Scottie McClue: Back from the Brink
The name Scottie McClue has become synonymous with controversial radio phone-in shows across the UK during the past few decades.
In radio he perhaps divides opinion like no other presenter. In a way he is akin to Marmite, brussels sprouts or Jim Davidson – that is to say you either love him or you don’t. But one undeniable truth about Scottish radio presenter Scottie McClue is that when you hear his ‘dulcet’ tones and his ‘dinky-doo’ sign-off you know you are going to get exactly what it says on the tin. Another undeniable truth about Scottie is that he’s back and this time he owns the station (well, co-owns it actually).
Lanarkshire’s L107 returned to the airwaves on Monday 25th August after a week of being off-air during which time Scottish businessman Alan Shields and McClue completed what is perhaps the fastest media take-over in Scottish history by acquiring L107 from its former owner Mark Page.
As Shields explains: “I got a telephone call from Scottie the day L107 was going off air to tell me the station was closing down in just ten minutes’ time. I called Mark immediately to see if there was anything we could to help and he replied ‘well, you could buy the station’. I said OK, give me a realistic price for it, which he did, and we did the deal.”
Fortuitous
It was fortuitous timing for Page and L107. Shields had only recently been negotiating with The Local Radio Company and Bauer to acquire Central FM in Falkirk, but that deal had faltered after station chairman John Quinn took ownership of the station. Shields says that not buying Central saved him £750,000 and ultimately he and his wife had settled on investing in a second home property in Ibiza when one of Scottie McClue’s famous/infamous phone calls took his life in a completely different direction. That said, it was fly by the seat of your pants stuff to make sure the station was saved as Shields admits:
“I did the deal with Mark on the Tuesday and had to get in touch with OFCOM as Mark had handed the licence back to them. I told them what was going on and they gave us until Wednesday 27 August to get the station back on air. We did all the legal stuff during the remainder of that week and we gave Mark his money and signed on the dotted line at 11.55am on the Friday. We had L107 back on air on Monday, so it was only off air for a week.
“Since then we have pretty much transformed this station. We have totally changed the music policy and so now we play anything from The Beatles to Paolo Nutini and we are broadcasting live 24-hours a day from our studios in Hamilton and there is no other radio station in Scotland that does 24 hour live broadcasting. There is nothing automated or syndicated here and we are proud of that. Listeners can call us anytime of the day or night and get straight through to the studio.”
Obviously having a radio veteran such as McClue on board as co-owner and daytime talk show host is one of the key ingredients in turning the station around, building audience and making it a valuable part of the Lanarkshire community, something that Shields says it had not previously been under the direction of its former owner Page.
Shields says: “No disrespect to the people who were running this station before, but it was being run as an RSL. We are taking it back to where it should really be – that is a commercial radio station which is run properly and is at the heart of its community. Scottie and I are both here everyday running things the right way. Mark ran this station from down south and only really came up here every couple of months or so. He just wasn’t spending enough time here.”
Illustrious
McClue himself, who most recently had a stint at Talk 107 in Edinburgh, is as vocal as always about why after an illustrious radio career that has seen him present for stations right across Scotland and England, he put his money where his mouth is and became a co-owner of L107: “I suppose I just felt that this is where I should be and this is what I should be doing. Starting a radio phone-in from scratch is a pretty mad thing to do, but it’s great fun. I have started 32 phone-ins now, so I should know what I am doing. Even I am learning all the time.
“I think the model we have here is very sound and both Alan and I felt that the station wasn’t being run as it should be because it was run remotely. There was nobody out in the area actually getting people to know the station and saying this is what we are all about. Radio is actually a very simple thing, it is not rocket science. You present and you sell and if you can get that model right then it will work.”
The history of L107 is chequered to say the least. It was launched around nine years ago in Newhouse as Clan FM. The station was then sold to The Kingdom Radio Group and around three years ago former Radio 1 presenter Mark Page took ownership of the station. That said both Shields and McClue now feel that the station has great potential in its marketplace.
Big Name
“Scottie is the big name on this station and having him on air every weekday will win us a lot of audience share and no doubt some column inches as well along the way as he can be quite controversial from time to time. We are also bringing back Derek McIntyre from McIntyre in the Morning on Q96 and we also have Greg Campbell from Q96, so we have some good professional presenters on board here now.
“We are up against the heritage brands of Radio Clyde, Real Radio and XFM. Can we compete with them? Probably not, but by Christ we are going to makes some waves. Those stations have pretty much ignored Lanarkshire and concentrated on the big cities and I think the Lanarkshire people are a bit disenfranchised with them. I am looking for 25% of the Lanarkshire market. We need to get 10% just to break even. If we raise our game we can do it and Scottie can certainly do it.”
To get the ‘Scottie’s back and on L107’ message out across the region Shields has booked a TV advertising campaign on STV’s micro-regions, which he is confident will spread the word in a cost effective manner.
And already Shields, who has 25 years media sales experience, 12 of those spent working with Kelvin Mackenzie at Wireless Group as MD of Wireless Group in Scotland, has already seen a marked improvement in advertising revenues at the station.
“When we took over the station we only had three advertisers, now we have around 25 and that has been in just over three weeks of selling. We have some prominent local business on board, a couple of nationals and Gala Casinos have just signed up for a six month sponsorship of the weather. I am out selling and I have another sales guy onboard and we are looking for another sales person. Good sales people are very hard to find and they are even harder to keep.
Cheapened
“One problem here was that this product had been cheapened. We have had to change that as the product we are putting out now is much stronger and so the prices have to reflect that.
“Because the output is so much stronger we now have the confidence to go out and sell it properly. In three weeks I have pulled in nearly £40,000 revenue, which is almost half of what was made last year and I’m not out there full time yet.
“I saw L107 as being far from a dead duck. It is a fantastic opportunity and an investment which will probably pay me back in a year or so, but I am prepared to do whatever it takes to get this station back on track. The best thing is we haven’t borrowed any money to do this, so we don’t owe the banks or anybody anything.”
As everybody knows there are tough times ahead for all media organisations as advertising revenues continue to tumble and many radio groups are already beginning to make cost savings in programming. Whether L107 can find 25% of its marketplace and stamp its identity on the Lanarkshire region once and for all remains to be seen. Whatever, with Scottie at the helm there’ll be some fun and games along the way no doubt.