-
Fantasy Radio
July 17, 2020
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. -
It was a typical Facebook post a couple of weeks back, an innocuous question about radio. Someone -- I think it was Larry Wilson who posted it, but the last few weeks have been a blur, so apologies if my memory is failing me -- asked something to the effect that if you could buy any three radio stations to start a new radio group, which ones you would buy. Predictably, a lot of people picked legendary stations, some said they'd buy none because radio's dead, and I...
Okay, my first impulse was to go the "none" route. Radio's obviously not a growth business, the future is likely online and on-demand, you know the reasons. And then I thought, well, radio can still be fun and if you get in cheap and stick to local and can hold out until the economy recovers, there might be some opportunity. And then I thought about 25 years ago.
Back then, if you asked me about owning radio stations, I'd have told you that it was my dream from when I was very young and first became aware that someone COULD own radio stations. You mean to tell me that magical stuff coming out of my little Sony transistor radio is a business and I can own it? Sign me up. And, later, the appeal of buying a small station -- Fran used to work in Key West radio, so an FM at the beach seemed nice -- and running things on a shoestring and doing mom-and-pop small market storefront radio was strong, strong enough that we actually explored doing exactly that, kicking tires and imagining how we'd serve the community and make that magic and have fun.
Yeah, that didn't happen. Deregulation, consolidation, and the sinking realization that I would never in a million years get the financing when valuations were skyrocketing put an end to that. So we missed out on buying and we missed out on flipping to Clear Channel for millions and I went on to be a program director and eventually do... this.
Back to the Facebook post. I actually wrote a long comment for it but decided not to post it. It wouldn't have been a direct answer, anyway, because I'm ambivalent about whether I'd want to own a station now, even if the pandemic hadn't cratered the advertising market, or if I had access to that kind of capital and didn't have to obey private equity demands.
Let's see:
Pros: There's still a lot you can do with that kind of reach. You can do live programming. It's more ubiquitous than practically any other medium. Still big with the AARP crowd. Free to use. Local.
Cons: Not on-demand in an increasingly on-demand market. Has "Dad's/Grandpa's medium" image. Years of diminishing local content. Relying on local advertising business might not work anymore. Let's not even talk about AM.
Additional Pro: You can always use it as a content factory for podcasts, smart speakers, video simulcasts, and streaming, the growth areas.
Additional Con: You don't need to own a radio station to do any of that. (Pro: The marketing and branding doesn't hurt.)
Here's the thing, though. While I was debating whether to post anything on Facebook, that dream of some little station by the beach somewhere kept coming to mind. Studio in a storefront, all local and original, community service, a far cry from the big-market radio I used to do. A throwback but updated for today, unaffected by the pressure of having to return unreasonable growth figures for investors. Yeah, that would be nice.
Isn't gonna happen, I know. But while the big companies increasingly cut back on people and move to the centralized national programming model, it's nice to imagine that someone, somewhere will find a bargain someplace and make an updated live-local work again. I can hear it in my head right now. With a few exceptions out there, I just don't think I'm gonna hear it on my radio.
=============================
Now that my "vacation" is over (if by "vacation" we mean "sitting at home binge-watching 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' and eating junk food while counting the hours until I had to go back to work"), I'm back to filling Talk Topics, All Access News-Talk-Sports' show prep column, with topics and stories and stupid jokes and indefensible opinions, available by clicking here and/or following the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item.
Make sure you're subscribed to Today's Talk, the daily email newsletter with the top news stories in News, Talk, and Sports radio and podcasting. You can check off the appropriate boxes in your All Access account profile's Format Preferences and Email Preferences sections if you're not already getting it.
I keep telling you that "The Evening Bulletin with Perry Michael Simon," my podcast, is on its way back, and it will be back. Not yet, though. Meanwhile, the archives are still available in the meantime and you can listen and be ready for new episodes by subscribing, and you can get there by clicking here or finding it on Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, and all the other usual podcast places, and on Amazon Alexa-enabled devices by saying "Alexa, play the Evening Bulletin podcast."
You can follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, and my Instagram account (same handle, @pmsimon) as well. And you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pmsimon, and at pmsimon.com.
=============================
Thanks for bearing with me for the last two weeks while I took some time off. I'm relaxed, refreshed, and... oh, who am I kidding, I'm back to being as harried and stressed as ever. When's the next long holiday weekend, anyway?
Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
www.facebook.com/pmsimon
Twitter @pmsimon
Instagram @pmsimon -
-