How We Almost Weren’t on Cat Country for 33 Years

Paul and I have been on-air partners for 32 of the 33 years that Cat Country has been on the air in Billings. Although I know that there are other morning shows on the radio across America that may have been together longer, I doubt that many have stayed on the same radio station as we have. But we could have left. Several times.

It's an old broadcast practice to go and steal the number one morning show from another radio station by offering them a little more cash. Sure enough, after we had been number one in the ratings for a few years, we got offers.

Another country station's general manager and program director offered to buy us lunch. It never hurts to find out what the offers are. So we met them.

The offer wasn't that great to start with. But when all four of the meeting participants got home the next day, all had "cease and desist" orders from six attorney firms out of Pittsburgh. Apparently, somebody saw us talking and notified our owner, who didn't want us leaving.

Long story short, this forced us to get an attorney of our own. That turned out to be the best move that happened for us. In our experience, owners tend to try to bully you a little bit and try to pay you as little as possible.

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But the good news is when you get offers to go elsewhere, you tend to get raises and don't have to change locations.

More offers came through the years. If we had wanted to move, you could have found us at 103.7, 96.3 or 98.5 (three different times).

I'm extremely proud that we've been able to do what we've done through the years and never had to move while seeing literally hundreds of other morning shows come and go or change stations over the years that we've been here.

How much money do we make?  I have heard some guesses that are doozies! Only the corporate bookkeeper, our general manager, and Paul & I know. I won't say how much, but I will say that we have never let any employees go because of what we were making.