did such a tiny outfit become so famous? 'Our basic mission,' says Balogh (pronounced Baylog), 'is to introduce new musical artists to the public. We have a core value. Many stations adopt a Top 40 format, where they select songs and repeat them. One of our building blocks is the lack of repetition. We let you decide what you like.'
Indeed, so successful has 97X become under Doug and Linda's ownership that the station was profiled as a 'cutting edge company' in a business textbook. A native of Dearborn, Doug came to MSU to major in TV-Radio. 'MSU was a wonderful four years,' he recalls. 'In those days--Kennedy was president and the Tigers were winning ball games--MSU was one of the few places where you could get a degree in TV-Radio. MSU was an educational pioneer.'
As a student, he worked for Bill Keiser at Redwood & Ross for four years. Today, however, at age 54, he wears jeans and is considered 'Cincinnati's hippest businessman,' sought for advice by Generation X'ers as well as budding entrepreneurs in Moscow.
Though his station ranks very high in Arbitron ratings among the 18 to 34 age group, Doug dismisses the ratings. As he explains, 'We rely on cash register ratings.' Dustin Hoffman's character was indeed clairvoyant.
