his own mobile broadcast van.......
Try ignore the happy talk about consolidation...this is from Talkers' Magazine....
http://members.aol.com/cookeh/bloodtalk5.htmlA generation ago, on-air talent in markets the size of Fargo would strive to work in markets the size of Houston.
Schultz did it the other way around.
In the early 80s, he was a sportscaster on ABC's station in Houston.
His love of sports, and a chance to do play-by-play, led him back to Fargo, his college town, where a younger Ed had led the national in passing for Division 2, when he was All-American quarterback for Moorhead State.
He even got invited to the big dance, having been signed as a free agent by the NFL Oakland Raiders.
Landing at WDAY Radio & TV in Fargo and starting a family in the American heartland is fairy-tale-ending-enough to stop-the-tape right here.
But, as I've seen in so many other achievers I've worked with, it's never enough.
Ed caught the Talk bug.
That, and the opportunity to move into management, and move up to University of North Dakota play-by-play, moved Ed across the street to KFGO.
His show has been top-rated and sold-out ever since; so we could fade-to-black here too.
A happier ending than many in Talk Radio are suffering lately.
(snip)
I feel like I'm there WITNESSING something.
Quite likely the evolution of local Radio, and -- after all our industry's growing pains -- a happy example of what consolidation can accomplish.
Ed's KFGO show is now networked to other Clear Channel-owned stations in the Dakotas: KKXL/Grand Forks, KFYR/Bismarck, KCJB/Minot, KLTC/Dickinson, and KKAA/Aberdeen.
In the process, all these stations get a talent that they otherwise couldn't find or afford.
But any national syndicator could make the same claim. "There's only one Rush Limbaugh!"
Sure, Ed's regional focus and fluency make his show more-local than Rush or Dr. Laura.
Still, what local Radio will always do better than the-best-of-the-bird is give local listeners access to on-air personalities.
The opportunity to know them, to touch-and-feel at remotes and events.
And, conversely, to give the personalities access to the people and places that make-up "the market" as the Clear Channel/Ed experiment is redefining the term.
So Ed wasn't content to sit in a studio in Fargo and talk-out to out-state.
And it's not a stretch to characterize this little network as a "Clear Channel/Ed" partnership, because each brought something big to the table.
"It was the fall of 2000," Schultz recalls.
"an election year, and we had some big issues facing our state and region.
The farm bill wasn't working, the region was losing young people and the depopulation of rural America was on the fast track."
"Where was this going to leave my job? Our industry? What was the future?"
One Sunday afternoon, Ed was pondering his Radio future, and wistfully recalling his football past, while watching an NFL game on TV, and listening to John Madden, who, years earlier, had put younger Ed through his paces at the Raiders' camp. As Madden -- a fearful flyer -- spoke of traveling to the following week's game, the director took a shot of the now-famous Madden Cruiser he uses to crisscross the NFL map.
And Schultz says "MY wheels started turning."
Startling his wife Wendy, he jumped off the couch and said, "That's it! The Cruiser! 'The Big Eddy Cruiser!'
News and Views takes-it-to-the-people!"
The upsides are obvious: "We can own the story on location. We can do what nobody else is doing."
Then, just as quickly, Ed came back to Earth.
He admits, "I started laughing. Yeah , right...I'll just turn in an expense sheet for $165,000."
But the idea wouldn't let go. And time was of the essence.
Ed's show would be networked in four months.
He took a nervy plan to his GM and longtime friend Dick Voight.
But not before some soul-searching.
"I knew I had enough contacts in the region and enough business relationships developed over the years to make it work.
So I started working the phones, setting up appointments, and started making pitches, asking advertisers, 'How would you like to advertise ON The Big Eddy Cruiser?'"
That's right. The STATION didn't buy the vehicle. ED did, after a gut-check:
"Did I really believe in my industry...my profession...and my talent enough to stick my neck out on the line and finance this baby?"
The GM had OK'd Ed doing on-air plugs (non-spot-inventory mentions) for the sponsors who bought display advertising on the Cruiser (which Ed sells, and revenue-from-which he uses to make the payments, insurance, and upkeep).
He says, "I actually went right down the street from KFGO, to Mclaughlin's RV and wrote the check. The down payment was ten thousand dollars."
Responding to Ed's commitment, the station equipped The Big Eddy Cruiser with a 40 watt Marti for local remotes, a Sony wireless mic system, and a Comrex Vector to deliver studio quality audio over the phone lines when on location.
All equipment which the station owns, deployed to the Cruiser Ed owns.
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This is a press release advertising Schultz so I posted more than usual
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