Was It Wrong To Believe In Radio?

As a radio industry researcher, I did a lot of work in the ’00s and ’10s on behalf of Entercom Communications and some with Audacy after the company’s rebranding four years ago. During that time, I worked most closely with the client PDs and with then-VP of programming Pat Paxton, but also with president/CEO David Field.

Audacy’s travails in recent years, not just its layoffs and consolidation, but particularly the sales that ended heritage radio stations like WMC-FM (FM100) Memphis or WCBS-AM New York, always prompt negative outpourings and personal attacks on social media, and the same happened yesterday when it was announced that Field was leaving the CEO job. Nestled among the more typical comments, however, was this dissent from a radio engineer:

“Have any of you met David in person? I worked for him for 16 years, and found him to be a decent, caring guy. This is a guy who sold towers during the first downturn so that we didn’t have to fire anyone … You may not like what he’s done, but he’s a good guy.”

I’d now like to add the following:

I always appreciated Entercom as a company that valued radio programming. The two-year period that followed the purchase of CBS Radio in 2017 will always be among my favorite professional experiences, particularly because of Entercom’s commitment to the new stations and Fields’ enthusiasm that the purchase would be a vote of confidence that benefited all broadcasters.

In those years, I worked extensively with new client stations and programmers I had admired for years. Most of them were CBS Radio people who had made the transition to the new ownership, in direct contradiction of the narrative that took hold elsewhere about Entercom having the hubris to favor its own people over existing staff. 

It was an energizing time to be working with radio and Field’s excitement about the industry was a big part. There were a lot of pep talks by various CEOs at each fall’s NAB radio show; at that moment, Entercom really was the company that you saw represented on the dais.

Some of the stations I worked with had not been able to do audience research for several years. In the year or two following the sale, I saw major stations revitalized—WOGL Philadelphia, WNCX Cleveland, WOMC Detroit, KCBS (Jack FM) Los Angeles. Some of the successes have since been paved over by eight years of PPM monthlies. Others stand. Researchers are often seen as the bad guy in the chat room, too, but there were repeated affirmations in those years about both the value of research and the strength of great radio brands.

Any comment thread about Audacy now will deride Field for overinvesting in the CBS Radio purchase and include comments about radio in the hands of heartless cost-cutters. Only one of those can be true, at least in the moments before COVID forced most owners into draconian choices. If doubling down on radio seems naïve now, it was, at the time, a vote of confidence in all of our efforts as broadcasters. To gloat about that decision is to find satisfaction in radio’s diminishment. If you have left or been pushed out of the business in recent years, you may feel ratified; no one should feel gratified.

If you are an ex-Audacy person who feels negatively after your time there, I understand. If your impressions of the company stem primarily from negative trade press coverage or from the online comments of others, some of whom had already left the business, I can only tell you that I had a very different experience, and that I consider myself fortunate to have been given that opportunity.