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Ed Levine once worked for Mel Karmazin at WJFK in Washington DC. He says he learned more working for Mel at Infinity in two years than anyone else at any time during his radio career. While employed by Infinity Levine was assembling a plan to make his dream of ownership come true back in upstate, New York. In 1992, Levine would give back his Infinity stock and launch his first station in Utica.
Levine, now with clusters in Syracuse and Utica, is the Radio Ink cover interview on January 21st which focuses on small market radio. Levine says there's a battle brewing between small market radio and the big guns. "Consolidation has caused radio revenue to go backwards. These are not McDonald's. These are not one-system fits all. Every radio station is it's own living, breathing organism."I think that's going to be a very interesting competitive battle over the next five or ten years. It?s really a battle for the soul of radio." Here's more from our interview with Galaxy Communications CEO Ed Levine.
On why the radio industry is not growing its revenue...
"It gets back to blocking and tackling and taking care of the local communities with local personalities, local promotions and local events. You will reap the rewards of that. We've spent the better part of the last 15 years, since consolidation really took hold, coming up with easy answers. At the end of the day, there are no easy answers. The more that we continue to eliminate staff, the more that we continue to broadcast nationally into small markets, the more vulnerable we are going to be.
What has made radio great locally, is serving the community. It?s an old fashioned concept but it works. That doesn't mean you can't use technology to your advantage. I?m not suggesting you need a full-time news department 24 hours a day. I?m talking about putting some sanity back into the process. If you look at what's happened over the last 15 years, first it was cutting the fat, then you cut the muscle, then the bone. Now they are splitting tissues apart. A lot of the people that have done this are no longer in the industry but they did a lot of damage.
On Pandora...
They found a niche. If you want to have a product that competes with Pandora, and iHeartRadio, God bless. I don't have an issue with that. But to turn your radio stations into nothing more than local versions of Pandora is insane. We are so hung up right now on Pandora and how that's going to destroy radio. Our answer is we make our stations sound more like Pandora. That's crazy logic.
On how to treat people...
Show them some respect. I think that's one item that has vanished from the radio business these days.
Do you agree with Ed? Leave your comments below or reach out to Ed directly at galaxyceo1@gmail.com
To read more from Ed Levine in our January 21st cover story, order an 1-year subscription to our digital issue HERE. To get a print subscription, go HERE or call 561-655-8778.
(1/2/2013 7:41:37 AM)
All radio, like politics, is local.
Only with radio, people vote with their dials and advertisers with their dollars.
Only corporate management and other delusional individuals would argue against Mr. Levine's position on the damage done by the consolidators and their minion clones.
However, sticking "live", warm buns back behind the microphones at the local level still won't do the trick.
For radio to re-engage audiences and advertisers will require a great deal more skills from those "live" communicators and the writer/producers of the advertising content.
Otherwise, all we would have accomplished is the reinstatement of higher overheads with a minimal chance of enjoying higher ROI's. Still, Ed's suggestions could be considered as an improvement... of a kind.
Great Message! Anyone who loves Radio is applauding...and hopefully taking action.
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