Bill Virgin's Radio Beat September 25, 2008

[radiofan]

On Radio: Delilah Rene has new book out about calls, song designations
Companion to popular radio show

By BILL VIRGIN
P-I REPORTER

Delilah Rene's journey to her current status as one of the best-known voices in radio was, geographically speaking, a long one, taking her from small stations in her home state of Oregon to Seattle, then to several stops on the East Coast and finally back to Seattle.

Delilah's daily journey to her job as host of the nationally syndicated show of song dedications is, geographically speaking, considerably shorter.

"My commute is literally walking down eight stairs, hitting a landing, turning, going down five stairs and I'm at work," she says, speaking of the home studio she now has at her farm in Kitsap County. "That makes life so much easier and frees me up so much to do the things I love during the course of the day."

Those include being a mom to the five children she has at home (in all she has 10 children, seven adopted), working on causes of importance to her (including aid to a refugee camp in Ghana) and producing a book.

"Love Matters: Remarkable Love Stories That Touch the Heart and Nourish the Soul," which goes on sale Tuesday, is a compilation of calls and song dedications she has received on love found, lost and regained, and love for family, friends, children and comrades.

Listeners to Delilah's show, aired locally on KRWM-FM/ 106.9, 7 p.m.-midnight, seven nights a week, will recognize the book's format as a close parallel to the radio program. Song dedications were once a regular feature of rock/pop radio, but she's one of the few remaining practitioners.

"Others have moved away from it because they didn't want to get fired, because program directors decided that they shouldn't do that any more, that music should be preprogrammed, no listener interaction," Delilah says. "Because I was never really very afraid of getting fired, I was willing to stick to my guns. And it worked."

Convincing radio management that there was still an audience for that was akin to "emptying Puget Sound with a cup," she adds. "Unfortunately something happened in radio, probably 20 years ago, where program directors went from trying to one-up each other with creativity and passion and stunts and getting listeners really hooked into the station. They switched to, 'Let's be as pabulum as we can, as noncreative as we possibly can.' That's very unfortunate. But, lucky for me, I don't have to do that."

Not having to do that is the result of a 33-year career that included stops at such Seattle stations as KAYO, KING-AM, KZAM, KJZZ, KLSY and KJR-FM (she can rattle off from memory the call letters of every station at which she worked, a list that numbers more than a dozen). She's been doing a love-songs dedication show for 26 years, the past 12 in national syndication. As the self-described "queen of sappy love songs," she's now heard on 225 radio stations in the U.S. and Canada.

Delilah's show isn't done live, but it's close to it. Calls are edited (preferably to less than three minutes each), balanced so that each segment doesn't feature three sad stories in a row or three calls in a row from listeners who are giddy and gushing about their new love affair, and put on the air, often within the hour they're received. The home studio and the program's format allow her to pop upstairs to check on dinner and bedtime for the kids.

Delilah offers a sympathetic ear, but no advice. Having been divorced three times herself, she tells people: "Have you listened to my show? Do you not know I mess up relationships? Don't ask me. Call somebody that knows this stuff. I'm not Dr. Phil -- I'm not here to fix people's problems."

But listening has proved to be more than enough to build a devoted following. "There's a huge amount of value in having someone listen," she adds. "When you have somebody who's not involved in the situation, an objective person, that can listen and hear what it is you're trying to say, you can pretty much figure things out on your own. But you need that sounding board."

The biggest change in the calls she receives is a marked increase from family members of military personnel. The subject matter, however, remains constant: "Life is life. It's about falling in love and babies and kids and challenges and relationships."

Between the commute-free work setup, her kids, her projects and being in the Puget Sound region (when she lived on the East Coast, she says, she "missed Seattle the way you long for a lover"), Delilah, 48, says she is "at a really, really, really wonderful place in life right now."

One worry she does not spend time on is the future of radio; whatever happens, she figures there will be a demand for what she does.

"I don't know what the future is technologically," she says. "People are always going to hunger for good content ... something that impacts their heart. They want to laugh or cry or hear a story or whatever. So there's always going to be people that want to hear human interaction, and there's always going to be new technology developing to deliver that."

In other radio notes:


Seattle Thunderbirds broadcasts can be heard this year on KFNK-FM/104.9. Thom Beuning handles play-by-play, and Bruce McDonald provides color commentary for home games.


Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather is the guest on "Weekday" at 9 a.m. Thursday on KUOW-FM/94.9.


Saxophonist Maceo Parker plays in the Seattle studios of KPLU-FM/88.5 at 12:20 p.m. Friday.

P-I reporter Bill Virgin can be reached at 206-448-8319 or billvirgin@seattlepi.com.

Bill Virgin's Radio Beat, Thursdays in the Seattle P-I