It's an interesting list, and it's coming from a boomer who admittedly is a specialist in radio that reaches 25-54, and would like to see a return to the way radio was when he was younger. He's not the first boomer consultant who's come up with such a list. There are lots of them. It's really a wish list. The problem with their list is it's all predicated on money. You can't hire quality local talent without money. You can't program to teens or retirees without money. So the key point in his list is monetizing those demographics. If you can do that, you can do anything.
Here's the problem with turning radio into a local medium: All the main advertisers are national. Fifty years ago, every town was built on local business. Local department stores, local hardware stores, local grocery stores, local restaurants, and other local retail like barber and beauty shops. Today you have WalMart, Home Depot, Safeway, Chili's, Hair Cuttery, and all the other national chains. The big problem is all the advertising for those chains is done nationally. If I'm a radio salesman, and I go to my local Home Depot looking for advertising, they will direct me to their agency in Atlanta. Same with all the other national stores. So that leaves only local small business for advertising. That means the local pizza shop (as opposed to Papa John), the local barber, the local doctor, lawyer, and other small business. The problem with them is they don't have big ad budgets, or experienced ad agencies. They really don't know what they're doing with regards to buying radio ads. That could be an area where the local station could help, because the station has experienced ad writers and production staff. But there isn't enough local money to fund those people, because national retail has become so big. So any radio station that becomes totally dependent on local advertising isn't going to have the kind of revenue it takes to do the things Gary wants to do. You need some national money. So that is the weakness in Gary's predictions. You need both national and local, and that's what the big radio companies have become. They realize they need to invest in local talent and staff to attract that local money. But they need the national safety net to provide a base level of revenue. It's not a one-or-the-other thing.
Having said all that, Seattle is a different market from other similar sized cities. Just last year, the people of Seattle raised enough money to buy a local non-commercial radio station from a college (KPLU) and keep it the way it was, rather than have it get bought by the state. You don't see that in many other places. You also have a local billionaire who has funded a combination radio station and museum (KEXP). Consider if other local billionaires used some of their personal fortune to buy radio. That's how local radio was done 50 years ago. But they don't do that now. Instead Bezos buys the Washington Post. Other billionaires buy sports teams or make technology investments. But if that money was being used for local radio, it's possible that what Gary is predicting could happen in Seattle. People make the difference. If national companies like iHeart or Entercom or Hubbard don't buy radio stations any more, who is going to buy them? Why was all the speculation about the CBS spin offs focused on Hubbard or Bonneville, and not local-based companies or entrepreneurs? That was the opportunity for what Gary is predicting to happen, and it didn't. So in order for the first point in his list to happen, there has to be interest in someone local to buy radio stations. Given what we've seen in the last few years, with the sale of Fisher and CBS Radio, it's obvious that there is no market for local ownership. If that doesn't happen, then most of the rest of Gary's list can't happen.
