The Jackson Sun from Jackson, Tennessee • 20

the week in review 10B The Jackson Son, Jackson, Sunday, Jan. 2, 1983 zy business promoter earns jackpot Radio By USA FRVE Sun reporter Jay Baxter came to town four years ago with an FM radio license, a patch of land on the Old Pinson Road and big plans. "They laughed at me when I came here in my cowboy boots and blue jeans and was going to put a radio station out on a ol' clay hill in a mobile home," Baxter says with a smug grin. No one laughed last week when Baxter and his partners agreed to sell WJHR-FM, now 3 Vi years old and No. 1 in the market, to a competitor for a cool million plus.

With Federal Communications Commission approval, the station will go to Mr. and Mrs. Bill Glass-man of Mount Vernon, 111., whose family also owns WDXI-AM here. Baxter, who grew up near Bolivar, is a stout man with a backswept shock of wavy black hair turning gray at the temples, and diction better suited to shooting the breeze than floating over the airwaves. He is a promoter by background and by nature, given to good-natured brashness and superlatives.

Nothing is merely good, it's "FAN-tastic." Behind the knee-slapping, good-old-boy exterior is a hard-driving businessman, "big-hearted, but very pushy," as he puts it. He thrives on a challenge a new radio station or one in financial trouble and despises excuses. "You number them." On his wall is a quote from French novelist Andre Gide: "Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has courage to lose sight of the shore." "That's what we did here; we lost sight of the shore," he says with a chuckle. But they regained it quickly. "We did with this station something that's not been done anywhere, going from zero to number one in three-and-a-half years," he boasts.

Milton Q. Ford, the Memphis media broker who handled the sale, agrees. "I've never seen the rise of a station any faster to prom Sun tKiff photo pushy when Baxter, a salesman even then, went out and rounded up enough advertisers to sponsor his own program. His career rambled away from radio for a while. In the late '50s, he played guitar in backup bands for singers like Carl Perkins, back when "rockabilly" was young.

He moved to promoting entertainers for a while, then race tracks, before moving back into radio in the mid-'60s. He helped some friends in the business turn around three ailing stations. "But I knew I wasn't getting anywhere unless I had (a station) of my own." In 1971, he applied for the license for FM-103, the last available frequency in the local market. It was a long, drawn-out contest at the Federal Communications Commission. One of the competitors was Glassman of Community Service Broadcasting, the company that owns WDXI.

Since then, he has become a part owner in three other stations in Mississippi and Alabama, managing them all from the now-expanded mobile home at WJHR. An AM-FM pair in Ozark, that was "a financial disaster" when Baxter and his Mississippi partners bought it a year ago sold recently. "We doubled our money," Baxter says. They own another station in Tupelo. They had every intention of keeping WJHR, "but Mr.

Glass-man wanted it more than we did," he says. "So move on," he tells himself with a shrug. "I can take my money and reinvest it and do it again. I love it." Bank promotes two "Year profitable i for automakers The U.S. auto industry closed the books on its first profitable -4 year since 1979.

But the profits didn't come from booming sales. They came from payroll slashing, tax credits, healthy subsidiaries and streamlined 9 factory practices. Car sales in 1982 were an esti- mated 5.7 million, off about 8 percent from the already dis-i mal level of 6.2 million in 1981. trends Chase Manhattan Bank cut its 'prime lending rate by half a -i point to 11 percent, the lowest level since August 1980. i Fanners' buying power fell to percent of the 1910-1914 aver- age, the lowest annual parity 1 1 i raiiu since recuruneeping began in 1910.

I In the fourth straight monthly gain, sales of new single-family houses rose 12 percent in No-! yember to the highest level in two years. After declining for three weeks, Americans' initial claims for unemployment bene-I fits rose to 544,000 in the week ending Dec. 18 from 533,000 in the previous week, the Labor Department reported. i i The Conference Board said executives' confidence in their 5 industries and the economy in-j creased for the fourth quarter in a row, rising 17 points from a year ago and 5 point from last summer, i Savings and loan associations committed more money for mortgages last month than at any time since the fall of 1989, government reported. i Transportation Secretary iDr'ew Lewis, who faced down striking air traffic controllers and spearheaded a 5-cent in-Jcrease in the gasoline tax, re-signed to head Warner-Amex iCable Communications nation's sixth largest cable television company.

A survey of executives of Ismail companies found them less confident in President Rea-gan's leadership than they were a year ago, but still believing his economic policies should be 'given a longer test. i Rich Trumka, newly installed president of the United Mine Workers, said he would cut the j200-member staff of the union's international headquarters by about 60 in an effort to shake financial troubles. companies JFord Motor Co. said it would Jout some management level jobs and downgrade other positions in product development to isave money. 1 Johnson Johnson prepared io launch a confidence-restoring advertising campaign for jTylenol, the first since cyanide-tainted capsules killed seven eople.

Steelworkers at financially troubled Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel approved contract concessions that will cost the average Employee $2,300 in wages and 14,200 in benefits. I Composite index of Leading Economic Indicators Economic Activity 138- 1967100 134- 130- 126- 122 JFMAMJ JASON 1982 Source: Commerce Dept A JNearing the year's end on a promising note, the government said its main forecasting gauge tor economic health rose 0.8 percent in November, the seventh gain in ight months. lllllll inence in my life," says Ford, who has owned and brokered stations for 35 years. Even Baxter's competitors don't argue with his success. "This is probably the greatest radio success story in Jackson's radio history," says Tom Mapes, general manager of AM station WJAK.

"He took a station that was not even on the air, built it to number one in the market and sold that sucker and made a tremendous amount of money. It's the business success story of the year." A survey recently commissioned by WJHR and WDXI showed WJHR in the lead among the five local stations with 23.8 percent share of the listening audience. WDXI was second at 15.9 percent. Baxter, president and one-third owner of WJHR, says he and his crew carved out that healthy slice of the market so quickly by finding out what people wanted to hear and playing it, a straightforward enough strategy. Though it already had four stations, the local market was vulnerable because "there was a hole," Baxter says.

His surveys showed a lot of people were listening to Memphis stations. WJHR "spent a great deal of money on surveying," then came up with an adult contemporary format to zero in on a primarily female, 18-49-year-old audience that constitutes the biggest spenders in town, he says. Advertisers bought it. WJHR was in the black within two months of going on the air in May 1979, Baxter says. "That's unheard of in this industry." Annual advertising billings come to more than he says.

Most of the other stations were "lazy" about defining their audiences and promoting themselves, he contends. "We put glasses on them and pulled the plugs out of their ears." His competitors wouldn't go that far, though some agree that Baxter taught them a few things. "He showed us how to promote," says J. David Wall tute of Banking and completed a Dun Bradstreet course in credit and financial analysis. Austin, an assistant commercial loan officer, joined the bank in 1980.

He worked in the installment loan department before moving to the commercial loan department. Ralph K. Amos Jr. Medical Clinic, 719 Old Hickory The Phone 50 Stone-bridge Standard Welders Supply 87 Riverport Drive; Tenn-Tex Drilling 405 Old Hickory and the YMCA, 1515 N. Campbell St.

Doris Templeton sponsored the Minor Medical Clinic's membership. Others were sponsored by the chamber staff. ing today, on Wednesday and Thursday, but GM had refused comment. Ford Motor Co. spokesman Bill Peacock said Thursday Ford was ready to implement an equivalent program if GM made an official announcement.

Ford had a 10.75 percent interest rate program and rebates in effect through Friday. Chrysler had a 10.9 percent program and rebates in effect through Friday. Chrysler offices were closed for the holiday. Kenneth L. Austin ft 'A OLJ yTi (Q(iQf): I ffilTT fJWMi' Cl fiffiTCTIVlKV iSiSsss iMt ALLLI 'Mi I IjLt Jry I jfiVllO lb Lf ilJ I lfl 'I fe-Qy gnfm mmmmm 1 MlWm mmmtmilii 11 11 'I I r-JT'l i J' 1 UTT-PIWH fw -TF JT'? Jay Baxter: 'big-hearted, but Mapes of WJAK.

"He showed us how radio was changing. We all had to get much more aggressive because Jay was so aggressive." Jim Hoppers, general manager of WTJS-AM and WKIR-FM, the only other local FM station, said the competition has been good. "I guess everybody would like to be the only station in town. But you can get stale if you don't have someone trying to outdo you." Baxter is no newcomer to the radio business. His first break came at 14 when the owner of a Corinth, station let him fill in for a sick announcer.

The owner was not impressed. "He told me I was so bad I needed to get me a job driving a bulldozer or something," Baxter recalls with a laugh that shakes his whole body. The owner changed his mind For the location ol the showroom nearest SHOWROOM HOURS Monday thru Saturday IOA.M. to 9 P.M. Sunday 1 P.M.

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very J. David Wall and Kenneth L. Austin were promoted last week at the First American Bank of Jackson. Wall was named vice president and data processing officer; Austin, assistant cashier. Wall joined the bank (then First National) in 1971 as a commercial loan clerk.

In 1975, he began developing the bank's data processing system and established the data processing department. He was named officer and manager of the department. He attended the University of Tennessee at Martin and has an associate's degree from Jackson State Community College. He received the basic and standard certificates from the American Insti- business notes Ralph K. Amos Jr.

has been named director of traffic at Henco Inc. in Selmer. Amos joined the company as director of driver training in 1980. He was transferred in 1981 to Henco's facility in North Las Vegas, where he became operations manager. Before joining Henco, he managed the Henry Horton State Park Inn at Chapel Hill for the Tennessee Department of Conservation.

Amos has a bachelor's degree from Lambuth College. New members of the Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce are Colorcraft 67 American Drive; GFI Buying Group 2112 Hollywood Drive; Minor j. COLOR PBINT K4Till J2' WJS3S)py "ErfA ZJi-f rr'- sNtiL-f liT 3 Kl j) ll ram TB lWT fV" ffkXl jhr tfJ 1 ll ml -L WJ r. "-tL11 f. SSot1 I '1 1 37' 1''' KODAK MAILERS Send mailer to Kodak for quality proces- (IPfjNl s'ng' odal( w'" Vour slides or prints by mail.

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$3.39 ad SUPER 8 SILENT OR SOUND FILM Safc9 GM to offer 11.9 loon you, Call toll free 1-800-251-1 21 2, In Tennessee 1-800-342-8398, In Nashville 366-8707 DETROIT (AP) General Motors Corp. will offer 11.9 percent financing on 1982 and 1983 model cars, light-duty trucks and vans, effective through March 31. In a statement, GM said the offer will be guaranteed on vehicles ordered by Feb. 28. The program requires that the offer, through GM's finance arm General Motors Acceptance be made on vehicles delivered through March 31.

Dealers had disclosed the new promotion, made to replace a 10.9 percent offer on 1982 models end out Motoat nm ACKSON SHOWROOM ADDRESS Jackson Plaza Shopping Center 50 Old Hickory Boulevard Phone (901)424-4551 1983 Sale Pricea In Effect Thru Jan. Bthl N406 i.