At the outset of COVID, with radio already crunched and forced to further consolidate, I outlined a plan for radio going forward that spoke to our current realities. Broadcast radio was long past the point where 15,000 radio stations could be counted on to each serve their local communities with the seven best on-air talent available to them. At the same time, the industry realized that personality and/or localism were their best points of differentiation, even if they were unable to deliver it.
Looking for how that might viably happen, my thought was that there should be:
- Great national music-radio networks, taking advantage of their bigness and not hiding their national-radio status under poorly executed “fake local” content. Instead of the expedient myth of “better local through national,” why not just have better national radio?
- At least one or two stations in every market that could commit to full-time localism and truly control that franchise. These stations would need to be local, or at least the capability to be local, even if severe weather took place overnight or at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
Both of these were, in their own way, difficult visions to execute in an industry that was just trying to keep going. When a station could be local and personality-driven, it resulted in winning stations such as KSTP-FM (KS95) Minneapolis or KRTY San Jose, Calif. Often, it was those stations that did the best job in 2020-22 of not participating in the industry’s freefall. But in the case of KRTY, we know now that local and a seven share wasn’t enough to keep its late owner’s estate interested in the radio business.
So as the National Association of Broadcasters convene in Las Vegas, itself now consolidated from two conventions to one, I’ve come up with a third model. Local broadcasters can do great local and great national radio if they can afford the one personality who already constitutes the one single local shift on some stations.
Rather than national networks, I’m now suggesting regional brands that comprise 6-8 local affiliates, all in the same time zone. Those 6-8 stations share a single brand and positioner which are consistently executed throughout the day. However …
- Each of those stations has at least one local talent and, preferably, a newsperson.
- Each of those 6-8 stations originates one shift throughout the day, thus allowing the larger super-station to be fully staffed at all times, including overnights and weekends.
- Each host is heard on all 6-8 stations. Each host is part of the overall station airstaff. But each host is originating from a local affiliate, and each host is transparent about where that is. Everybody gets to rep their city — over the course of the day or week, every market takes a lap in the relay.
- Each station has a place during the hour with additional local information presented by the newsperson who is on duty for severe weather or other crises that occur when the format itself is not originating from the station.
- The flagship station is the one on the app. The broadcast frequencies are the branch offices. The station on the app may have a lower spotload over the course of the hour. You are encouraged to listen to the broadcast frequency not just for ease of use in the car, but for when you want local information.
- What makes this super-station different from our current voice-tracked and nationally assembled radio stations is the unified identity and commitment to personality. Some radio hosts list six stations in their Twitter bio. Why not one great station heard in six markets?
There is already an ironic model for this. SiriusXM satellite radio hosts are live from Nashville (Storme Warren, Charlie Monk), Los Angeles (Richard Blade, Jim Ladd, and Magic Matt), and New York (Mark Goodman and Demos), but also from Spartanburg, S.C., (J.J. Walker), “South Texas” (Ron Parker), San Diego (Pat St. John and Shotgun Tom Kelly), Central New Jersey (Dave Hoeffel), Long Island (Larry the Duck), and Cleveland and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (Rachel Steele). ‘60s Gold morning host Phlash Phelps is now broadcasting from around the country via mobile unit.
Throughout the decades-long debate about national vs. local radio, there have been two opposing arguments that really aren’t contradictions. This model speaks to a world where it is true both that:
- Listeners want personality and companionship, but aren’t always adamant about whether it comes from their own market;
- Listeners care about local information and “sense of place.”
Sirius XM is a pretty good example of having both bigness and, ever since its personalities took to their home studios, more sense of place than some local radio stations. Even with voice-tracking and national work parts, it has become one of the last bastions of the radio we grew up with. The SXM jocks who confer that sense of place do not tell you your local news and information, but if you’re in a market that has a local traffic and weather channel, you may be covered in that way as well.
I’ve even thought of this model for my many friends and readers who are currently operating their own online-only radio stations, but aren’t able to host more than one daypart themselves. Six hobbyist stations that shared a common brand and imaging would become more viable, formidable, and saleable as one radio brand. If all six of a station’s hosts want to play their own slightly different brand of ‘50s through ‘90s Classic Hits, a unified station image and the adventurous nature of those stations would allow for it.
This model would probably work best for markets that share some sense of kinship, rather than a serious regional rivalry. It probably doesn’t work if shared affiliates are in, say, Boston and New York, or Dallas and Houston, or Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta. Then again, perhaps sports rivalries are exactly the thing that allows the afternoon and morning hosts to do shtick together.
As I wrote two years ago, I am not suggesting this model as a path to further consolidation or reductions in force. There are stations that are able to be live and local 24/7, or for most of the week, and they should remain so. There are also an increasing number of boutique national-programming services, some of which do a good job of not sounding generic; e.g., when Smokey Rivers is in afternoons on Delilah’s KDUN Reedsport, Ore. The above model is, again, a third way. And making your one local shift truly compelling and worthwhile, no what the station construct, is another article.
I am merely showing a way in which those already-consolidating stations can truly achieve better living through shared resources. Right now, there are a lot of radio stations that already have one local staffer, or none. On those stations, a shared airstaff is reading yesterday’s entertainment news, which they may or may not remember to precede with the call letters. Their formatics may not be consistent from shift to shift. They sound neither local nor big. Better to have Phlash Phelps from “the top of the Chesapeake Bay” than jockless music from the “1-800-TAX-DEBT” studios.
I won’t be at NAB this year. But I can confidently predict that on an NAB panel next week, proponents of national radio will espouse the potential of their national resources in a way that has never quite been consistently realized. Some owners will talk about the successfully local radio they’ve created, while others will sit in the audience and think “I wish I could do that.” This idea is for them both.
