Speaker 1: Bill Cunningham, the great American. Of course, Jason Barrett of
Speaker 1: Barrett Media is the official trade magazine of talk radio
Speaker 1: and also sports talking so much more. And I said
Speaker 1: to Jason off there, I think it's important to have
Speaker 1: a local radio talk show host doing the best they
Speaker 1: can under many times difficult circumstances, but to have a
Speaker 1: national perspective it is also critically important because what it
Speaker 1: does is give you the ideas of what is working
Speaker 1: or not working in other parts of this great country
Speaker 1: of ours, so we can implement them or not implement
Speaker 1: them locally. And also Jason Barrett has written a great
Speaker 1: column the Three Real Concerns for the radio industry, specifically
Speaker 1: talk radio, and Jason Barrett. Welcome, I think for the
Speaker 1: first time to the Bill Cunningham Show. And Jason, how
Speaker 1: are you.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to be here. Bill, thanks for the invite.
Speaker 1: And before we talk about the award which you've given
Speaker 1: me in this great radio station of ours, I want
Speaker 1: to get into the broader issue about talk radio in general.
Speaker 1: Let me give you a little bit of history. In
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, when I began here, we were told
Speaker 1: for the first four years, don't talk about politics, don't
Speaker 1: talk about sex, don't talk about too many things that
Speaker 1: would cause an equal time request in Washington. In other words,
Speaker 1: stay away from controversy, don't talk about politics, don't talk
Speaker 1: about religion, don't talk about sex. So what I did
Speaker 1: the first three or four years as an attorney was
Speaker 1: to ask the lawyer. I did, talk about urology and
Speaker 1: the prostate. Your prostate, what you can do with it.
Speaker 1: I did car repair, I did Turner interior design, how
Speaker 1: to make your house better. Then in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: because Ronald Reagan, everything changed, which was okay, Now we
Speaker 1: can talk about politics a free flow. It's called the
Speaker 1: First Amendment, which wasn't practiced a long time. Then we
Speaker 1: went through the second ideation, which was the commandos of
Speaker 1: talk radio. And I can recall I was on a
Speaker 1: night at the time that Arata Rivera had a talk
Speaker 1: show in Chicago, and he organized six or seven of
Speaker 1: the so called best talk radio host and I was
Speaker 1: one of them in the nineteen nineties, and we talked
Speaker 1: about the commandos of the airwaves, to break through, to
Speaker 1: be almost like Penthouse or Playboy, to stretch the margins
Speaker 1: of what can be done and can't be done. Then
Speaker 1: that continued until nine to eleven, and after twenty oh one,
Speaker 1: guess what happened. Now we got to get serious. We're
Speaker 1: under attack. We went through the third ideation and now
Speaker 1: we're in the fourth with digital and with podcasts and
Speaker 1: et cetera. So when you wrote the column, which is
Speaker 1: the three real concerns for the talk radio industry lay
Speaker 1: out to the American people, if for the millions and
Speaker 1: millions of listeners I have, but also for those of
Speaker 1: us in the business, what do you see from AFAR
Speaker 1: as some of the big problems in talk radio if any.
Speaker 2: Well, Bill, I think it starts with what you just
Speaker 2: touched on. Is first things First, you have to understand
Speaker 2: everything goes in cycles. There's going to be change. You know,
Speaker 2: you just touched on the three that you've experienced that
Speaker 2: brought us to the current stage, and so change is inevitable.
Speaker 2: Obviously when you look at the present state of the end,
Speaker 2: we're in that time and age where it's becoming a
Speaker 2: digital revolution. It already is here, but it's only going
Speaker 2: to grow in further and importance in the future, especially
Speaker 2: as the dashboard inside of the vehicle changes, and you know,
Speaker 2: the way you watch television changes, and so to me,
Speaker 2: the three key things that I see going on that
Speaker 2: I think are problematic for our business are Number one,
Speaker 2: we don't market our product and our people at all.
Speaker 2: I mean, think about how many media outlets today thrive
Speaker 2: off of advertising, and we tell clients it's important to
Speaker 2: buy an ad to grow your business. But by the way,
Speaker 2: don't ask us to do that. Yes, we're not going
Speaker 2: to do that. So to me, marketing your product is
Speaker 2: vital for our industry. That's the only way, especially in
Speaker 2: this cluttered environment with you have millions of podcasts, Now,
Speaker 2: how do you know what to even find? It goes
Speaker 2: back to the old principle you need to market, right,
Speaker 2: So that's number one. The second part, and this is,
Speaker 2: you know, a challenge on anyone who runs a brand
Speaker 2: is finding new voices and emerging talent the same way
Speaker 2: you've got that opportunity in nineteen eighty three to start
Speaker 2: out YEP and blaze a trail and become who you've become.
Speaker 2: But you know, we have stations that are twenty four
Speaker 2: hours a day, seven days a week. We've got websites, podcasts,
Speaker 2: YouTube channels, and there are so many outlets that don't
Speaker 2: even put new voices yeah on these And it goes
Speaker 2: back to like the people who run the stations, I
Speaker 2: feel for the programmer because they're challenged. They're told, hey,
Speaker 2: we don't have resources for that. And I look at
Speaker 2: that and I say, well, if you don't have resources
Speaker 2: to invest in your future, what do you expect your
Speaker 2: future to look like? Because eventually you're going to decide
Speaker 2: one day, you know what, I've had a good run.
Speaker 2: It's time for someone else to take the baton. But
Speaker 2: who are you giving the baton too? If there's nobody
Speaker 2: coming correct?
Speaker 1: Correct?
Speaker 2: So those those two things, marketing and finding new talent
Speaker 2: are critical. But then I think the third part, and
Speaker 2: this is something that the radio bosses hate to hear
Speaker 2: because not every one of them are good at this,
Speaker 2: is can you even identify what a hit is and
Speaker 2: what great talent is? Like Bill, I listen to a
Speaker 2: lot of radio because I consult brands, I write stories.
Speaker 2: I've got a team of mine that work on coverage
Speaker 2: every day and look for the shows like yours that
Speaker 2: get recognized as the best in the business at what
Speaker 2: they do. There are a lot of shows that are
Speaker 2: not in that category, and they occupy airtime, and they're solid.
Speaker 2: They're fine. You know, if you want to just listen
Speaker 2: to something that's comfort food, that's fine. But the days
Speaker 2: of the impactful the Rush Limb Boss to Howard Sterns,
Speaker 2: the Mic and the Mad Dogs, if you're in the
Speaker 2: sports world, those are appointment level shows. And today I
Speaker 2: think it's just become there's too much of this in
Speaker 2: the industry where people are looking at, oh, we just
Speaker 2: got to keep the brand intect. We just have to
Speaker 2: fill the time slot and reduce the expense rather than
Speaker 2: find the next blazing you know, radio host who's going
Speaker 2: to create create impact for years to come. And so
Speaker 2: a lot of those future stars are building themselves into
Speaker 2: digital world. Now you look across whether it's The Daily Wire,
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk, Officer Tatum, there are a lot of new
Speaker 2: voices that are just building their brands digitally. And so
Speaker 2: I look at that and I go, well, if you
Speaker 2: want this industry to thrive in ten to twenty years,
Speaker 2: you better be sinking money into the future voices that
Speaker 2: are going to carry it forward.
Speaker 1: You know, Jason, what you brought up to. Third thing,
Speaker 1: the boss's ID. Many of the bosses are shall we
Speaker 1: say sales talent that have risen at the top and
Speaker 1: they're in charge of sales. And when I started in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, I'm sure I was terrible the first
Speaker 1: couple of years, but I was given time to develop.
Speaker 1: I spent many years as a practicing attorney representing criminals.
Speaker 1: That's how I got to talk radio, representing three individuals
Speaker 1: charged with murdering police officers, and they asked me, how
Speaker 1: can a nice young guy like you represent just despicable
Speaker 1: human beings. I was given time to develop, and a
Speaker 1: year or two later I became pretty good. And when
Speaker 1: you have talent identification being done by salesmen, that's not
Speaker 1: a good thing. Secondly, you talk about the new voices,
Speaker 1: there's no money being developed in the market product. I
Speaker 1: think we sell advertising, goods and services, etc. And we're
Speaker 1: quite successful in it, but we should promote ourselves in
Speaker 1: the same market in which we want our swimming pools
Speaker 1: and our cars and our insurance, financial consulting, et cetera.
Speaker 1: We want we want that to be part of it too,
Speaker 1: So we don't market. We don't have new voices when
Speaker 1: individuals like myself and Mike McConnell and so many people here,
Speaker 1: Rocky boym and Eddie Fingers move on. Guess what, there's
Speaker 1: no one coming up. There's no minor league. We used
Speaker 1: to have minor leagues. You might have three hundred talk
Speaker 1: radio stations in the Midwest. Now we probably have five,
Speaker 1: five or six. So the minor leagues develop new talent
Speaker 1: that doesn't exist, and we have to advertise our own
Speaker 1: product in our own market because it works. Secondly, we
Speaker 1: need new voices. And thirdly, we need individuals, maybe like
Speaker 1: a Tony Bender, who can identify new talent that can
Speaker 1: be developed. And if we don't do those three things,
Speaker 1: we're in trouble. And I don't think we can be.
Speaker 1: As long as the talent is there, the marketing is there,
Speaker 1: and we can identify new ways of getting the spoken
Speaker 1: word out. Whether it's a podcast or whatever, it's a
Speaker 1: spoken word. And as long as human beings have existed,
Speaker 1: going back fifty thousand years, there's always been a spoken word.
Speaker 1: Whether it's whether it's in a cave or it's in
Speaker 1: a tunnel, it's in a hole, it's in a tree,
Speaker 1: We've always spoke to each other about what's coming. And
Speaker 1: that's the rule of talk. Ready to be coaching to
Speaker 1: be interesting, to be provocative, and if we don't do that,
Speaker 1: this industry is in trouble.
Speaker 2: Well, the other I always chalk it up to this bill.
Speaker 2: I've always run by the adage of people like to
Speaker 2: hear people talk with and about other people need interesting
Speaker 2: people who can do that, right, who can form a
Speaker 2: connection with a listener, who could interview interesting people, who
Speaker 2: have you know, unique perspectives on the world in front
Speaker 2: of us. And so, you know, in the years past,
Speaker 2: we would look out to, as you noted, you know,
Speaker 2: the smaller markets. Go find this guy in the middle
Speaker 2: of the country, in a small city, bring him into
Speaker 2: a larger market. He'll be thrilled to finally get a
Speaker 2: bigger stage to perform on. Today, people just build their
Speaker 2: own identities with podcasts and YouTube and they can make
Speaker 2: enough money doing that that they don't need to go
Speaker 2: to Middle America and relocate. And so in the past
Speaker 2: it'd be like, well, wouldn't you be privileged to work
Speaker 2: at our radio station and look at this great opportunity.
Speaker 2: And today they go, wait, you want to pay me
Speaker 2: what I already make independently. I don't leave my house,
Speaker 2: I create my own content. I don't have a boss.
Speaker 2: So unless you're going to change my life from a
Speaker 2: financial standpoint, that makes so much sense to get rid
Speaker 2: of this. Why do that? And so if you do
Speaker 2: have people who are young who are coming into your
Speaker 2: place of business, you should want to get them around
Speaker 2: as much as possible and show them what they can
Speaker 2: create here, because look, you got in the business just
Speaker 2: as I did, and you probably the minute you started
Speaker 2: doing was like, Wow, this is really cool. I love
Speaker 2: what I do. And that's our superpower as an industry
Speaker 2: is when you bring people into the fold with a
Speaker 2: brand like an LW, they go, wow, look at the
Speaker 2: bigness of this radio station. I could be part of this.
Speaker 2: But you can't do that if you don't bring them
Speaker 2: into the fold and give them a shot. And the
Speaker 2: first part you touched on, you know, listen, it's okay
Speaker 2: if some people in management come from a sales side.
Speaker 2: I do think you need to understand how to make
Speaker 2: money as well as grow an audience. But what I've
Speaker 2: found happening a lot, especially the last decade since I
Speaker 2: started consulting and building my brand, is that there's become
Speaker 2: too much reliance on the sales side and not enough
Speaker 2: on programming. And I've made this comment a number of
Speaker 2: times to clients, is if the radio industry controlled film,
Speaker 2: we would tell Steven Spielberg how to write movies. And
Speaker 2: you can't do that. You've got to let Steven Spielberg
Speaker 2: pick the actors, pick the setting that he shoots in,
Speaker 2: because that guy knows how to create a hit movie
Speaker 2: that makes money. And so we just need more Steven
Speaker 2: Spielberg's in the industry and salespeople who are smart enough
Speaker 2: to say, listen, if he's really good at identifying talent
Speaker 2: and creating hit content, he's going to help me make
Speaker 2: a lot of money, right, you know, And so to
Speaker 2: me it just goes You know, these are not revolutionary ideas.
Speaker 2: It's just that I think sometimes we take our eye
Speaker 2: off the ball and get so focused on this week,
Speaker 2: this day, this month, that we're not thinking about two years,
Speaker 2: three years. In the same way, you were given time
Speaker 2: to develop great talent, take kind to develop. You know,
Speaker 2: it takes you two years to connect with an audience
Speaker 2: and really start to become a you know, a trusted
Speaker 2: friend on the air. And so if anything, I just
Speaker 2: think we've got to get back to our roots and
Speaker 2: really understand that, like Unlike the year's past where you
Speaker 2: were compared to other radio the future is going to
Speaker 2: be do you do audio better than television? Do you
Speaker 2: do audio better than print? Bill? Go look at the
Speaker 2: New York Times on YouTube. They do better video and
Speaker 2: have more of a following than TV stations, Yet people
Speaker 2: would call them the newspaper. So you know, when you
Speaker 2: get into the world of competing with Spotify, Apple, Amazon
Speaker 2: and every other news operation from television to print, and
Speaker 2: they're doing audio as well as you, well, then what
Speaker 2: makes you unique and important in a decade. You've got
Speaker 2: to continue to invest in your product and your people.
Speaker 1: You know, someone starting here in the beginning, I would
Speaker 1: say to number one, be an interesting person, Be well read,
Speaker 1: know how the world operates, Be a little bit of
Speaker 1: an a historian, a little bit of political scientists, be
Speaker 1: a little bit of a geologist. Be a little bit
Speaker 1: of an urban planner. In other words, have some experiences
Speaker 1: in life. Number two. You have to have to build
Speaker 1: your brand. And by that I mean we had a
Speaker 1: living legendre named Jim Scott who would have business cards
Speaker 1: printed up. When you got off the air at nine
Speaker 1: or ten o'clock in the morning, he would walk around
Speaker 1: restaurants at lunch time, hent out his cards, meet people
Speaker 1: like he was running for office, and he would say, Okay,
Speaker 1: listen to me tomorrow morning. What's your name again, I'll
Speaker 1: mention it. And what I did in the beginning was
Speaker 1: take every speaking arrangement that I could get. Every engagement
Speaker 1: that got a hold of me, if they wanted a
Speaker 1: pep rally, someone to cheer them up for a football
Speaker 1: or basketball game, or speak to some other group. I
Speaker 1: was always available to go speak to build my brand.
Speaker 1: And then when events took place in Cincinnati, whether it's
Speaker 1: the reds of the Bengals, or a flood, or a
Speaker 1: political upheaval or some other disaster, those individuals knew kind
Speaker 1: of they kind of know Bill Cunningham, the kind of
Speaker 1: my nickname is Willy. Get a hold of Willie, and
Speaker 1: then I would call them. In the beginning, I would
Speaker 1: have high school coaches on the air with me in
Speaker 1: order to talk about their big game the next night
Speaker 1: Friday night, and then they would invite me to the
Speaker 1: pep rally and I would share them up and get
Speaker 1: them to win the game or lose the game. Now
Speaker 1: what I do is invite in the state champions So
Speaker 1: if you want a state championship boys or girls basketball, football, hockey,
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, soccer, I'll bring in the coach
Speaker 1: along with three or four star players. Now what would
Speaker 1: happen is the entire school would be listening. They wanted
Speaker 1: to know why Muller High School won the state basketball
Speaker 1: toler or why Beach whatod High School in northern Kentucky
Speaker 1: did well? And I had the coach on and then
Speaker 1: I build the brand, and then I try to be interesting.
Speaker 1: I try to be well read. I try to be
Speaker 1: a good interviewer. I try to connect with the community
Speaker 1: and touch everyone within one hundred miles of Cincinnati. And
Speaker 1: after forty one years, I've been somewhat successful at doing
Speaker 1: that because I worked at it. You just can't show
Speaker 1: up in the morning and say, Okay, what have we
Speaker 1: got today? The night before, I'm thinking about today. What
Speaker 1: am I going to do that this afternoon? On Monday?
Speaker 1: Who do I go? What's the angle? Go online? Find
Speaker 1: out what's going on. I read the Inquirer. Print media
Speaker 1: is largely collapsed. It doesn't exist much anymore. There's something there.
Speaker 1: Local television does a okay job reporting the news. I
Speaker 1: go there, I look at other sources, and I connect
Speaker 1: with people to inform my audience and to entertain them,
Speaker 1: and never forget the entertainment aspect. Many times I'd listen
Speaker 1: to Rush Limbaugh and laugh, and you've got to be informative,
Speaker 1: and you've got to be entertaining. You've got to be
Speaker 1: connected to the community. They have to know who you are.
Speaker 1: When something happens, they want to turn and see what
Speaker 1: Willy has to say about it. Jason Barrett of Barrett Media,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, listen, Bill, what you just touched on is the
Speaker 2: importance of the marketing aspect of what we've touched on
Speaker 2: in addition to the content. Right to me, it always
Speaker 2: comes back to you've got to have great content when
Speaker 2: you step into that studio in front of the microphone
Speaker 2: on right. Yes, but you also have to build relationships
Speaker 2: with your guests, with your advertisers, with your audience. And
Speaker 2: so you're in the Bill Cunningham business. WLW survives and
Speaker 2: thrives based on the fact that you are a really
Speaker 2: good content creator who knows how to connect with people.
Speaker 2: And so the more people that come to your party
Speaker 2: every day, the better it is for wlw's business, the
Speaker 2: better it is for the Bill Cunningham business. And so
Speaker 2: what you're touching on is something that every host in
Speaker 2: America should be doing. They should be marketing themselves. I
Speaker 2: don't you know, today we have the advantage that we
Speaker 2: didn't when we were coming up in the industry, where
Speaker 2: we didn't have social platforms, we didn't have video the
Speaker 2: way we did today. I mean, I was thrilled that
Speaker 2: I didn't have to cut real to real tape when
Speaker 2: I started, right, So things have definitely changed. There's more
Speaker 2: opportunity than ever to market. You know, it still goes
Speaker 2: back to shaking hands, building friends. You know, the same
Speaker 2: way you talked about connecting with the high school coaches
Speaker 2: is the same thing you have to do when you're
Speaker 2: working with an advertiser to make sure that they support
Speaker 2: the station and your show going forward. And so all
Speaker 2: of these things are easily doable if people prioritize their
Speaker 2: business and care about it. And it can't just be
Speaker 2: the talent though, Bill, because you're going to do your
Speaker 2: part to try to make sure your show performs, But
Speaker 2: the radio station has to do their show their part.
Speaker 2: Two and I'm not just saying WLW. Every radio station
Speaker 2: has to do their part to let their local market know, hey,
Speaker 2: we have a great product, Hey we have great talent,
Speaker 2: and this is a place you should spend your time,
Speaker 2: because if you do that, eventually people spend time and
Speaker 2: that becomes important and appealing to a lot of people
Speaker 2: who want to spend money.
Speaker 1: With great conversation. And once again, I want to thank you,
Speaker 1: but I guess I was selected as the best talk
Speaker 1: show host in America middays, and I'm very thankful of
Speaker 1: that you picked this radio station, or shall we say
Speaker 1: those in the industry pick this radio station as the
Speaker 1: best talk radio station in America. And Jason Barrett, Barrett Media,
Speaker 1: the official trade magazine of talk radio, thanks for coming
Speaker 1: on the Bill Cunningham Show. And we speak the same language.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that you and I are both out
Speaker 1: there and people like Tony Bender and programming they can
Speaker 1: to identify talent and help us out. And maybe we'll
Speaker 1: do it again and about a year to see where
Speaker 1: talk radio is at that point. But Jason, thank you
Speaker 1: for what you've done for the industry, and thank you
Speaker 1: for that designation of yours truly in this station. And Jason,
Speaker 1: may you continue to have a great day and God
Speaker 1: bless you.
Speaker 2: My pleasure. Bill, continued success to you and the crew.
Speaker 1: God bless America. Let's continue with more. Bill Cunningham News
Speaker 1: Radio seven hundred WLW