In the middle of such a dark week in sports radio, a silver lining emerged in an unlikely place. By now you know that many radio hosts across the country were laid off last week due to cutbacks from iHeartMedia. It was sudden, unfortunate and eye-opening, but also a stiff reminder of how brutal the business can be.
KXNO in Des Moines was among the stations that were affected, as six on-air employees, Heather Burnside, Travis Justice and Sean Roberts of Morning Rush as well as Chris Williams and Ross Peterson of Sports Fanatics and program director Andrew Downs all lost their job. It looked as though a small city in a ‘flyover state’ was going to be one of the many to lose the local content it craves. But at that moment, the people of Des Moines made a decision. They weren’t going down without a fight.
Local sports radio, especially in Iowa, is one of the most genuine you’re going to find. Whereas most national radio shows would never talk Iowa, Iowa State, and certainly not the smaller colleges in the states such as Drake or Northern Iowa, KXNO is a pillar in the community that people rely on for information and entertainment on a daily basis. Iowans live and die by their local sports and crave the outlets that give it to them on a daily basis. In many ways, it’s a lifeblood for the natives.
So when news spread that KXNO was among the major layoffs that were taking place, Iowans took to social media, almost in unison, and voiced their displeasure.
“I wasn’t surprised at the outrage, because I know what KXNO means to Iowans,” said former KXNO host Matt Perrault, currently with SB Nation Radio. “It’s built its brand on talking directly to people on what’s happening in their lives. That station has been so ingrained in the community for so long, that I knew there would be massive outreach. I just didn’t know exactly how folks would go about voicing it. They took to social media, and if this happened 10 years ago, I don’t know if the same outcry would’ve happened, because it’s difficult to pick up the phone and do that. It’s a lot easier to send text messages, emails, tweets and Facebook posts about it. Social media played a major role in the overall outreach.”
Daily life for many Iowans was about to be seriously altered. That didn’t sit well with the locals. Angry reactions came quickly from every direction to those in charge. Des Moines wasn’t going to sit back and let a corporate company take away what meant so much to them.
The backlash became so widespread that KXNO general manager Joel McCrea knew he had to do something. With the approval of iHeartMedia, all six on-air talents were re-hired and the station was restructured to be heard on an additional 25,000 watt signal, 106.3 FM. Not only had Iowans fought and won, but the product that was so essential to their daily lives, was now even better.
“People spoke up and I think there were two reasons,” said Andy Fales, co-host of the Murph and Andy Show. “First, they were mad about the idea of losing this connection and that Iowa was just going to get passed over again. But also, and this makes us feel the best of all, we hear from people that we are appointment entertainment for them. Their day, in many ways, is scheduled around our show. That feels amazing. Social media is great and it’s terrible at the same time, but at a time like this it’s really a useful tool that you just can’t do without. There was such a reaction from our listeners that reached the higher ups at iHeartMedia and they noticed.”
What program director wouldn’t kill to have an audience like that? Des Moines may not be a Top 50 market but you’d be hard-pressed to find very many across the country that are as loyal as that. There’s a lot of awards that are given annually in sports radio, heck, we at Barrett Sports Media, give out a couple ourselves. But if there’s an award that’s given out to the best audience in any market across the country, I sure know where my vote is going.
Fales and co-host Keith Murphy were the two on-air hosts the station, initially, decided to keep. But with six co-workers being laid off, the duo just didn’t feel it was right to carry on a show like nothing had happened.
“I’m happy that it’s over with,” said Fales. “I think we all want to sound tough and cool and like we’re this tough negotiator that goes in and draws a line in the sand, but when we were doing what we did last week, we didn’t know what was going to happen. We really kind of figured that we would be fired.
“We’ve had a lot of people come up to us and congratulate us for taking this big stand. I don’t think I’ve ever heard back from more listeners, whether they organically came up to me or just reached out. They don’t understand that last week we were kind of taking a shot in the dark. It was on principle, we knew what we believed in and what we wanted to do. But we did not think we had some great upper hand that was going to ultimately work out.”
On Tuesday, KXNO was back on the air after its short hiatus. What’s welcomed them, has been more outpouring on social media from listeners, such as compliments on how good the new FM signal sounds. In an odd way, McCrea’s decision to terminate six employees, bring them back within a week and add an FM signal might be the best thing that could have happened for the station, ratings wise, especially now that football season for the local teams is over. Regardless, the on-air staff is thankful for the change of direction by McCrea.
“I’ve known Joel McCrea for 25 years,” said Burnside via her personal Twitter page. “He’s a straight shooter who owns his mistakes, and he just turned a big one into a huge win for our company, our staff and listeners and the community we built our station on. I’m very thankful to have him as a boss, mentor and friend.”
Others echoed those comments.
“Joel McCrea really did come through,” said Fales. “He did what needed to be done and worked to get this turned around. He’s owed a lot of the credit here. He’s fallen on the grenade for iHeartMedia and he wanted to keep us all along.”
Unfortunately, Burnside, Justice, Roberts and Peterson were unreachable for direct comments through email and social media. Williams declined comment via email saying, “It’s been such a hectic week. I’d really just like to stay out of the news for at least a couple of weeks until things settle down.”
I can’t say I blame any of them for not wanting to comment. With the emotional roller coaster each has been through in the past week, I may have done the same thing.
Though McCrea and the listeners deserve a lot of credit for putting KXNO back to full strength, advertisers of the station played a major role, too. Local businesses streamed out in support of the station and even threatened to put their ad money elsewhere.
By Wednesday of last week, that’s who Fales was thinking of when his show declined to go on the air. He felt he owed it to them, especially the ones who had been there since the beginning, to give the local businesses what they paid for. But after talking with Murphy, who unknowingly scheduled a vacation at an unfortunate time and was in Mexico during the whole process, the two decided to remain off the air. Instead, Fales found another way to reach out to his clients.
“Instead of doing the show, I sat down and wrote to every single client that I could think of,” said Fales. “I got in the car and stopped by a number of businesses and told them everything that was going on. I apologized for not representing their business the way that we said we would when they signed on. I said that we would make it up to them and then I thanked them profusely for being with us. The reaction that I got from them was every bit as impressive as the reaction we got from the listeners. Nearly every one of them said if you go, we go. That felt great.
“They weren’t sold on some greater principle, they listen to our show and wanted to buy into it. It really felt great and even empowered us. I knew if things didn’t work out we could leave and take almost all of our advertisers with us immediately.”
So what’s the lessoned to be learned here? What should the takeaway be from a situation where an audience and advertisers willed its way to make a station change its entire course?
“To me, the lesson is mid-size markets with established brands, folks yearn for people who understand what’s happening in their lives,” said Perrault. “They want to know what’s happening with their teams. They don’t want to know what’s going on Chicago, but what’s going on in Des Moines. I think KXNO has always built itself on being the voice of the fan and being a place where you can go and talk. I mean, it’s Iowa and we’ve been told for years it’s just flyover country. Well, that radio station has changed everything over the course of 15 years by saying we’re going to pay attention to you and we’re going to give you the news that no one else is going to give you.”
“If you have a show that you love listening to and you’re told it’s going to be replaced by some national programming, you know that national programming isn’t going to cover what’s in your community,” said Fales. “That’s going to be lost. That connection to the community is going to be separate. We have plenty of national shows and you can get those anywhere. But there’s just this connection with local sports, and those are the ones who care about it the most.”
Stories such as this show why local sports radio in mid to lower size markets are special and will never die. Not enough praise can be given to the loyal listeners and adversities of KXNO, but the real winner is the station, itself. It’s likely the added attention and FM signal will give the station a boost in ratings it’s never seen before at this point in the calendar year.
Amidst what was a dark week of layoffs for sports radio, KXNO still found a way to emerge a winner.
Tyler McComas is a columnist for BSM and a sports radio talk show host in Norman, OK where he hosts afternoon drive for SportsTalk 1400. You can find him on Twitter @Tyler_McComas or you can email him at TylerMcComas08@yahoo.com.
