The Death of "Local Radio." - companies are buying radio stations

Washington Monthly, April, 1999 by Lydia Polgreen

"A small entrepreneur can take risks and push the envelope for his or her vision," says Cheryl Leanza, deputy director of the Media Access Project, a public interest telecommunications law firm that advocates diversity in media. A publicly held media conglomerate simply cannot afford to take those kinds of risks--they have stockholders to please.

Radio has always had to balance listeners' desires with the need to deliver a predictable audience to advertisers. But it used to be the case that if listeners didn't like what they heard on a station, if it was monotonous and repetitive, they could tune away. Now there is just less choice out there. The radio spectrum is a preciously limited and publicly owned commodity. There is only so much room on it, and the big companies intend to dominate as much of it as they can.

The story of WAAI is a kind of parable for what has happened to small radio stations all over the country. An independently owned country music station based in the small town of Hurlock on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, WAAI employed five full-time announcers and a newsman, as well as a sales and management staff. The station broadcast live local programming from 5 a.m. to midnight. It was, by all accounts, a successful station--so successful that it turned a profit from the very first year it was in business.

When consolidation came in 1996, WAAI found its carefully-built advertiser base in serious jeopardy. "Stations that were owned by companies that had big stations in Washington and Baltimore could afford to offer ads in their smaller markets at a fraction of what we could," one staff member recalls. The corporate-owned stations were squeezing WAAI in the local advertising market, while simultaneously pressuring the owners to sell the station. In 1997 the owners sold the station to MTS Broadcasting for close to $1 million, nearly twice its actual value.

Not all small stations have sold out. But the Telecom Act drove station prices to lofty heights, putting them out of the reach of the typical entrepreneur and making it difficult for station owners to resist the financial pressures to sell. As a result, only the most dedicated local owners have survived. WDKX-FM, in Rochester, NY, has broadcast live, local programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the last 25 years. It is ranked fourth in a market of 35 stations. It is the only independently owned commercial radio station left in Rochester. WDKX broadcasts an eclectic, quasi-urban contemporary format that includes R & B, soul, blues, jazz, gospel, hip-hop, and even some country music. The station has nine full-time on-air personalities and five part-timers who broadcast on the weekends. Even the station's location is unusual--WDKX broadcasts out of a renovated mansion in downtown Rochester, not an industrial park on the edge of town. Andrew Langston, the owner, feels that the expense of all-live local programming is a small price to pay for the loyalty of his listeners. "We are connected to our community, and that is the most important thing for a radio station," Langston says. All of WDKX's market research is done locally, and the program director, Langston's son Andre, personally oversees play lists. The station's call letters also evince a personal touch--they were selected by Langston to represent famous black leaders: Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. Langston says he has had many offers to buy his station, but he is not selling. "The station can do more for the Langston family and the Langston family can do more for the community," he says. If he can hold out, he'll be unusual among single station owners.