MARCONI DREAMS

I’ve written about this here before. I just wrote a letter to the editor of RadioWorld, the trade publication, trying to be positive about radio, in the midst of its apparent creative destruction period. An excerpt:

I believe a real opportunity exists in steel-tower radio for a new kind of operator: the hometown broadcaster. Notice, I didn’t say “local.” Radio people–and TV people, too–have rendered that word meaningless. I mean My Town radio people–broadcasters who see the opportunity inherent in doing an authentic job of communicating with, serving and celebrating their communities. Kind of like newspaper people….I’m talking about a radio station that throws away the industry practices handbook and creates the sound of its town, then sells it to listeners and advertisers with gusto.

I go further, and suggest current operators think of selling their stations to people in their towns who love the town more than they do. I believe the money is out there. Radio operators have mostly shopped the corporate station collectors, even in the era of de-consolidation. Stations are only being sold to more corporate types who are only prolonging needed change, maintaining the failing ways of the big corporations, with a temporarily clean balance sheet. Not gonna work in the long run, and the long run is getting shorter. I hope my letter gets printed and somebody gets it. I think it’s a good old-new idea. I hope we get some new-generation hometown radio owners.