August 27, 2024 • 28 mins
There are few people in the radio industry who understand New York’s Capital District, the Hudson Valley and communities on the edge of the Berkshires and Adirondacks than Chuck Benfer. Since March 2023, he’s served as Chief Operating Officer of Pamal Broadcasting, after leading the company’s Albany-Schenectady-Troy stations for a year. He’s spent decades traveling up and down I-87 at radio stations across the region, working at competing stations to what today are his own.
Pamal's stations continue to excel, with tremendous ratings and revenue success for some heritage Adult Contemporary and Top 40 brands. How does the company founded by Siena College Class of 1966 member Jim Morrell do it? Find out in this InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM.
Pamal's stations continue to excel, with tremendous ratings and revenue success for some heritage Adult Contemporary and Top 40 brands. How does the company founded by Siena College Class of 1966 member Jim Morrell do it? Find out in this InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is the RBR TVBR in Focus podcast. Here's your host,
Radio and Television Business Report Editor in Chief Adam R. Jacobson.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello everybody, and welcome to the podcast, which is presented
by dot fm streaming social podcast to broadcast, get a
dot fm domain name, beheading over to get dot fm today.
There are a few people in the radio industry who
understand New York's Capital District, the Hudson Valley and communities
on the edge of the Berkshires and Adirondecks better than
Chuck Benfer. Since March twenty twenty three, he's served as
(00:36):
the chief operating officer at PAMAL Broadcasting. After leading the
company's Albany's Connected E Troy stations for one year. He's
spent decades traveling up and down the New York State
Thruway and Northway at radio stations across region, and some
of the properties he oversees today are true juggernauts to
learn how PAMEL continues to excel. We welcome Chuck to
(00:57):
the podcast. It is great to have you here, sir.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Thanks Adam, It's great to catch up with.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You absolutely now. You started your career as a sales
rep for W EOKAM thirteen ninety at Poughkeepsie, which may
or may not have been a country station at that
point its history. Just curious. What led you to think
about a career in radio at a time when doc
at eighteen nineties were invading the market on the FM
(01:21):
dial and IBM was pulling out crippling a local economy
for years.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, so, actually my radio career started just a little
shorter that it was in nineteen eighty eight. Okay, ironically
I started at WSBK. Interesting and the way I the
way I stumbled into it was I had gone I
looked at and worked in advertising and marketing and business
management when I was in college, and then when I graduated,
(01:48):
it was, you know, the mid late eighties, and it
was tough to find a job. So I took a
job working for an auto park and I handled their
marketing and average and then from that I met a
salesperson from WSBK, and then she was leaving to go
work in her husband's autobody shop, and they offered me
(02:11):
a job, and I was like, well, this looks like
a lot of fun. And I just took my experiences
from marketing and advertising and what I learned and took
it to the local market and had a great time
ever since.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well disclosure to our listeners. I grew up on WSPK
I AM from the mid Hudson Valley. I listened to
Mark Bulger when he was crushing records at night. That's
how far back I go. Look. K one four is
really a radio station that has forty years of rich
top forty history, and when you listen to the radio
(02:44):
station today, it's incredible for various reasons. It remains a
ratings monster. And when you compare it to perhaps nineteen
ninety five, where I was able to find an aircheck
online recently, there's not a lot of difference. So between
listening to that station twenty nine years ago and today,
(03:07):
for some in some markets, they might just scratch your
heads and go, oh my god, what are they doing?
But it's working for you, guys, So what is this
secret sauce not just at K one O four, but
at some of the other radio stations that are doing
really well for Palmall that makes you, guys, unique but
highly successful in your market.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
So there was a there's a book that I read
some time ago called Getting to Why and Understanding Why
we do things, and I would say that K one
O four, particularly Scottie Mack, who's the program director, that
understands exactly why we do what we do. He understands
(03:51):
what our role is in the community. He understands what
our role is with the listener, and his job is
to provide the best top forty radio station that we
can provide, and he does it indiscriminately. So whatever's top
forty is what we're doing. He stays consistent in our presentation,
which that brand is a very strong brand, and maintaining
(04:14):
that is a very big part of our success. But
being consistent and you'll find the same true with our
station FLY ninety two up in Albany. You'll see the
same thing true WZRT in Rotlan, Vermont. When you stay
consistent and true to the format, and you fulfill the
(04:35):
purposefulness of your service to the community, then you're going
to succeed. If you're a jukebox or if you are
just a playlist for the listener, then you're in trouble
because because Apple Music and Spotify and Pandora and your
own music collection is always going to be a better
choice for your music than what we can do in
(04:56):
commercial radio. But if we present great music targeted at
a person that should really enjoy the music that we're playing,
and then we fill it with entertainment and timely, inaccurate,
unbiased news and information. We provide community support, you know,
we go to the parades, we're supporting charities. That's how
(05:20):
you win it. That and us local broadcasters who stay
consistent to that message, to that mission statement is are
the ones that are going to succeed in this business.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
You mentioned the contemporary hit radio stations that are doing
so well for PAMEL, I need to move into the
adult contemporary format because you have B ninety five point five,
which I remember is WROW as a sleepy, beautiful music
station and transitioning to adult contemporary and doing what it's
doing now has certainly paid off in same way with
(05:56):
w HUD, which was beautiful music from the terrorists and
now is a monster radio station that I have carried
well into the city of New York on days when
I've been in Westchester County in a car, and it's
a very unique radio station. It certainly serves Westchester County
in the Hudson Valley in so many different ways than
(06:16):
in New York city radio station. What does it say
about the advertisers and why they tend to gravitate to
these particular radio stations when you have other options, of course,
and there is digital media. When I tune in and
I hear Healey Brothers Automotive ads on K one O four,
I'm thinking, wow, you know that's great because you hear
(06:38):
so much about automotive being down local, being a little
shaky in some markets. Again, you know, when you have
strong brands, it doesn't necessarily translate to strong revenue. So
how does that come into play here?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, you know, it all goes back to that consistent,
you know, mission that we have of serving the community.
And you'll find when you listen to our partners. Healey
Brothers are a perfect example. They support the community right
next to us. They're you know, they have a not
for profit organization that they you know, it's a legitimate
(07:14):
five oh one C three Healy Healy Drives, and it
is it is that connection to the community that makes
us great partners. And you know, we operate in a
certain manner. And you know I said this, I said
this to many salespeople over the AAR. I'll say this
to many business owners. If you're in the business just
(07:36):
to make money, then you're going to be in trouble
at some point because at some point people are going
to smell the fact that you're just there for the dollar.
But if you're thinking about service above self, and if
you're thinking about how can I be a benefit to
the community, and if you're thinking about truly being an
integral part of the community to serve and this is
regardless of the business that you're in. If your if
(07:57):
your mission is beyond money, money will follow. But if
you're only in it for the money, then you're going
to be short lived. You know, you may get a
flash in the pan, you may make a little bit
here and there, but at the end of the day,
and follow the model of the big companies as they
cut personnel, as they cut support, as they cut the connections,
(08:17):
their revenue, you know, flushes down the toilet with everything else,
and that's you know, one of their one of the
big problems. I would say that because we try to
get to why very quickly. We try to understand what
does a radio station have to do in order to
best serve the listener, to best serve the community, to
(08:38):
best serve you know what we're what we're trying to
do in a mission and providing great local programming. Because
we understand that and we get to that, I think
people buy into it pretty quickly and understand that we
are genuinely going after business in a different manner than
maybe some of our competitors. And you mentioned digital. You know,
(08:59):
I will tell you that I've had this conversation with
a lot of people. I refer to that big bucket
of digital revenue as the graveyard of radio's competitors. You know,
what they call Search engine optimization and SEM today was
the yellow pages, right, SEM is nothing more than yellow
pages just through Google and display is what was in
(09:21):
the newspaper OTT and Connect to TV is what used
to be our big cable competitors. Email campaigns that we
that were able to sell were direct mail. You know.
It's all of those businesses that were so far superior
to radio, and we're so much better and so much
(09:41):
more profitable with businesses and generated so much that's where
all that money went. There's you know, there's no kids
sitting on yellow page books at the breakfast table with
their parents anymore. Those yellow page books are gone. You know,
the daily newspapers are essentially gone the way to the DODO,
and that money had to go somewhere, and so it's
that bucket that they called digital. The big difference is
(10:03):
when I started in sales at them, I had to
sell against that. Today a salesperson that works for organization,
they get to sell that stuff. So to me, that's
very exciting about our industry that you can go out
and see the same clients and sell them five or
six different tactics in advertising, and each of them hit
(10:25):
people in a different part of the sales funnel, and
you know the buying cycle, and you know you can
keep Instead of getting fifteen cents on their advertising dollar,
we can get eighty five or ninety cents of their
advertising dollar. It's a huge opportunity for our industry.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
As someone from the mid Hudson Valley who grew up
in an area where FM reception wasn't exactly great and
now it's improved, one can only imagine what it's like
if you're not from that area to use your cell
phone from Westchester to the Duchess to Ulster and then
(11:03):
on up into Vermont. It is terrible. Upstate New York
has some of the worst cell phone reception to make
a call, let alone use your data. So that speaks
volumes about the importance of FM radio. Do your advertisers
understand that? And are they responding when you say, you know,
we have radio stations that cover four or five counties
(11:26):
and our reach is going to be far better than
anything else out there, because well, have you tried to
stream a radio station across ninety miles of the mid
Hudson Valley.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Well, they do appreciate the geography, don't be misled. They
sometimes use that against us because they say, well, I
don't need somebody from Danbury, Connecticut when I'm selling cars
in Poughkeepsie. But I remind them that we're not charging
them for the Danburry listeners. We're only charging them for
their share of Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yes, but as a listener to the peak at one
oh seven point one, I can tell you that I
can get that station pretty much across Westchester County. And
you want to reach people Garrison, just like you want
to reach people in Hastings on Hudson, and you want
to reach them in Purchase. And again you go in
that area of Westchester County and this cell phone reception
(12:20):
is miserably awful. HD signals out of New York City
coming in and out all the time when I'm on
the Hutch. So again that I would think is a
benefit to you and your advertisers.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Absolutely is. And you mentioned the peak. You know, there's
only I think there's twenty seven other Triple A stations
in America. And Chris Herman and Jimmy Fink and Coach
does such a great job on that station delivering that
Triple A format and staying true to it. And if
you if you were to look at our streaming numbers,
(12:53):
we have listeners across the United States that just love
that show. In fact, I was in a meeting with
some advertisers with Jimmy Fink and he mentioned the size
of his audience in San Francisco, and it happened to
be a Westchester car dealer, and the guy goes, Jimmy,
I'm really happy about that. But I don't care. They're
not They're not coming to Westchester to buy a car.
(13:15):
But you know that. So there's the benefit to being
available on the stream and what we do with our
what we do for our advertisers, And this is mister Morrell,
is the man who owns the company, mister morel Is
said fast and supporting the local advertisers and showing his
appreciation to them for all that they do to keep
(13:36):
us in business. And so we don't charge extra to
be on our stream to broadcast. If you advertise on
the radio, then you're going to get the advertisement on
the stream. It's just included because we're offering an audience
and wherever that audience may be, however they may be listening,
our advertisers get to it, which is different than almost
(13:58):
every other broadcaster. We just decided that we weren't going
to fill our stream error waves with you know, ten
cent commercials from some national organization. But to your point,
having very big, fifty thousand want radio stations, and we
have several of those in the various markets, that definitely
(14:21):
is a huge benefit. But the class as you know,
the smaller, more focused signals also do very well. The
topography this is not good for some radio stations. We're
fortunate that our smallest radio stations are six thousand Want variety,
not three thousand Want Variety. So you know stations you
know iHeart for example in the Hudson Valley, which I
(14:43):
ran for several years. They're definitely, you know, geographically restricted.
I say that this is the worst time of the
year for them because when leaves are onto trees, their
signal gets cut by twenty percent. They just they don't
have any real strength or power and those smaller stations.
But you know, that's you know, that's just the reality
of the business. Fortunately, too, though, the cell service is
(15:06):
getting better and so we are able to get more
streaming numbers. But you know, what we can what we're
finding is that people are listening to us in their cars.
They're turning us on either on their laptop or mobile
devices while they're working, and then they're picking up us
again in the car on their on their commute home
(15:26):
and on the weekend. It's more more broadcast listening than
streaming listening. And that's you know, that's good that we
can pay attention to that. But you know, our model
is going to be the same. We're just going to
continue to do the best we can and provide the
best programming. And that's that's what we have to stay
(15:47):
true to the chuck.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
As you just alluded to. In twenty thirteen, after two years,
actually it was lated twenty eleven I'm trying to put
it all together. I know that you were in Albany
for two years working for your an employer. Then you
went and worked for iHeartMedia, running a group of stations
that you just were talking about and compete against. Well,
the last time that we spoke, I had to look
(16:10):
this up. I interviewed you in October of two thousand
and two for a Radio and Record special report on
classic rock and oldies. At the time, you were the
market manager for Cumulus Media stations in Poughkeepsie. We discussed WPDH,
a station that you will now compete against Mixed ninety seven,
which doesn't exist anymore. Radio and Records doesn't exist anymore.
(16:32):
A lot has changed since the twenty two years since
we last had me interview you. But what do you
think remains the same when it comes to radio and
why that's so important for the advertiser to understand?
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Well, you know that's such a great that's so. I
actually have that article from R and R. Somebody somebody
had done a fancy lamination thing for me and gave
it to me. And I remember getting in so much
trouble with John Dickey, in particular from Cumulus because I
had the audacity to actually comment on a programming thing.
(17:10):
But the premise of that article was what happens when
you have a classic rock station in an oldies station? Right,
And at the time, there's such a debate when you
look at different formatics and you know, genres of music
back then, you know, radio is relatively new when you
(17:30):
consider the scope of the world and music. Right, music
that was like, let's say, older than thirty years old
was considered nostalgia, and then anything that was like between
fifteen and twenty years old may have been considered an oldies.
And you know, there was I forget the exact you know,
breakup of what it designated a classic Rocks song versus
(17:56):
what was designated as an oldies versus what was designated
as nostalgia. If you used those examples, today, most classic
rock stations would be considered nostalgia. Right when we were
playing Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett and you know those
crooners Dean Martin, that was nostalgia music. Well in the
(18:18):
in the eighties and nineties, that music was you know,
thirty years old, right, forty years old. Today, if you
you know classic rock stations, they're playing music that's sixty
years old, but it's considered, you know, a classic rock format.
And what I had pointed out was, at some point
you have to decide that you're either going to hold
(18:39):
on to a demographic or you're going to hold on
to a listening audience. Right, So if you take WPDH
for an example, and it was a huge debate when
I was running it for or Cumulus, it is, do
you hold on to the person that would be twenty
five to fifty four or you know, in this case
(19:01):
mostly men listening to classic rock, or do you follow
the current audience you have until they're done listening to radio,
like when their next music choice may be a harp.
At what point, you know, do you have to address
that format? And so, at some point a station like
WPDH is either going to have to evolve its music,
(19:22):
which will annoy a lot of its listeners, or it's gonna,
you know, just have to reinvent itself because the audience
that they followed is essentially all gone, right, and that's
a you know, that's a tough choice to make. So
if you you bring up the example of WSBK or
(19:43):
fly and and distired with that is is whu d
in WYJB B ninety five. So we graduate listeners from
FLY to B ninety five. We graduate listeners from sb
K to HUD because that music on HID is something
(20:04):
that was on SBK ten years ago or twelve years ago,
and so they're not really up for some of the
more contemporary music they want to listen. You know, the
rule is that you love the music you fell in
love to. So if you take your target person and
you figure that they they really define their music tastes
(20:25):
from between twelve and twenty four, then this is the
music that would fall into that spot for them. And
then we try to just highlight that music on the
radio stations that are going to be appropriate for them.
And so when you you know, when you really think
about it and you are willing to move an audience
along to another station, and you're willing to accept that
(20:47):
that not everybody is going to stay at CAME win
a four listener, right, They're going to want to go
to something else because that music that is going to
be new and contemporary and CAME one of four may
not be to their life, so they're likely to graduate
to another station. We had set that somewhat up with
WRV and WPDH, but it just got to the point
(21:11):
where they were insistent on hanging on to the audience
because it's a big audience. They still have a big
audience today, but it's an older audience. You know, the
majority of it is over fifty years old, and you
know that's at some point they're going to have to
make a decision.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Well, before I conclude this podcast, and it's so great
to catch up with you, I want to note two
things because I love how you are graduating listeners from
one station.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I still listen to K one O four and I'm
going to be fifty two next month. Fly ninety two
will forever be enshrined. In a dorm somewhere in Madrid,
Spain had a Flying ninety two bumper sticker put in
one of the dorm rooms on the wall and never
came on, so five years later it's still there. The
(22:04):
station that really intrigues me right now is Magic, which
is on WRW five ninety Am. You have an FM
translator and you're not shy enough to call it good
times in Great Oldies, which is a tagline that was
at the station I interned at many many years ago.
In Miami that doesn't exist anymore. And here you are
(22:27):
not shy to be playing the four Seasons of the
Three Degrees, the Dave Clark five. Is that just because
well you can do that in Albany or is there
a bigger message here when it comes to radio and
what advertisers can get with a certain demographic.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
So there's an audience for that music, for sure, and
you know, we we listen to what the audience wants.
You know, we pay attention to what they're looking for.
And when you take a when you take a format
like an oldies format, and you look at that target
person who's sixty sixty five, you know, maybe seventy years old.
(23:04):
First of all, people are living a lot longer than
they were twenty five thirty years ago. You know, the
life expectant to the average person is going up, The
quality of life is going up. People retiring with more
robust retirement packages, they're retiring with less debt. These guys
have as much disposed will income as teenagers did, and
so that's always the coveted disposed will income demographic. Right,
(23:27):
somebodyho lives at home with their parents doesn't have any bills,
so all of their money is disposable, and then somebody
whose hasn't been paid off, they you know, they just
keep collecting pension or whatever retirement funds that they have,
and so they buy cars, they buy all kinds of products.
They you know, they buy all kinds of things. It's
a very robust spending community. And why would we want
(23:50):
to ignore them. It's just because the consultants say it's
a bad idea doesn't mean that it is. You know,
if I had a dollar for every time of consultants
that I was making a mistake and they were wrong,
I'd have more dollars than than if the reverse was true.
So you know, you have to you have to be
willing to kind of go with your gut on it
and say, nah, I think that this is the right
(24:12):
way to go, and then be true to it. And that,
to me, that's the key, right if you're true to it,
if you understand it and you're not embarrassed by it.
You know, years ago, the oldies term, we were told
we couldn't use it. The consultants came in and said,
you know, people are offended when you call their music
(24:33):
old and I was like, that's ridiculous, because I think
they know it's old, right, Well, when you say that
the person's music choice is old, you're saying they're old.
Well they are, and so is the music. Right. That's
just I don't know how you you know, how you
get around that. But we didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings,
so we changed it. But I go back to this
(24:55):
theory that somebody may have been Gary Cee, who worked
for me at WPDH, but he may have been the
one that pointed it out to me most directly. He
said to me, Chuck, if you walk into a bathroom
and you turn on the hot water floss, what do
you expect to come out? I said, well, hot water?
He goes, exactly when you turn on the radio station
(25:17):
and you say, I'm playing oldies, what do you think
you're going to get? Just call it what it is.
And you know, I thought he had a great point
with that, and we sort of stay true to that.
And you know, the simpler keep things, the better they are.
And I have to tell you that if there's any
listeners that are disgruntled in any one of our markets,
(25:38):
you know, people know how to get in touch with me.
And my name is pretty well known. My information is public.
If you know, somebody wants to be in touch with me,
they can And I talked to him and I haven't
had any complaints. That we call ourselves oldies, so it's
uh and we get some complaints, but I haven't gotten
any of that.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So any final thoughts before we wrap.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Up, Well, I think, first of all, Adam, I really
appreciate you reconnecting with me, because I enjoyed this conversation
very much. I would say that the rumors of radio's
demise are greatly exaggerated, and that radio remains a robust
and vibrant business and it works for advertisers. And I
(26:21):
say to advertisers all the time who say to me, well,
I don't think people are listening to the radio anymore.
I say, great, I'll just go back to the station
and go on the air and say some bad things
about you. And they say you can't do that, and
I'll say, wait, why do you care? Nobody's listening, right.
So the idea is to stay true to our programming delivery,
(26:44):
to make our messages in advertising as compelling as that
they're going out of business or that they're not nice people,
and get people to stay with us. We do have
to do a better job of engaging young people for
employment and for listenership, and we have to do a
better job of taking credit for what we're doing because
(27:05):
a lot of people I'm finding as I talk to
college kids and high school kids, a lot of people
are saying that they don't listen to radio until I
ask them about certain things and then they're familiar with it,
and I guess they say, well, I guess they do
listen to radio. So we need to get back to
that level of awareness and take ownership and credit for
all the good things that we're doing. But it's a
(27:26):
great business. Don't be afraid of it. Anyone who's interested
in it, who loves it. It's still a great and
vibrant business.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
You just got to get that access to capital. But
that is a conversation for another time, and maybe look
at art or upcoming summer twenty twenty four AH Radio
and Television Business Report magazine. It is in digital format
and it comes out September ninth, and we'll have a
Q and A with two people from Bond and Bikaro
talking a little bit about that. So Chuck benf it
(27:56):
is wonderful to catch up with you. Thank you again
for the conversation. It's been great.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Thank you, I appreciate it. Take care.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
With that, we want to thank you the listener for
tuning into this radio and television business report in Focus podcast.
It was sponsored by dot FM streaming social podcast broadcast
to get a dot fm domain name, but headache over
to get dot fm. Today on the road from beautiful
Hastings on Hudson, New York, this is Adam R. Jacobson
for the Focus Podcast special. Thanks to Giacobean for fueling
(28:26):
our podcast today and we'll see you next time. Have
a great day.
This is the RBR TVBR in Focus podcast. Here's your host,
Radio and Television Business Report Editor in Chief Adam R. Jacobson.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello everybody, and welcome to the podcast, which is presented
by dot fm streaming social podcast to broadcast, get a
dot fm domain name, beheading over to get dot fm today.
There are a few people in the radio industry who
understand New York's Capital District, the Hudson Valley and communities
on the edge of the Berkshires and Adirondecks better than
Chuck Benfer. Since March twenty twenty three, he's served as
(00:36):
the chief operating officer at PAMAL Broadcasting. After leading the
company's Albany's Connected E Troy stations for one year. He's
spent decades traveling up and down the New York State
Thruway and Northway at radio stations across region, and some
of the properties he oversees today are true juggernauts to
learn how PAMEL continues to excel. We welcome Chuck to
(00:57):
the podcast. It is great to have you here, sir.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Thanks Adam, It's great to catch up with.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You absolutely now. You started your career as a sales
rep for W EOKAM thirteen ninety at Poughkeepsie, which may
or may not have been a country station at that
point its history. Just curious. What led you to think
about a career in radio at a time when doc
at eighteen nineties were invading the market on the FM
(01:21):
dial and IBM was pulling out crippling a local economy
for years.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, so, actually my radio career started just a little
shorter that it was in nineteen eighty eight. Okay, ironically
I started at WSBK. Interesting and the way I the
way I stumbled into it was I had gone I
looked at and worked in advertising and marketing and business
management when I was in college, and then when I graduated,
(01:48):
it was, you know, the mid late eighties, and it
was tough to find a job. So I took a
job working for an auto park and I handled their
marketing and average and then from that I met a
salesperson from WSBK, and then she was leaving to go
work in her husband's autobody shop, and they offered me
(02:11):
a job, and I was like, well, this looks like
a lot of fun. And I just took my experiences
from marketing and advertising and what I learned and took
it to the local market and had a great time
ever since.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well disclosure to our listeners. I grew up on WSPK
I AM from the mid Hudson Valley. I listened to
Mark Bulger when he was crushing records at night. That's
how far back I go. Look. K one four is
really a radio station that has forty years of rich
top forty history, and when you listen to the radio
(02:44):
station today, it's incredible for various reasons. It remains a
ratings monster. And when you compare it to perhaps nineteen
ninety five, where I was able to find an aircheck
online recently, there's not a lot of difference. So between
listening to that station twenty nine years ago and today,
(03:07):
for some in some markets, they might just scratch your
heads and go, oh my god, what are they doing?
But it's working for you, guys, So what is this
secret sauce not just at K one O four, but
at some of the other radio stations that are doing
really well for Palmall that makes you, guys, unique but
highly successful in your market.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
So there was a there's a book that I read
some time ago called Getting to Why and Understanding Why
we do things, and I would say that K one
O four, particularly Scottie Mack, who's the program director, that
understands exactly why we do what we do. He understands
(03:51):
what our role is in the community. He understands what
our role is with the listener, and his job is
to provide the best top forty radio station that we
can provide, and he does it indiscriminately. So whatever's top
forty is what we're doing. He stays consistent in our presentation,
which that brand is a very strong brand, and maintaining
(04:14):
that is a very big part of our success. But
being consistent and you'll find the same true with our
station FLY ninety two up in Albany. You'll see the
same thing true WZRT in Rotlan, Vermont. When you stay
consistent and true to the format, and you fulfill the
(04:35):
purposefulness of your service to the community, then you're going
to succeed. If you're a jukebox or if you are
just a playlist for the listener, then you're in trouble
because because Apple Music and Spotify and Pandora and your
own music collection is always going to be a better
choice for your music than what we can do in
(04:56):
commercial radio. But if we present great music targeted at
a person that should really enjoy the music that we're playing,
and then we fill it with entertainment and timely, inaccurate,
unbiased news and information. We provide community support, you know,
we go to the parades, we're supporting charities. That's how
(05:20):
you win it. That and us local broadcasters who stay
consistent to that message, to that mission statement is are
the ones that are going to succeed in this business.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
You mentioned the contemporary hit radio stations that are doing
so well for PAMEL, I need to move into the
adult contemporary format because you have B ninety five point five,
which I remember is WROW as a sleepy, beautiful music
station and transitioning to adult contemporary and doing what it's
doing now has certainly paid off in same way with
(05:56):
w HUD, which was beautiful music from the terrorists and
now is a monster radio station that I have carried
well into the city of New York on days when
I've been in Westchester County in a car, and it's
a very unique radio station. It certainly serves Westchester County
in the Hudson Valley in so many different ways than
(06:16):
in New York city radio station. What does it say
about the advertisers and why they tend to gravitate to
these particular radio stations when you have other options, of course,
and there is digital media. When I tune in and
I hear Healey Brothers Automotive ads on K one O four,
I'm thinking, wow, you know that's great because you hear
(06:38):
so much about automotive being down local, being a little
shaky in some markets. Again, you know, when you have
strong brands, it doesn't necessarily translate to strong revenue. So
how does that come into play here?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, you know, it all goes back to that consistent,
you know, mission that we have of serving the community.
And you'll find when you listen to our partners. Healey
Brothers are a perfect example. They support the community right
next to us. They're you know, they have a not
for profit organization that they you know, it's a legitimate
(07:14):
five oh one C three Healy Healy Drives, and it
is it is that connection to the community that makes
us great partners. And you know, we operate in a
certain manner. And you know I said this, I said
this to many salespeople over the AAR. I'll say this
to many business owners. If you're in the business just
(07:36):
to make money, then you're going to be in trouble
at some point because at some point people are going
to smell the fact that you're just there for the dollar.
But if you're thinking about service above self, and if
you're thinking about how can I be a benefit to
the community, and if you're thinking about truly being an
integral part of the community to serve and this is
regardless of the business that you're in. If your if
(07:57):
your mission is beyond money, money will follow. But if
you're only in it for the money, then you're going
to be short lived. You know, you may get a
flash in the pan, you may make a little bit
here and there, but at the end of the day,
and follow the model of the big companies as they
cut personnel, as they cut support, as they cut the connections,
(08:17):
their revenue, you know, flushes down the toilet with everything else,
and that's you know, one of their one of the
big problems. I would say that because we try to
get to why very quickly. We try to understand what
does a radio station have to do in order to
best serve the listener, to best serve the community, to
(08:38):
best serve you know what we're what we're trying to
do in a mission and providing great local programming. Because
we understand that and we get to that, I think
people buy into it pretty quickly and understand that we
are genuinely going after business in a different manner than
maybe some of our competitors. And you mentioned digital. You know,
(08:59):
I will tell you that I've had this conversation with
a lot of people. I refer to that big bucket
of digital revenue as the graveyard of radio's competitors. You know,
what they call Search engine optimization and SEM today was
the yellow pages, right, SEM is nothing more than yellow
pages just through Google and display is what was in
(09:21):
the newspaper OTT and Connect to TV is what used
to be our big cable competitors. Email campaigns that we
that were able to sell were direct mail. You know.
It's all of those businesses that were so far superior
to radio, and we're so much better and so much
(09:41):
more profitable with businesses and generated so much that's where
all that money went. There's you know, there's no kids
sitting on yellow page books at the breakfast table with
their parents anymore. Those yellow page books are gone. You know,
the daily newspapers are essentially gone the way to the DODO,
and that money had to go somewhere, and so it's
that bucket that they called digital. The big difference is
(10:03):
when I started in sales at them, I had to
sell against that. Today a salesperson that works for organization,
they get to sell that stuff. So to me, that's
very exciting about our industry that you can go out
and see the same clients and sell them five or
six different tactics in advertising, and each of them hit
(10:25):
people in a different part of the sales funnel, and
you know the buying cycle, and you know you can
keep Instead of getting fifteen cents on their advertising dollar,
we can get eighty five or ninety cents of their
advertising dollar. It's a huge opportunity for our industry.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
As someone from the mid Hudson Valley who grew up
in an area where FM reception wasn't exactly great and
now it's improved, one can only imagine what it's like
if you're not from that area to use your cell
phone from Westchester to the Duchess to Ulster and then
(11:03):
on up into Vermont. It is terrible. Upstate New York
has some of the worst cell phone reception to make
a call, let alone use your data. So that speaks
volumes about the importance of FM radio. Do your advertisers
understand that? And are they responding when you say, you know,
we have radio stations that cover four or five counties
(11:26):
and our reach is going to be far better than
anything else out there, because well, have you tried to
stream a radio station across ninety miles of the mid
Hudson Valley.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Well, they do appreciate the geography, don't be misled. They
sometimes use that against us because they say, well, I
don't need somebody from Danbury, Connecticut when I'm selling cars
in Poughkeepsie. But I remind them that we're not charging
them for the Danburry listeners. We're only charging them for
their share of Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yes, but as a listener to the peak at one
oh seven point one, I can tell you that I
can get that station pretty much across Westchester County. And
you want to reach people Garrison, just like you want
to reach people in Hastings on Hudson, and you want
to reach them in Purchase. And again you go in
that area of Westchester County and this cell phone reception
(12:20):
is miserably awful. HD signals out of New York City
coming in and out all the time when I'm on
the Hutch. So again that I would think is a
benefit to you and your advertisers.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Absolutely is. And you mentioned the peak. You know, there's
only I think there's twenty seven other Triple A stations
in America. And Chris Herman and Jimmy Fink and Coach
does such a great job on that station delivering that
Triple A format and staying true to it. And if
you if you were to look at our streaming numbers,
(12:53):
we have listeners across the United States that just love
that show. In fact, I was in a meeting with
some advertisers with Jimmy Fink and he mentioned the size
of his audience in San Francisco, and it happened to
be a Westchester car dealer, and the guy goes, Jimmy,
I'm really happy about that. But I don't care. They're
not They're not coming to Westchester to buy a car.
(13:15):
But you know that. So there's the benefit to being
available on the stream and what we do with our
what we do for our advertisers, And this is mister Morrell,
is the man who owns the company, mister morel Is
said fast and supporting the local advertisers and showing his
appreciation to them for all that they do to keep
(13:36):
us in business. And so we don't charge extra to
be on our stream to broadcast. If you advertise on
the radio, then you're going to get the advertisement on
the stream. It's just included because we're offering an audience
and wherever that audience may be, however they may be listening,
our advertisers get to it, which is different than almost
(13:58):
every other broadcaster. We just decided that we weren't going
to fill our stream error waves with you know, ten
cent commercials from some national organization. But to your point,
having very big, fifty thousand want radio stations, and we
have several of those in the various markets, that definitely
(14:21):
is a huge benefit. But the class as you know,
the smaller, more focused signals also do very well. The
topography this is not good for some radio stations. We're
fortunate that our smallest radio stations are six thousand Want variety,
not three thousand Want Variety. So you know stations you
know iHeart for example in the Hudson Valley, which I
(14:43):
ran for several years. They're definitely, you know, geographically restricted.
I say that this is the worst time of the
year for them because when leaves are onto trees, their
signal gets cut by twenty percent. They just they don't
have any real strength or power and those smaller stations.
But you know, that's you know, that's just the reality
of the business. Fortunately, too, though, the cell service is
(15:06):
getting better and so we are able to get more
streaming numbers. But you know, what we can what we're
finding is that people are listening to us in their cars.
They're turning us on either on their laptop or mobile
devices while they're working, and then they're picking up us
again in the car on their on their commute home
(15:26):
and on the weekend. It's more more broadcast listening than
streaming listening. And that's you know, that's good that we
can pay attention to that. But you know, our model
is going to be the same. We're just going to
continue to do the best we can and provide the
best programming. And that's that's what we have to stay
(15:47):
true to the chuck.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
As you just alluded to. In twenty thirteen, after two years,
actually it was lated twenty eleven I'm trying to put
it all together. I know that you were in Albany
for two years working for your an employer. Then you
went and worked for iHeartMedia, running a group of stations
that you just were talking about and compete against. Well,
the last time that we spoke, I had to look
(16:10):
this up. I interviewed you in October of two thousand
and two for a Radio and Record special report on
classic rock and oldies. At the time, you were the
market manager for Cumulus Media stations in Poughkeepsie. We discussed WPDH,
a station that you will now compete against Mixed ninety seven,
which doesn't exist anymore. Radio and Records doesn't exist anymore.
(16:32):
A lot has changed since the twenty two years since
we last had me interview you. But what do you
think remains the same when it comes to radio and
why that's so important for the advertiser to understand?
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Well, you know that's such a great that's so. I
actually have that article from R and R. Somebody somebody
had done a fancy lamination thing for me and gave
it to me. And I remember getting in so much
trouble with John Dickey, in particular from Cumulus because I
had the audacity to actually comment on a programming thing.
(17:10):
But the premise of that article was what happens when
you have a classic rock station in an oldies station? Right,
And at the time, there's such a debate when you
look at different formatics and you know, genres of music
back then, you know, radio is relatively new when you
(17:30):
consider the scope of the world and music. Right, music
that was like, let's say, older than thirty years old
was considered nostalgia, and then anything that was like between
fifteen and twenty years old may have been considered an oldies.
And you know, there was I forget the exact you know,
breakup of what it designated a classic Rocks song versus
(17:56):
what was designated as an oldies versus what was designated
as nostalgia. If you used those examples, today, most classic
rock stations would be considered nostalgia. Right when we were
playing Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett and you know those
crooners Dean Martin, that was nostalgia music. Well in the
(18:18):
in the eighties and nineties, that music was you know,
thirty years old, right, forty years old. Today, if you
you know classic rock stations, they're playing music that's sixty
years old, but it's considered, you know, a classic rock format.
And what I had pointed out was, at some point
you have to decide that you're either going to hold
(18:39):
on to a demographic or you're going to hold on
to a listening audience. Right, So if you take WPDH
for an example, and it was a huge debate when
I was running it for or Cumulus, it is, do
you hold on to the person that would be twenty
five to fifty four or you know, in this case
(19:01):
mostly men listening to classic rock, or do you follow
the current audience you have until they're done listening to radio,
like when their next music choice may be a harp.
At what point, you know, do you have to address
that format? And so, at some point a station like
WPDH is either going to have to evolve its music,
(19:22):
which will annoy a lot of its listeners, or it's gonna,
you know, just have to reinvent itself because the audience
that they followed is essentially all gone, right, and that's
a you know, that's a tough choice to make. So
if you you bring up the example of WSBK or
(19:43):
fly and and distired with that is is whu d
in WYJB B ninety five. So we graduate listeners from
FLY to B ninety five. We graduate listeners from sb
K to HUD because that music on HID is something
(20:04):
that was on SBK ten years ago or twelve years ago,
and so they're not really up for some of the
more contemporary music they want to listen. You know, the
rule is that you love the music you fell in
love to. So if you take your target person and
you figure that they they really define their music tastes
(20:25):
from between twelve and twenty four, then this is the
music that would fall into that spot for them. And
then we try to just highlight that music on the
radio stations that are going to be appropriate for them.
And so when you you know, when you really think
about it and you are willing to move an audience
along to another station, and you're willing to accept that
(20:47):
that not everybody is going to stay at CAME win
a four listener, right, They're going to want to go
to something else because that music that is going to
be new and contemporary and CAME one of four may
not be to their life, so they're likely to graduate
to another station. We had set that somewhat up with
WRV and WPDH, but it just got to the point
(21:11):
where they were insistent on hanging on to the audience
because it's a big audience. They still have a big
audience today, but it's an older audience. You know, the
majority of it is over fifty years old, and you
know that's at some point they're going to have to
make a decision.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Well, before I conclude this podcast, and it's so great
to catch up with you, I want to note two
things because I love how you are graduating listeners from
one station.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I still listen to K one O four and I'm
going to be fifty two next month. Fly ninety two
will forever be enshrined. In a dorm somewhere in Madrid,
Spain had a Flying ninety two bumper sticker put in
one of the dorm rooms on the wall and never
came on, so five years later it's still there. The
(22:04):
station that really intrigues me right now is Magic, which
is on WRW five ninety Am. You have an FM
translator and you're not shy enough to call it good
times in Great Oldies, which is a tagline that was
at the station I interned at many many years ago.
In Miami that doesn't exist anymore. And here you are
(22:27):
not shy to be playing the four Seasons of the
Three Degrees, the Dave Clark five. Is that just because
well you can do that in Albany or is there
a bigger message here when it comes to radio and
what advertisers can get with a certain demographic.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
So there's an audience for that music, for sure, and
you know, we we listen to what the audience wants.
You know, we pay attention to what they're looking for.
And when you take a when you take a format
like an oldies format, and you look at that target
person who's sixty sixty five, you know, maybe seventy years old.
(23:04):
First of all, people are living a lot longer than
they were twenty five thirty years ago. You know, the
life expectant to the average person is going up, The
quality of life is going up. People retiring with more
robust retirement packages, they're retiring with less debt. These guys
have as much disposed will income as teenagers did, and
so that's always the coveted disposed will income demographic. Right,
(23:27):
somebodyho lives at home with their parents doesn't have any bills,
so all of their money is disposable, and then somebody
whose hasn't been paid off, they you know, they just
keep collecting pension or whatever retirement funds that they have,
and so they buy cars, they buy all kinds of products.
They you know, they buy all kinds of things. It's
a very robust spending community. And why would we want
(23:50):
to ignore them. It's just because the consultants say it's
a bad idea doesn't mean that it is. You know,
if I had a dollar for every time of consultants
that I was making a mistake and they were wrong,
I'd have more dollars than than if the reverse was true.
So you know, you have to you have to be
willing to kind of go with your gut on it
and say, nah, I think that this is the right
(24:12):
way to go, and then be true to it. And that,
to me, that's the key, right if you're true to it,
if you understand it and you're not embarrassed by it.
You know, years ago, the oldies term, we were told
we couldn't use it. The consultants came in and said,
you know, people are offended when you call their music
(24:33):
old and I was like, that's ridiculous, because I think
they know it's old, right, Well, when you say that
the person's music choice is old, you're saying they're old.
Well they are, and so is the music. Right. That's
just I don't know how you you know, how you
get around that. But we didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings,
so we changed it. But I go back to this
(24:55):
theory that somebody may have been Gary Cee, who worked
for me at WPDH, but he may have been the
one that pointed it out to me most directly. He
said to me, Chuck, if you walk into a bathroom
and you turn on the hot water floss, what do
you expect to come out? I said, well, hot water?
He goes, exactly when you turn on the radio station
(25:17):
and you say, I'm playing oldies, what do you think
you're going to get? Just call it what it is.
And you know, I thought he had a great point
with that, and we sort of stay true to that.
And you know, the simpler keep things, the better they are.
And I have to tell you that if there's any
listeners that are disgruntled in any one of our markets,
(25:38):
you know, people know how to get in touch with me.
And my name is pretty well known. My information is public.
If you know, somebody wants to be in touch with me,
they can And I talked to him and I haven't
had any complaints. That we call ourselves oldies, so it's
uh and we get some complaints, but I haven't gotten
any of that.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So any final thoughts before we wrap.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Up, Well, I think, first of all, Adam, I really
appreciate you reconnecting with me, because I enjoyed this conversation
very much. I would say that the rumors of radio's
demise are greatly exaggerated, and that radio remains a robust
and vibrant business and it works for advertisers. And I
(26:21):
say to advertisers all the time who say to me, well,
I don't think people are listening to the radio anymore.
I say, great, I'll just go back to the station
and go on the air and say some bad things
about you. And they say you can't do that, and
I'll say, wait, why do you care? Nobody's listening, right.
So the idea is to stay true to our programming delivery,
(26:44):
to make our messages in advertising as compelling as that
they're going out of business or that they're not nice people,
and get people to stay with us. We do have
to do a better job of engaging young people for
employment and for listenership, and we have to do a
better job of taking credit for what we're doing because
(27:05):
a lot of people I'm finding as I talk to
college kids and high school kids, a lot of people
are saying that they don't listen to radio until I
ask them about certain things and then they're familiar with it,
and I guess they say, well, I guess they do
listen to radio. So we need to get back to
that level of awareness and take ownership and credit for
all the good things that we're doing. But it's a
(27:26):
great business. Don't be afraid of it. Anyone who's interested
in it, who loves it. It's still a great and
vibrant business.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
You just got to get that access to capital. But
that is a conversation for another time, and maybe look
at art or upcoming summer twenty twenty four AH Radio
and Television Business Report magazine. It is in digital format
and it comes out September ninth, and we'll have a
Q and A with two people from Bond and Bikaro
talking a little bit about that. So Chuck benf it
(27:56):
is wonderful to catch up with you. Thank you again
for the conversation. It's been great.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Thank you, I appreciate it. Take care.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
With that, we want to thank you the listener for
tuning into this radio and television business report in Focus podcast.
It was sponsored by dot FM streaming social podcast broadcast
to get a dot fm domain name, but headache over
to get dot fm. Today on the road from beautiful
Hastings on Hudson, New York, this is Adam R. Jacobson
for the Focus Podcast special. Thanks to Giacobean for fueling
(28:26):
our podcast today and we'll see you next time. Have
a great day.
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