Bill Dollar (DJ) - Professional Career

Professional Career

Later, Dollar worked at other radio stations, eventually moving up to larger cities such as Memphis, Tennessee and Birmingham, Alabama. He was music director at WGST in Atlanta, Georgia when that station changed to news radio.

In 1979, Dollar applied to the Federal Communications Commission for a frequency allocated to Boone, North Carolina. While waiting for his application to be approved, he moved to Shelbyville, Tennessee and served as morning host and sales manager, but decided he would be better off working for someone else rather than being his own boss. WSOC-FM in Charlotte, North Carolina was advertising for a morning DJ in Broadcasting and Cable Magazine. Dollar applied, but the job went to another applicant.

By 1982, Dollar had surpassed Robert Murphy as the most popular DJ in town, and he held this position for the next seven years. He did this without making fun of The PTL Club, a favorite target of radio DJs in the area, even when the show's scandal became national news.

In October 1989 after three nominations, Dollar received the Broadcast Personality of the Year award (medium markets) from the Country Music Association.

In Fall 1989, Dollar returned to the no. 1 position after John Boy and Billy replaced him in the summer, a ratings period during which the market's top station lost to WPEG.

In August 1994, Dollar had been WSOC's morning host for 14 years, the longest of anyone in Charlotte. But Dollar's ratings with 25-54 listeners were way down, and he returned from vacation, on his 44th birthday, to find he had been moved to middays, replaced in the morning by Paul Schadt and Cindy O'Day. Program director Paul Johnson said the change would attract more younger listeners with "a more contemporary face" and "energy, entertainment and fun." The station tried to claim Dollar asked for the change, but he would not confirm that.

Dollar appeared as an announcer in two movies, Stroker Ace in 1983, and Bandit Goes Country in 1994.