Progressive Radio in America

TALKERS publisher Michael Harrison addressed this month’s meeting of the magazine’s editorial board with optimistic observations about the news/talk format’s future as the world enters the Donald Trump era.  But he also pointed out that the format’s inherent multi-genre potential can only be reached if broadcasters have the vision and courage to significantly alter the current paradigm and “take advantage of the political passions that have engulfed a wide swath of the American population, way beyond the traditional conservative core audience.”  Harrison was clear that he thinks traditional conservative news/talk radio is here to stay although “enthusiasm for Trump has bent some of the tried-and-true guidelines that provided a dependable ideological template for hosts connecting with their audiences way beyond what were once considered to be their breaking points.”  

Harrison explains, “Conservative listeners will remain extremely loyal to their brand of talk radio because they fear opposition to Trump will water down the changes he promised to bring America in ‘making it great again,’ adding, “There is indeed room within conservative talk radio for hosts to be critical of Trump on occasions that warrant nuanced alternative perspectives… but then again, that has always been the case.  Conservative news/talk has never been as monolithic as its political critics have implied.”  

However, it is the new potential of progressive talk radio or as Harrison puts it, “resistance talk” that is truly exciting in expanding the boundaries of spoken word strategies on the commercial radio dial.  “Intense, passionate and obsessive opposition to Trump has galvanized and ignited a hitherto non-focused target audience for news/talk hosts, programs and stations,” states Harrison.  “The door is open for performers such as Thom Hartmann, Stephanie Miller, Joe Madison, Alan Colmes and countless others of the progressive perspective to tap into a potentially vast audience of listeners who, since the election of Trump, deeply care about their message – as long as these messengers are talented by radio standards.  

The Trump era offers the talk radio industry the opportunity to double its reach by providing a platform for both the ‘revolution’ (Trump) and the ‘resistance’ (anti-Trump) passions that are clearly exploding in the American marketplace of ideas.  Both sides feel embattled.”  Harrison adds, “If radio misses this opportunity, it would be the equivalent of missing the British Invasion of the sixties, the disco craze of the late seventies, and the rise of conservatism in the nineties.”

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For years I have heard the whine of “only 8 companies own all the radio stations in the country and I would have to be a millionaire to own one.

Well you don’t.  And I have been posting stations that have sold for less than used cars.  So it can be done, if you stop setting your sites on trying to buy WABC or KFI.  

But if you don’t want to believe me....listen to a card-carrying radio professional, Perry Simon....

How confident are you in radio? I mean, broadcast radio. Do you think it's nothing better content will fix? Do you think AM can be revitalized? Is there opportunity in things like HD Radio?

Okay, then. Would you buy a station right now? With your own money? I'm not talking about winning-insane-amounts-in-the-lottery money. I mean reasonable financing. A basic investment. Would you buy a station right now, in 2015, with your own money?

That came to mind when I was slogging through the FCC database looking at station sale documents. One AM station went for a hundred bucks, in a small but not impossibly small market. And before you go there, yes, I know, the purchase price doesn't reflect the real cost -- there's equipment to buy or upgrade, leases to sign, staff to hire, many expenses. But, still, if the license cost isn't huge, some of you COULD afford to put together financing or an investment group and buy, say, a medium market AM station.

But would you? That's sort of an acid test for exactly how enthusiastic you are about the broadcast radio industry. Would you put your money in it now, or would you rather put your cash into new media? Or something else?

I would never have imagined this would be a question when I got into the business. In fact, that was the goal: I wanted to own stations. By the time I could reach that goal, however, prices had skyrocketed to the I'll-Never-In-A-Million-Years-Get-Financing level. Some of the companies that drove those prices skyward are now the ones holding on for dear life, looking for a sucker -- er, prudent investment group -- to bail them out under the impression that they're buying "digital" assets. I wonder if there are any kids left out there with the same goal I had decades ago, to buy and run and grow radio stations. They might find some bargains.

And, in truth, there are opportunities; they're just not the kind we used to see. Small market stations that own their local audiences and don't have significant digital competition, for example. And it's true that as operating businesses, apart from the debt burden weighing on their owners, many radio stations are still profitable.

But so are many newspapers. They're just not growing, or growing at negligible rates. The growth is in digital. Yet THAT growth is, while rapid, also still relative pennies. (Do I have to say Digital Dimes? I'm so tired of that cliché.) And the low -- nonexistent, really -- barrier to entry means that whatever you do is very vulnerable to competition, too.

So, what media investment makes sense? This is where your definition of the media business has to be very specific and very different from the past. And it's the argument about whether radio is defined as AM and FM or includes streaming and podcasting as well. Forget that argument. It's about content, period. If you own the right intellectual property, whether you're a podcaster creating a great show or a multinational corporation holding the rights to a huge movie franchise, you own something that has growth potential. The platforms are secondary, and have to be, because you have no idea what the future will bring in that regard. It's not even just about whether broadcast media will survive. It wasn't long ago that nobody -- nobody -- would have guessed that Netflix would go from renting DVDs in the mail to the way a huge number of people get their TV shows. Nobody saw the Great Cable Monolith being threatened by cord-cutting. How radio -- audio entertainment -- and television -- video entertainment -- are delivered, how they look and sound, a decade from now is still undetermined. A lot can happen in a short time, in case you haven't noticed. Whatever happens, though, there will be a pipeline to fill with great content.

And great content is what many of you do. There's a future in that, and in many ways, it's more exciting than ever to be in that business. If that means my old dream of owning a bunch of radio stations and programming them the way I want is forever dashed, that's okay. This new dream is pretty cool, too, and a lot more attainable.

http://www.allaccess.com/the-letter/archive/21994/place-your-bets

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