Radio's
local renaissance
by
Mike Kroll
If you follow the news you could easily become
convinced that local radio is an endangered species. First, you have the huge
corporate conglomerates owning hundreds or even thousands of radio stations and
programming them from afar. Then you have the two satellite radio options of XM
and Sirius offering a wide variety of music, news, sports and entertainment
programming for a monthly fee. Third, you have the growing popularity of
Internet music streaming and podcasting. And finally, you have the most
personal Ònarrow-castingÓ of the MP3 or iPod. Just where does the traditional
small local radio station fit in? According to Roger Lundeen, general manager
of Galesburg Broadcasting, the stand-alone small local radio station is already
an endangered species but local radio just might be staging a renaissance of
sorts.
ÒLocal radio is coming back, despite the competition
you mention. Ironically, it is in the major radio markets that local radio is
anything but local. In small and medium markets local radio is returning as
corporate owners like Clear Channel are selling off hundreds of stations that
don't earn enough to please Wall Street. The economics of radio today make it
almost impossible to profitably operate a single stand-alone radio station even
in a large market. Instead what you find are groups of commonly owned stations
that share expenses and resources but deliver audiences to mostly local
advertisers.Ó
Lundeen works for John Pritchard of Galesburg who owns
both Galesburg Broadcasting and Pritchard Broadcasting (Burlington, Iowa) and
together controls two groups of four local radio stations each. Lundeen
oversees the four Galesburg stations, WGIL-AM, WAAG-AM, WKAY-FM and WLSR-FM
while Pritchard focuses on daily operation of the four Burlington stations.
This mini-mogul role comes naturally to a man whose grandfather, Omer Custer,
almost literally owned or controlled every business of note in Galesburg during
his lifetime including WGIL, the Register-Mail, the local telephone company and
the largest local bank. Pritchard himself had been publisher of the
Register-Mail before a prolonged family squabble among the heirs and that
famous bank caused the disassembly of business interests. Pritchard wound up
buying the two Galesburg radio stations the family owned at the time and later
starting WKAY and buying WLSR from the owners of WAIK. He used his own business
acumen to form Pritchard Broadcasting and purchase the four Burlington
stations.
WAIK was and still is owned by a competitor but today
WAIK's ownership is no longer local. Meanwhile, in Burlington, Pritchard
Broadcasting faces that 800-pound gorilla of radio, Clear Channel Communications,
as the competitor and, apparently, holds its own. ÒThe interesting thing is
that where you once had two or three community radio stations competing for
listeners today you might have 8 or 10 stations competing for their share of a
smaller listener-base,Ó noted Lundeen. ÒThe markets have been segmented
intentionally by format so each station can target specific listener groups and
sell that targeted listenership to their advertisers.Ó
To grab and hold that shrinking pool of radio
listeners, Lundeen believes stations like his have a very real advantage by
maintaining their local identity and status, even if that is done in ways you
wouldn't at first consider. ÒAround here I recognize that if there isn't
something special about my radio stations I am going to lose listeners to the
competition and that competition isn't always terrestrial radio. Truly being
local helps set our stations apart and you will find many other small groups of
radio stations have discovered the same thing in their market. The two keys to
this are first, a commitment to local news and sports; and second, local
ads. Our number one goal here has
been to create and play the best locally produced ads for our clients. For many
listeners the presence of good, well produced local ads is what makes a radio
station local and separates us from a corporate station with mostly national
ads. On the other hand, playing really bad ads is a very good way to kill
listenership so the quality of those ads is critical to us.Ó
ÒPeople like to hear ads that affect their lives and
in many cases it is the local personality of the business that makes an ad
successful. I want us to use local business people in their ads because it
works and makes a better ad even if they don't sound like radio professionals,
sometimes because they don't sound
like radio professionals. Our revenues are almost all local. Ninety percent of
our ads are local, probably even more. I believe people chose to listen to us
in large part because of those local ads. It makes us more comfortable than a
national broadcast because we are there hometown radio.Ó
Another issue that some attribute to the ÒdemiseÓ of
local radio is the growing importance of syndicated programming. Nearly all
radio stations now use at least some syndicated programming including
Lundeen's. Outside of the morning with Terry Cavanaugh, local news breaks,
local high school sports and, of course, those those above mentioned
commercials most of the programming on WGIL is syndicated.
ÒThe day of local live radio is just about over even
in the large markets. Chains like Clear Channel are essentially equivalent to
syndicated programming all-day long and even locally produced programming is
seldom done live anymore. We audio track most of our music shows and that
allows us to produce a much better and more consistent product, although less
spontaneous. Yes, that does mean that we can save money as well but the option
in today's radio marketplace is to expense yourself out of profitability. We
can produce a better radio product economically by consolidating talent and
other resources such as engineering and marketing. Almost no one could afford
to run four stations the old way today and they couldn't survive as stand-alone
stations either.Ó
Audio tracking is part of the automation commonly
found in even the smallest radio station today. Computer allow music,
commercials, and nearly all the content of the station to reside on a large
hard disk that can be programmed to present the recorded material at the
specified times. Without automation it would be technically almost impossible
to transition back and forth between various syndicated and locally produced
programming without embarrassing glitches. Audio tracking means that a show
host has a list of scheduled times within his or her show that must be recorded
to precisely fit the allotted time. Each segment is individually pre-recorded
and the computer puts it into the streaming mix as scheduled. A four-hour radio
show can be recorded in less than a fourth of that time in one compressed time
period. Thus releasing that talent to do other necessary chores such as record
commercials or host another prerecorded show, perhaps on a totally different
but related radio station. This means a group of radio stations can today be
operated with a much smaller staff and still program locally.
ÒThe downside to this development is that there are
far fewer opportunities to gain an entry-level position in radio today because
of the smaller staffs. Lots of people in radio today began as part-time flunkies
at radio stations like WGIL running a late-night or week-end shift or
engineering ball games. Those late-night shifts are easily handled by the
automation today and while ball games still require a live person due to
unpredictability that can be covered with the existing staff or at least fewer
part timers. The upside is that the opportunity to advance in radio has never
been better, once you get in the door and provided you are talented. There is
so much competition that it is easier to hire talented people today and that
means a better product.Ó
Regardless of how the stock market may be trending
today, even in broadcasting stocks, Roger Lundeen is bullish on the prospects
of local radio.
3/8/07