Down and out, fired, ridiculed, even jailed, local radio personality Andrew Zepada, known best by his on-air moniker, Andrew Z, has seen it all this past year. After being terminated from Star 105.5 in December, Andrew Z and his Morning Crew, Brandon Doriot, Calen Savage and his wife, Michele Zepada, left mainstream radio for a foray into the digital world with Toledo’s App Station, an application that streams directly to smartphones and other mobile devices. Launched back on Februrary 25, the app looks to not only keep Andrew Z on the air, but also to reach out to the community for premium local content. Though the station hasn’t been welcomed by all (Zepeda is involved in litigation with Star 105.5’s parent company, Cumulus Broadcasting, with breach of contract claims concerning whether the App broadcasts violate his non-compete clause), Toledo's App Station has already added five channels with more in the works, including Andrew Z's Morning Show.
Who's idea was it to go rogue and develop this app?
Actually a friend of mine said, 'Why don't you just do an app? That's the new way to do things. It's the wave of the future.' Then I read articles how about 92% of people use their smartphones for music, and now they’re making apps available in cars. We're early in on the game, which is not always a great thing, but we decided to jump in.
Even though this app's emphasis is local programming, the app can be heard by people everywhere right?
Oh my God, yes! It's so interesting when we go on to look where people are listening from and see people are listening all over the world. I was like 'How do we have friends in China?' The great thing about it is that although the app is global we're never going to globalize the content. We want to showcase Toledo to the world. Clear Channel is based out of San Antonio and Cumulus is based out of Atlanta. They don't care about Toledo, they just care about how much money they can drain out of here to pay their overhead.
What's the overall goal by launching this app?
We're trying to fill the holes that Toledo's terrestrial, old school radio isn't filling. So it's either going to be music programming that you can't hear anywhere else or compelling content you can't get anywhere, either. When there are only two companies in town that own all the radio stations, and they have these billion dollar debts, their bottom line is not programming first — it’s sales first, and the programming suffers. We have flipped the script so programming is number one. And with great programming, sales will come. In the old days if you owned a radio station you had to have great programming for people to listen.
To find out more, or if your band wants to be featured on the app’s Homegrown Channel, check out the Toledo's App Station Facebook page. You can download Toledo's App Station from your smartphone or mobile device's app store.
