Direction of Local Radio
MTV was going to kill local radio, but it didn’t.
Napster and then iTunes were going to kill local radio, but they didn’t.
Sirius and XM were going to kill local radio, but they didn’t.
None of these newer competitors crushed local radio as media pundits predicted.
Why not? With today’s overwhelming number of choices for a listener’s share of attention, why do people continue to listen to local over-the-air radio?
It’s because of the listener’s deep emotional bond with local radio and radio’s ties to their community–what sociologists call Sense of Place.
Local radio is connected to the place that people call home. Local radio may not be as fashionable as national sources. It may not be as slick or professional as national audio sources, but it is part of a listener’s community.
Or at least it was.
Historically, radio has been predominantly a diffuse business with hundreds of relatively small companies each operating a handful of radio stations. Yes, there were a few large companies that owned both radio and TV stations but radio also attracted a diverse range of successful entrepreneurs who wanted to give radio a try.
You’ve probably never heard of John Palmer, but he put KIIS on the air. Gene Autry and a partner created Golden West Broadcasting. John Buckley Sr. and a partner started Buckley Broadcasting. At one point there were over thirty different station owners in the top three markets alone.
The individuals and small companies that launched radio stations generally lived in the same towns where they owned radio stations. The owners and staff were an active part of the community.
The jocks lived in their listeners’ neighborhoods and had the same day-to-day experiences as their listeners. The commercials advertised local businesses, contests were local, and stations had local events that listeners could attend.
The stations reflected each town’s unique qualities, its history, its experiences, its world view.
Then radio began a slow-motion spiral towards national homogenization destroying any connection between the listener and radio station.
First the limits on ownership were loosened and larger companies started buying up the smaller companies. Small local operators were squeezed out. Then these larger groups found they could go public allowing them to get even bigger–and richer.
The problem with this devolution was that radio became more concerned with Wall Street than Main Street. C-Suite operators needed to show continuing short-term growth at any cost.
This led to a cascading sequence of bad shortsighted decisions that left many over-extended large groups searching for ways to increase revenue while cutting costs. Fire-sale spot pricing failed to help so operators gutted programming and marketing. All this led to local radio’s abandonment of localism—the bond was broken.
Too many of today’s operators are willing to sacrifice the one unique element that allowed local radio to survive all these previous existential threats—local radio’s Sense of Place, that personal connection with a listener’s community.
And it is this abandonment of localism, local radio’s greatest strength over new media, that may finally kill local radio.
There is one hope, however. Most markets—particularly smaller markets—still have radio stations that understand local radio’s sense of space. They understand that local radio can only survive by truly reflecting their town’s unique qualities, its history, and experiences. These stations connect with listeners in a personal way that nationalized radio stations cannot.
They are radio’s hope. More on this topic in a future post.