Bill Cunningham, the great American. Of course, Jason Barrett of Barrett Media is the official trade magazine of talk radio
and also sports talking so much more. And I said to Jason off there, I think it's important to have a local radio talk show host doing the best they can under many times difficult circumstances, but to have a national perspective it is also critically important because what it does is give you the ideas of what is working or not working in other parts of this great country of ours, so we can implement them or not implement
them locally. And also Jason Barrett has written a great column the Three Real Concerns for the radio industry, specifically talk radio, and Jason Barrett. Welcome, I think for the first time to the Bill Cunningham Show. And Jason, how are you.
It's a pleasure to be here. Bill, thanks for the invite.
And before we talk about the award which you've given me in this great radio station of ours, I want to get into the broader issue about talk radio in general. Let me give you a little bit of history. In nineteen eighty three, when I began here, we were told for the first four years, don't talk about politics, don't talk about sex, don't talk about too many things that
would cause an equal time request in Washington. In other words, stay away from controversy, don't talk about politics, don't talk about religion, don't talk about sex. So what I did the first three or four years as an attorney was to ask the lawyer. I did, talk about urology and the prostate. Your prostate, what you can do with it. I did car repair, I did Turner interior design, how
to make your house better. Then in nineteen eighty seven, because Ronald Reagan, everything changed, which was okay, Now we can talk about politics a free flow. It's called the First Amendment, which wasn't practiced a long time. Then we went through the second ideation, which was the commandos of
talk radio. And I can recall I was on a night at the time that Arata Rivera had a talk show in Chicago, and he organized six or seven of the so called best talk radio host and I was one of them in the nineteen nineties, and we talked about the commandos of the airwaves, to break through, to be almost like Penthouse or Playboy, to stretch the margins of what can be done and can't be done. Then that continued until nine to eleven, and after twenty oh one,
guess what happened. Now we got to get serious. We're under attack. We went through the third ideation and now we're in the fourth with digital and with podcasts and et cetera. So when you wrote the column, which is the three real concerns for the talk radio industry lay out to the American people, if for the millions and millions of listeners I have, but also for those of us in the business, what do you see from AFAR as some of the big problems in talk radio if any.
Well, Bill, I think it starts with what you just touched on. Is first things First, you have to understand everything goes in cycles. There's going to be change. You know, you just touched on the three that you've experienced that brought us to the current stage, and so change is inevitable. Obviously when you look at the present state of the end, we're in that time and age where it's becoming a
digital revolution. It already is here, but it's only going to grow in further and importance in the future, especially as the dashboard inside of the vehicle changes, and you know, the way you watch television changes, and so to me, the three key things that I see going on that I think are problematic for our business are Number one, we don't market our product and our people at all.
I mean, think about how many media outlets today thrive off of advertising, and we tell clients it's important to buy an ad to grow your business. But by the way, don't ask us to do that. Yes, we're not going to do that. So to me, marketing your product is vital for our industry. That's the only way, especially in this cluttered environment with you have millions of podcasts, Now, how do you know what to even find? It goes back to the old principle you need to market, right,
So that's number one. The second part, and this is, you know, a challenge on anyone who runs a brand is finding new voices and emerging talent the same way you've got that opportunity in nineteen eighty three to start out YEP and blaze a trail and become who you've become. But you know, we have stations that are twenty four
hours a day, seven days a week. We've got websites, podcasts, YouTube channels, and there are so many outlets that don't even put new voices yeah on these And it goes back to like the people who run the stations, I feel for the programmer because they're challenged. They're told, hey, we don't have resources for that. And I look at that and I say, well, if you don't have resources to invest in your future, what do you expect your
future to look like? Because eventually you're going to decide one day, you know what, I've had a good run. It's time for someone else to take the baton. But who are you giving the baton too? If there's nobody coming correct?
Correct?
So those those two things, marketing and finding new talent are critical. But then I think the third part, and this is something that the radio bosses hate to hear because not every one of them are good at this, is can you even identify what a hit is and what great talent is? Like Bill, I listen to a lot of radio because I consult brands, I write stories.
I've got a team of mine that work on coverage every day and look for the shows like yours that get recognized as the best in the business at what they do. There are a lot of shows that are not in that category, and they occupy airtime, and they're solid. They're fine. You know, if you want to just listen to something that's comfort food, that's fine. But the days of the impactful the Rush Limb Boss to Howard Sterns, the Mic and the Mad Dogs, if you're in the
sports world, those are appointment level shows. And today I think it's just become there's too much of this in the industry where people are looking at, oh, we just got to keep the brand intect. We just have to fill the time slot and reduce the expense rather than find the next blazing you know, radio host who's going to create create impact for years to come. And so a lot of those future stars are building themselves into
digital world. Now you look across whether it's The Daily Wire, Charlie Kirk, Officer Tatum, there are a lot of new voices that are just building their brands digitally. And so I look at that and I go, well, if you want this industry to thrive in ten to twenty years, you better be sinking money into the future voices that are going to carry it forward.
You know, Jason, what you brought up to. Third thing, the boss's ID. Many of the bosses are shall we say sales talent that have risen at the top and they're in charge of sales. And when I started in nineteen eighty three, I'm sure I was terrible the first couple of years, but I was given time to develop. I spent many years as a practicing attorney representing criminals.
That's how I got to talk radio, representing three individuals charged with murdering police officers, and they asked me, how can a nice young guy like you represent just despicable human beings. I was given time to develop, and a year or two later I became pretty good. And when you have talent identification being done by salesmen, that's not a good thing. Secondly, you talk about the new voices,
there's no money being developed in the market product. I think we sell advertising, goods and services, etc. And we're quite successful in it, but we should promote ourselves in the same market in which we want our swimming pools and our cars and our insurance, financial consulting, et cetera. We want we want that to be part of it too, So we don't market. We don't have new voices when individuals like myself and Mike McConnell and so many people here,
Rocky boym and Eddie Fingers move on. Guess what, there's no one coming up. There's no minor league. We used to have minor leagues. You might have three hundred talk radio stations in the Midwest. Now we probably have five, five or six. So the minor leagues develop new talent that doesn't exist, and we have to advertise our own product in our own market because it works. Secondly, we need new voices. And thirdly, we need individuals, maybe like a Tony Bender, who can identify new talent that can
be developed. And if we don't do those three things, we're in trouble. And I don't think we can be. As long as the talent is there, the marketing is there, and we can identify new ways of getting the spoken word out. Whether it's a podcast or whatever, it's a spoken word. And as long as human beings have existed, going back fifty thousand years, there's always been a spoken word. Whether it's whether it's in a cave or it's in a tunnel, it's in a hole, it's in a tree,
We've always spoke to each other about what's coming. And that's the rule of talk. Ready to be coaching to be interesting, to be provocative, and if we don't do that, this industry is in trouble.
Well, the other I always chalk it up to this bill. I've always run by the adage of people like to hear people talk with and about other people need interesting people who can do that, right, who can form a connection with a listener, who could interview interesting people, who have you know, unique perspectives on the world in front of us. And so, you know, in the years past, we would look out to, as you noted, you know,
the smaller markets. Go find this guy in the middle of the country, in a small city, bring him into a larger market. He'll be thrilled to finally get a bigger stage to perform on. Today, people just build their own identities with podcasts and YouTube and they can make enough money doing that that they don't need to go to Middle America and relocate. And so in the past it'd be like, well, wouldn't you be privileged to work at our radio station and look at this great opportunity.
And today they go, wait, you want to pay me what I already make independently. I don't leave my house, I create my own content. I don't have a boss. So unless you're going to change my life from a financial standpoint, that makes so much sense to get rid
of this. Why do that? And so if you do have people who are young who are coming into your place of business, you should want to get them around as much as possible and show them what they can create here, because look, you got in the business just as I did, and you probably the minute you started doing was like, Wow, this is really cool. I love what I do. And that's our superpower as an industry is when you bring people into the fold with a brand like an LW, they go, wow, look at the
bigness of this radio station. I could be part of this. But you can't do that if you don't bring them into the fold and give them a shot. And the first part you touched on, you know, listen, it's okay if some people in management come from a sales side. I do think you need to understand how to make
money as well as grow an audience. But what I've found happening a lot, especially the last decade since I started consulting and building my brand, is that there's become too much reliance on the sales side and not enough on programming. And I've made this comment a number of times to clients, is if the radio industry controlled film, we would tell Steven Spielberg how to write movies. And
you can't do that. You've got to let Steven Spielberg pick the actors, pick the setting that he shoots in, because that guy knows how to create a hit movie that makes money. And so we just need more Steven Spielberg's in the industry and salespeople who are smart enough to say, listen, if he's really good at identifying talent and creating hit content, he's going to help me make a lot of money, right, you know, And so to me it just goes You know, these are not revolutionary ideas.
It's just that I think sometimes we take our eye off the ball and get so focused on this week, this day, this month, that we're not thinking about two years, three years. In the same way, you were given time to develop great talent, take kind to develop. You know, it takes you two years to connect with an audience and really start to become a you know, a trusted
friend on the air. And so if anything, I just think we've got to get back to our roots and really understand that, like Unlike the year's past where you were compared to other radio the future is going to be do you do audio better than television? Do you do audio better than print? Bill? Go look at the New York Times on YouTube. They do better video and have more of a following than TV stations, Yet people
would call them the newspaper. So you know, when you get into the world of competing with Spotify, Apple, Amazon and every other news operation from television to print, and they're doing audio as well as you, well, then what makes you unique and important in a decade. You've got to continue to invest in your product and your people.
You know, someone starting here in the beginning, I would say to number one, be an interesting person, Be well read, know how the world operates, Be a little bit of an a historian, a little bit of political scientists, be a little bit of a geologist. Be a little bit of an urban planner. In other words, have some experiences in life. Number two. You have to have to build your brand. And by that I mean we had a living legendre named Jim Scott who would have business cards
printed up. When you got off the air at nine or ten o'clock in the morning, he would walk around restaurants at lunch time, hent out his cards, meet people like he was running for office, and he would say, Okay, listen to me tomorrow morning. What's your name again, I'll mention it. And what I did in the beginning was take every speaking arrangement that I could get. Every engagement that got a hold of me, if they wanted a pep rally, someone to cheer them up for a football
or basketball game, or speak to some other group. I was always available to go speak to build my brand. And then when events took place in Cincinnati, whether it's the reds of the Bengals, or a flood, or a political upheaval or some other disaster, those individuals knew kind of they kind of know Bill Cunningham, the kind of my nickname is Willy. Get a hold of Willie, and
then I would call them. In the beginning, I would have high school coaches on the air with me in order to talk about their big game the next night Friday night, and then they would invite me to the pep rally and I would share them up and get them to win the game or lose the game. Now what I do is invite in the state champions So if you want a state championship boys or girls basketball, football, hockey, whatever it might be, soccer, I'll bring in the coach
along with three or four star players. Now what would happen is the entire school would be listening. They wanted to know why Muller High School won the state basketball toler or why Beach whatod High School in northern Kentucky did well? And I had the coach on and then I build the brand, and then I try to be interesting. I try to be well read. I try to be a good interviewer. I try to connect with the community
and touch everyone within one hundred miles of Cincinnati. And after forty one years, I've been somewhat successful at doing that because I worked at it. You just can't show up in the morning and say, Okay, what have we got today? The night before, I'm thinking about today. What am I going to do that this afternoon? On Monday? Who do I go? What's the angle? Go online? Find out what's going on. I read the Inquirer. Print media
is largely collapsed. It doesn't exist much anymore. There's something there. Local television does a okay job reporting the news. I go there, I look at other sources, and I connect with people to inform my audience and to entertain them, and never forget the entertainment aspect. Many times I'd listen to Rush Limbaugh and laugh, and you've got to be informative, and you've got to be entertaining. You've got to be connected to the community. They have to know who you are.
When something happens, they want to turn and see what Willy has to say about it. Jason Barrett of Barrett Media, you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, listen, Bill, what you just touched on is the importance of the marketing aspect of what we've touched on in addition to the content. Right to me, it always comes back to you've got to have great content when you step into that studio in front of the microphone on right. Yes, but you also have to build relationships with your guests, with your advertisers, with your audience. And
so you're in the Bill Cunningham business. WLW survives and thrives based on the fact that you are a really good content creator who knows how to connect with people. And so the more people that come to your party every day, the better it is for wlw's business, the better it is for the Bill Cunningham business. And so what you're touching on is something that every host in
America should be doing. They should be marketing themselves. I don't you know, today we have the advantage that we didn't when we were coming up in the industry, where we didn't have social platforms, we didn't have video the way we did today. I mean, I was thrilled that I didn't have to cut real to real tape when I started, right, So things have definitely changed. There's more opportunity than ever to market. You know, it still goes
back to shaking hands, building friends. You know, the same way you talked about connecting with the high school coaches is the same thing you have to do when you're working with an advertiser to make sure that they support the station and your show going forward. And so all of these things are easily doable if people prioritize their
business and care about it. And it can't just be the talent though, Bill, because you're going to do your part to try to make sure your show performs, But the radio station has to do their show their part.
Two and I'm not just saying WLW. Every radio station has to do their part to let their local market know, hey, we have a great product, Hey we have great talent, and this is a place you should spend your time, because if you do that, eventually people spend time and that becomes important and appealing to a lot of people who want to spend money.
With great conversation. And once again, I want to thank you, but I guess I was selected as the best talk show host in America middays, and I'm very thankful of that you picked this radio station, or shall we say those in the industry pick this radio station as the best talk radio station in America. And Jason Barrett, Barrett Media, the official trade magazine of talk radio, thanks for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show. And we speak the same language.
And I'm glad that you and I are both out there and people like Tony Bender and programming they can to identify talent and help us out. And maybe we'll do it again and about a year to see where talk radio is at that point. But Jason, thank you for what you've done for the industry, and thank you for that designation of yours truly in this station. And Jason, may you continue to have a great day and God bless you.
My pleasure. Bill, continued success to you and the crew.
God bless America. Let's continue with more. Bill Cunningham News Radio seven hundred WLW