I’m A Realist…Who Is Also An Optimist

I saw a great post comparing the corporate radio world to local radio and all the wonderful things that could be if we were able to adopt the philosophies before consolidation. Local radio in my mind would be the goal. However, local rarely beats scale. I used to frequent the original Buffalo Wild Wings on campus at Ohio State. I used to bring back sauces and make wings for my staff at KLUC back in the day. Then B-Dubs franchised. One opened in Vegas, then seven. It became the spot for what we referred to as our “Friday Night Meetings”. Several staff members would meet there and brainstorm ideas for the station. The point is, B-Dubs went from being a spot on campus at Ohio State to one of the most successfull restaurants in America. Why? Scale.

Unfortunately, I'm a realist. I sat and broke down how the broadcast industry can recover the fun and excitement that drove the medium I grew up with and loved. There is only one way, and it would put major corporations out of business, but the only way to get there would be to re-regulate the industry. So, if I could wave a wand, here is how it would go...

1) There would be no foreign ownership of a licensed broadcast property.

2) No single company can own more than 80 signals nationally, and no more than 4 in a market. This would open up more individual ownership and diversity of programming.

3) You would need to change the Public Service rule to mandate at least three broadcast events per year that benefit the local community without profit to retain your license. You are allowed to cover expenses for those events, but beyond that, all profits must go to a community charity or betterment project. You can do more than 3 community events to derive profit, but there must be at least 3 that are pure community service.

4) These community service events would take the place of the PSA shows that get shoved into early Sunday morning, so those could be eliminated.

5) Next, you would need to limit the number of signals per market. Set up signal amounts based on market population. Basically, limiting one signal per 60,000 people in a market. The lowest limit cap being no less than 5 per market, and a cap of no more than 60 stations for the major markets.

By doing this for 10 years, we would prove to the market whether local radio can or cannot compete in a global world with streaming and other forms of digital media. It would be an interesting experiment.

Now...to be a realist, this will never happen in my lifetime. So it will take someone younger than me to press Congress to change the ownership rules, but from my lens, that is very far down the line, and that is if they (younger people) even care about preserving local radio at all. As I have told people, humans are the most adaptable species on the planet. Because if we weren't, we would all still be amoeba.

So the bottom line...that is a wish list. If we are going to be successful in 2026, we need to understand the landscape we are living in, and we all need to adapt and grow our skill sets beyond our comfort zone that we have lived in for most of our broadcast careers; otherwise, we are doomed to ride off into the sunset of irrelevancy. As I said, I'm a realist.  

#change #leadership #growth #career #broadcasting