Why AM/FM Radio Will Never Die

How’s that for a headline?

The fact is, I actually hear radio people say it with increasing frequency as the industry attempts to grapple with determining broadcast radio’s relative health.

True confession: I “appropriated” the provocative headline from the new GQ and a story by Chris Black:

“Why Print Magazines Will Never Die”

Black’s story is an interesting one—an interview with indie magazine publisher Gert Jonkers about his work with Fantastic Man, a men’s fashion magazine.

I’m not sure there’s a whole lot more in the interview with Jonkers that would resonate for most of you.  He does admit that print magazines will not likely enjoy a growth spurt anytime soon.  And he doesn’t avoid digital connections, like newsletters, because they open up interactivity with his readers beyond the magazine.

But that headline…it’s a showstopper.

As I write this, thousands of excited and nervous broadcasters are gathered at the NAB convention in Las Vegas.

I am not one of them.  For the first time in forever, I will not be in attendance at this year’s big broadcast gathering.  Something else came up that fell right on top of the NAB and that was that.

Will I miss being in Las Vegas (NO) at the NAB this year?  I will.  There are lots of people I enjoy seeing, and while the industry continues to try to find its focus in our digital world, it is always interesting to take its temperature at this still big event.

Initial reports from my “moles” who spent time in the LVCC over the weekend have been generally positive—well-attended sessions, attendee enthusiasm, and even some smiles here and there.  That’s obviously a good sign.

I’m concerned, however, is that the new week at this year’s NAB may remind many of 2008 when the Radio Show and R&R Conventions were held in tandem.  That year, the host city was Austin.   One of the weirder aspects of that show was that Hurricane Katrina had struck the New Orleans area a couple weeks earlier, and part of the Austin Convention Center was being used as temporary “housing” for victims of that disaster.  So, here were all these broadcasters running around the place in dark suits amid thousands of Katrina evacuees.  It was quite the contrast and a reminder to us broadcasters there are other things more important than “quarter-hour maintenance” and Miller Kaplan rankings.

But there was something even bigger bubbling under.  Simultaneous to the Radio Show, the stock market began to plummet—hundreds of points every day—even more intense and concerning than the losses the financial world experienced last week.  It was the beginning of what would be known as the Great Recession—and most of us huddled in Austin sensed it.  There were TVs in the Convention Center lobby tuned to cable news and the glaring red numbers that cascaded across those screens.  Suffice it to say, that 800-pound gorilla at the Radio Show turned out to be the U.S. and global economies.

Many broadcasters who were around back then will tell you the radio industry never recovered.  Most metros lost about one-third of their advertising revenue—which never came back.  Trying to stay focused on NAB panels while financial pillars were toppling was quite the task.

Later in November, a momentous election was about to occur—a newcomer named Barack Obama and his “Change” initiative was challenging the venerable John McCain for the presidency.  We took the opportunity at our Jacobs Summit—part of the R&R Convention—to present a “President of Radio” session where 10 industry luminaries took the stage to answer the question, “If you were President of radio, what would YOU do?”  Each took the stage to deliver their “stump speech” on behalf of radio.

And it was quite the collection.  Among our “candidates” for radio’s chief executive, we featured Mike McVay, Erica Farber, (the late) Kidd Kraddick, Larry Rosin, Jerry Lee, and many others.  It turned out to be an amazing and prescient moment at this event—entertaining, timely, and thought-provoking.

Two asides: we chose a “person of the people”—a not-so-famous industry person who applied as our “write-in” candidate.  We had a surprising number of entries and selected Julian Nieh (shown above at the podium) who was then doing nights on B96 in Chicago.  The most rousing speech, and the one that ended up setting the tone, was by then-Katz executive Gerry Boehme.  It was rousing, fun, and substantive—and it earned him a standing-O.

Also that year, a fireside chat with Nikki Sixx with our rock consultant in those days, Keith Cunningham.  Nikki had just written The Heroin Diaries, started up a fashion business, and was running a charitable foundation—a great example of a multi-media entertainer back in 2008.  Nikki would go on to get signed to host a syndicated night show for iHeart a year or so later, Sixx Sense.

Nikki’s mantra?

“Listen to the audience.”  Good advice then…and now.

So, now let’s fast-forward to the here and now—this week’s NAB Show is happening as I write this post.  It is not meant to be a forecast of how this conference will play out, especially after the events of last week when the Trump Tariffs kicked in and the financial markets around the world almost uniformly freaked out.  Whether some degree of stability and relief comes to the markets this week or they continue cascading downwards is anybody’s guess.

A story in Bloomberg’s “The Brink” newsletter over the weekend attempted to lay out the companies most vulnerable at this moment.  Keep in mind “The Brink” is described as “chronicling corporate distress, bankruptcies, financial meltdowns and turnaround stories.”  Nonetheless, the chart below contains a couple of familiar names.  The entire story is linked here. 

If the Austin 2008 Radio Show is prologue, I would expect a lot of attendees in Vegas this week to be obsessively checking their phones for news about the global and U.S. economies, as well as their own stock portfolios.  If this is the way things end up for this conference, I express my regrets to you all.  Conventions—especially in Las Vegas—can be stressful and surreal in a normal year.  During those rare times when macro events cast a pall over everything, it is not easy to navigate and keep your focus.

So what can you do?  What can any of us do?

As it pertains to the radio broadcasting industry, the pressure has already been on before Trump even dreamed up his tariff strategy.  Thus, we can only control what we can control—how we position, market, and program our radio stations and our companies.  How do we see the view, whether it’s from 35,000 feet or from Main Street in the town where you work.  For those of you with multi-market responsibilities, the action items I’ll lay out in this post tomorrow are applicable with individual brands or in scaled-up situations with dozens or even hundreds of stations in the portfolio.

In the meantime, if you’re in Vegas, I hope it goes well, you have a productive experience, and you come away with a renewed sense of purpose for your career, your company, and the radio broadcasting industry.  Let us know in the “comments” section about your experience.

As the title of this post avers, broadcast radio isn’t going anywhere.  Even under the challenging conditions that we’re facing now, radio still has a lot going for it, and has the tools, traits, and trajectory to hang around.  But there’s a lot of space between surviving and thriving.

Thanks to Mike Stern for the heads-up on the GQ story, and to Julie Gates, who is always prepping, for the Bloomberg newsletter.  – FJ