What Radio Owners Could Learn From My Wife

By Frank Absher

An observation from my wife recently showed me that a common sense approach is what’s lacking in broadcasting today.

We were in Las Vegas walking through some of the world-class shopping areas at the Bellagio, MGM Grand and Caesar’s Palace. These are areas where you’ll find the world’s top high-end stores, and you’ll seldom come across a sign with the word “Sale” on it.

Shopping here is an experience: The quality of the goods is high; The service is excellent; The prices are off the charts. Everything is immaculately displayed. If there is a recession, you wouldn’t know it here.

That is the crux of the problem in broadcasting. My wife noted that there were no vacant store fronts in these areas. If these merchants are feeling the economic pinch, they’re not flinching. After all, a large part of their success is the image they convey. If these stores cut back on their window displays, hired lower quality sales people or stocked less-than-top-of-the-line merchandise, the image would be tarnished, which would affect future sales.

And if the future might hold an economic recovery, what would their customers remember about the recent past? You can bet it would be shoddy merchandise, unkempt stores and unmotivated staff.

Think of what would happen in the St. Louis radio market if a well-funded station, that is, not one whose local shareholders are tired of seeing red ink on the balance sheet, decided cutbacks were not only foolish, but they also bordered on professional suicide. They could get rid of syndication and use local hosts who were intelligent and knowledgeable about local issues – who had strong personalities but weren’t out to tell you what you should think.

Instead of wringing their hands in agony because the bean counters were having conniption fits over a lower profit margin, what if a conglomerate that owned several local music stations decided to hire quality jocks and go live and local all day and night?

Instead of cutting entire promotion departments, imagine how brilliant a company would be to get out there right now and aggressively promote the living daylights out of their stations.

Instead of marching in lockstep to the drums of political ideologies and obsessive corporate financial advisors, what if radio owners returned to that wonderful concept of serving the community?

Of course, this would require having competent management on board at the local level. That would also require money, but apparently none of these companies have the foresight to look upon this kind of move as an investment in the future.

Think how great it would be to have a radio station in St. Louis whose programming was so good that you’d want to listen and you enjoyed it.

Wouldn’t it be great to see radio companies that actually cared about the product now and the audience now and in the future? Do these management groups really believe that the audience they’ve lost because of stupid decisions will actually come back?

Look at it another way – What changes could radio owners make that would get you to start listening again? Anyone? Bueller?

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