The layoffs are brutal. So are the sales for too little money to owners who take stations out of the format mainstream. So is seeing owners just shut a station off and walk away from the license. And, even for those not directly affected, there is additional misery in watching the disheartening moments for radio pile up on top of each other.
On Tuesday, the major Canadian group broadcaster Rogers Sports & Media chose to shut down six N/T and all-sports stations, including an FM, in major and large markets. As with other recent station closures, most are storied frequencies, including CISL Vancouver, B.C., which I was fortunate to work with briefly in a previous incarnation. Another, CFFR Calgary, was once North America’s most successful Oldies AM.
Social media is where the bad news hits the hardest. The threads from the iHeart layoffs continue. They begin with the talents who start their announcements with “welp … ” and increasingly include “I don’t know if I’ll stay in this business.” Because those layoffs played out for days, somebody would occasionally comment that their market had seemingly been spared, only to be proven wrong the next day. Now, among my Canadian radio friends, there is a new set of postings.
The threads about the iHeart layoffs were occasionally punctuated by comments from medium- and small-market broadcasters pointing out that their stations and clusters have successfully found a way forward by staying focused on local advertisers and community service. JVC Media’s John Caracciolo has been particularly vocal about the need to shift the focus away from the big three groups. “Why aren’t you focusing on good operators?” asked another radio friend in one of the post-layoff dialogues.
Nobody understands how bad news often compels the audience more than good news like broadcasters. That said, it’s unlikely that my colleagues are deliberately seeking out bad news now. The negative headlines are finding them as they try to go about their business. There are a lot of former radio people in the threads–some, understandably, can not muster a lot of sympathy for existing owners; others are equally dismayed on our behalf.
It’s hard to fight a steady stream of bad news. Even the days without big jolts carry little reminders. The layoff and centralization story that so shocked us last month just as often arrives in little pieces every week when a local opening — whether prompted by a layoff, a retirement, or a rare upwards move for the previous person — is filled by somebody adding that market to an existing list of six others.
Bad news snowballs and begets bad news. Chances are that the Rogers moves were independently timed, influenced by similar shutdowns among other Canadian operators. But it’s not hard to imagine a decision maker looking at the iHeart layoffs and telling a colleague, “It’s only going to get worse. We need to move now.” If that isn’t what happened in Toronto, maybe it’s happening somewhere else, and we’ll know about it by next Thursday.
Good news is also often discredited because the people delivering it to the industry and advertisers are often the same big groups whose travails dominate the headlines. For years, the NAB Radio Show was dominated by broadcaster boosterism that often felt like whistling past the graveyard for the other 51 weeks of the year. Then the Radio Show went away.
Good news from groups like JVC doesn’t get the same traction, in part because there is not the same machine to disseminate it. While daily news is not my business and press releases are not my driver, I don’t receive a lot of news on behalf of the 14,000 U.S. radio stations that are not owned by the four biggest groups, either individually or from state radio or small broadcaster organizations on their behalf.
That small-broadcaster stories aren’t getting out speaks to a larger issue. Those 14,000 other broadcasters need to do the right thing for their own stations rather than taking their cues from a handful of owners — not because the big groups are wrong, but because what is right for WHTZ (Z100) New York and for WIXX Green Bay, Wis., have been repeatedly proven to be two different things. To tackle larger issues, like the future of the radio dial, they need to come together in a way that gives them influence equal to their numbers.
I like to think I’m sharing good news on a regular basis by focusing on the radio that still intrigues me every week. I find that radio from broadcasters of every sort throughout North America. In April, I profiled Vic Latino’s Yo! 107.1 West Palm Beach in the same story as Audacy’s WPOW (Power 96) Miami and Internet broadcaster Miami One Radio. In the same issue, I wrote about Rubber City Radio’s WQMX Akron, Ohio, and its success attracting local advertisers at a time when the major groups are less interested.
In between advocating for the radio I like, I try to share solutions. “The way forward” is the thing most missing from our industry cycle of downers and defensiveness, exacerbated by the number of issues that we have let pile up over the past 20 years. I think those ideas can come from among our 14,000 other broadcasters, from our major groups, from veteran broadcasters now watching the industry from a remove, and from radio’s next generation. In a world without an NAB show, I hope the column will be one of the places where the dialogue takes place. I hope we can catch our breath for a minute to have that dialogue, instead of playing defense.
Weeks like these do not shake, much less shatter, my belief that audiences will always want what radio does, rather than the burden of entertaining themselves at every moment. But every week I wonder if existing broadcasters will be able to provide that. Or will competing platforms just wait for us to turn off enough signals before swooping in with the hosted, produced showmanship that challenges us now? I’m glad for anybody resisting that scenario; I’m eager to share good news as often as I encounter it.
Hi Sean. Funny you should mention positive news about radio. It was thanks to you that I was able to write my recent article for Radio World about radio stations that are still popular and still doing well: you provided me with several leads, and I was able to find others easily. (https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/programming-and-sales/we-still-believe-in-radio). And when I interviewed folks from those stations, they talked enthusiastically about what works: for example, they noted that their stations are live and local and plugged into their community. They do fun promotions, they meet the listeners on a regular basis, and those listeners eagerly support what they’re doing. (And yes, those stations are profitable.)
I wish there were more owners who realize that listeners don’t need and don’t want stations that sound automated or robotic or that have endless commercials. They still want a radio station that’s a best friend and a companion. And they still want a station that is entertaining and informative– one that not only plays the music they like but has personality deejays who enjoy communicating with them. It’s a myth that “nobody today cares about radio.” If you give the listeners locally-based announcers who know their market, if you keep the listeners up to date with information they want, if you make them feel like part of the family, they’ll listen. Thanks for being one of the defenders of radio, Sean. Our industry is far from dead, and as long as there are stations that know how to befriend and entertain an audience, radio will continue to be a vital part of that audience’s life.
Sean,
I have been involved in radio nearly all of my life since I was a teenager, when Gerald Ford was President. I do not think that this industry will survive ten more years, at least under the current ownership model. Music radio serves almost no purpose for anyone under the age of 50. And the economics of the advertising industry make it impossible for nearly any station to compete in what I call the “human companion” space, even running a ruinous 18 units an hour. For many operations, average unit rates are considerably lower than they were 20 years ago, adjusted for inflation.
Not long ago, I had a tour of kids come through to see the business, I guess because the adult sponsors of the group they were with thought it would be fun. These were middle school age kids. I asked them if they listened to the radio. Not one of them did unless they were in the car with a parent or grandparent. One of them said, “My grandpa used to listen before he died.” They had no interest in the medium at all. I seriously doubt that they will suddenly become radio listeners when they turn 25. In fact, we have socialized two generations (at least) of Americans to not care about radio. Some of the blame for this state of affairs lies with technological change. Some of it has to do with the needs of the advertising industry. But most of it is because of the way we have been forced to operate since the late 90s.
When you and I first met back in the 80s, I was so bullish on this business that I was almost a cultist. Today, I am happy that I am two years away from retirement.
To put this in context, readers should know that when Bill and I met, he was doing successful music radio on AM until at least the late ’80s by finding a hole in the market. So I take his dismay (and anybody else’s dismay) seriously. I still believe that those same kids will glom on to some app that plays music with some sort of hosting, some sort of contesting, and some sort of interactivity. But it won’t eventually connected to an FM stick or developed by somebody who operates FM radio stations, unless we find a better message than “download our app” repeatedly.
In Canada, the medium- and small-market broadcaster with the most optimistic take on radio is MBC’s Jon Pole, whose company took over some of the stations spun off by Bell Media and, he says, doubled the revenue. Here’s Jon’s take on the Rogers shutdowns from CBC-TV news.