RADIODIGEST.COM, March 13, 2000

Women In Radio: Sheena and Sam

The only female duo on the air in Los Angeles, Sheena Metal and Sam Phillips are out trying to prove that people actually do want to hear two women host a talk show. Lyssa Graham visits with the hosts of 97.1 FM's "The Sheena and Sam Show."

..........

By Lyssa Graham

We know that 97.1 The FM Talk Station (KLSX-FM) is home to two of the busiest women in entertainment. "The Sheena and Sam Show" is broadcast weekly on Saturday nights from 7 to 9 p.m. Sheena and Sam are the only female duo on air in the Los Angeles area, and they are making themselves well known.

They come from wildly diverse backgrounds. Sheena Metal is a local L.A. celebrity in her own right, having hosted, written and produced the popular cable access television show "Sheena Metal's Freakin' Rock Review" which began in 1991. She also fronts her own satirical band, "Sheena Metal's Beer Bong," well known for its take on '80s glam-rock bands. Metal has a long history in the L.A. music scene as a writer, promoter, producer, publicist, performer and consultant. She has served on the senior judging committee for the Los Angeles Music Awards, receiving the Special Achievement Award in 1994 and 1998 for her service to the entertainment community.

Sam Phillips is a Penthouse Pet and has appeared in numerous films, including "Phantasm II," "Weekend at Bernie's II" and "Angel 4: Undercover." If you've not seen any of those films, you've probably seen Phillips in music videos by the likes of Van Halen, Motley Crue, Amy Grant and Dave Koz. Phillips was also a part of the Rock Video Girls video and the ensuing national talk-show circuit campaign.

The duo's radio show evolved from Metal's early experiences in radio. Metal went from her cable access television show to KIEV (870 AM) in August of 1994. She left KIEV in 1998, after spending a year pitching 97.1 FM (following that station's change from a classic rock format to the then unheard of FM talk format). "I fell in love with the station and wanted desperately to be on it -- and started pitching them. And being ignored, because I'm sure that everyone else was pitching the station as well," recalls Metal. "So, in April of '98, I heard that (97.1's) nighttime weekday show, "The Nastyman Show," was having bands on as guests. Well, I have a band, and I thought what a neat thing for my band to do -- and I then could at least say that I was on the FM Talk Station once."

Metal booked her band on the show for a guest spot, supposedly for the entire three-hour program. The show over-booked with nearly 15 guests, and Metal and her band wound up with only a roughly fifteen-minute shot at fame on the show. Nastyman, the host of the show, hit it off with Metal. "He and I just had this really incredible chemistry," she says.

Hanging around after the show, Metal gave Nasty her radio background, and two weeks later, he called and asked her to come back with her band -- "but would I come a little early and sit in with him during the show?" Metal jumped at the chance, and two days after that second appearance, Nasty invited her to be his co-host on the show. Nastyman's show ran until New Year's Eve of that year.

And that's where Sam Phillips comes in. Phillips had been a regular guest on the show starting during Metal's first week, and they'd hit it off from the start. Following the cancellation of the show, neither woman was enjoying tremendous success, jockeying from part-time gig to part-time gig. "Sam had been bugging me and bugging me -- you know, let's do this two-woman show. I said to her, it's obvious that no one wants one woman on the air, much less two." Phillips got a guest spot on The Ed Tyll Show then running on 97.1 FM, and pitched Tyll on the idea of a two-woman show. "Ed called me up and said, 'This is great, why don't you pitch this?' And I told him, 'Look, nobody wants girls,'" says Metal. "I had really come to believe that no one wanted girls on the air at all."

Metal gave in to the outside pressure, and the two wound up with the Sunday slot from 3 to 5 a.m. on 97.1. Management gave them a "couple of test shows" on which they were to prove themselves. "The first hour, we had 30 calls … The second show we did, we had nearly 40 calls the first hour. It just instantly took off, and then it kind of snowballed," says Metal.

"The Sheena and Sam Show" has since moved to Saturday nights from 7 to 9 p.m., although you can hear them frequently filling in for missing jocks on 97.1. They refer to themselves as "talk radio firewomen." "We're kind of the resident fill-in girls. We're always on call. We just wait for the buzzer to go off, and then we slide down the pole and run in there," Metal says.

She credits the Internet with a large portion of the duo's success. They have a mailing list of more than 3,000 fans that hear from the duo each week. There are also a number of Metal/Phillips fan sites that link to the duo's home page. "The e-mail list really works," says Metal. "We get about 300 pieces of e-mail each week, on an average."

Metal says that in the beginning, the duo didn't even have a promo on 97.1. "The station doesn't do a lot of promotions for 3 to 5 in the morning -- and you know, who would blame them?" says Metal. "It's not their high priority time to publicize, so we took over and publicized ourselves." Using a lot of the tactics learned through her background in cable access, Metal used the Web as a grass-roots promotional tool. "I think that a lot of our listeners are Web people, just based on the number of fan sites we have," she says. "I really think that talk radio and Web surfing go hand in hand. I think that the Web has done tremendous things for talk radio in general, and certainly for us."

When asked if they get a bit of flack from the feminist groups because of Phillips' background in 'adult entertainment', Metal says, "We are amazed at how receptive both men and women have been to the show." Given the strong male demographics at 97.1, Metal says, "We had to pitch the show in a manner that would appeal to guys. Our original pitch was that 'we're two guys trapped in girls' bodies.' We figured that if we did guy talk from a girl perspective -- if we told guys honestly what their girlfriends, their moms, their sisters were thinking -- then that would be a good hook for guys." And it's worked. Past show topics have included bra talk, size matters, PMS, dating fat chicks and more. "We got on the air and we thought, 'Oh my God, women are going to hate us!' And they don't -- we're increasing our female listener base all the time," says Metal.

Metal certainly hopes for expanded exposure. "From your lips to God's ears," she says when asked about the duo's syndication prospects. Plans are in the works for taking that big step sometime in the future. Metal's advice for women who want to get into radio is pretty simple. "Start early," she says, "and be willing to do whatever it takes to get the job. Take part-time gigs, run the board over Christmas, intern in small markets and learn how radio works. There aren't a lot of opportunities in radio, so take every one you can get."

Metal still feels that radio is definitely a "boy's club," adding that "even Sam and I aren't pretending that it's not, and the best way to get respect is to work in a man's world like a man. It doesn't mean that you can't be a woman -- it has nothing to do with your private life. It means that you can't be a drama queen. Why not overcome the stereotype by showing them that you're not going to be that way?" "I think that the only way that men and women are going to resolve the differences between us is if we stop with the barriers and we learn to laugh at ourselves," says Metal. Sheena and Sam laugh all of the time.

..................

Questions, comments, tips, or suggestions? Reach Lyssa Graham via e-mail at lgraham@radiodigest.com. Her "Women in Radio" column appears every Friday in RadioDigest.com.