If you’ve never met Jeff Smulyan, you don’t know one of the nicest people ever to occupy the CEO suite of a major broadcast group.
If you have ever worked for Emmis, thus worked for Jeff Smulyan and, by proxy, Rick Cummings, you know why the company has been included in Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For.”
Because Emmis is such a great workplace, it’s been heartbreaking for radio people to watch the company sell off its radio holdings. For all practical purposes, Emmis exited broadcasting by selling its Indianapolis cluster in June.
Emmis still owns WLIB-AM and WEPN-FM in New York City. The Walt Disney Company currently operates WEPN under an LMA. Emmis will eventually sell both.
Recently, I had an extended conversation with Smulyan and Cummings. It was a wide-ranging discussion covering Jeff’s life, from his childhood days listening to Top-40 radio and baseball at night from a speaker hidden under his pillow to the book he has coming out in October: “Never Ride a Rollercoaster Upside Down.”
I’ve worked for and know many CEOs. There is no other head of a Fortune 500 company with whom I could speak with such familiarity. Both men were remarkably candid about industry trends they have seen develop over the past 20 years.
The origins of Emmis’ exit from radio date back nearly a decade, according to Smulyan. He told me the story of his love affair with what became known as Next Radio, an effort to put an FM chip in cell phones, and how it led to his realization that Emmis would eventually transition out of the radio business.
2013 was the end of the flip-phone era and the beginning of smartphones. At a NAB board meeting, the group’s president David Rehr was excited about the latest rage in Europe and Asia, a cellphone with an FM chip. The group asked Smulyan if he would spearhead a US version of the project because Emmis had recently partnered with Nokia, at the time the largest manufacturer of cell phones, on an app in Finland. “I looked at it, and I started studying it. I fell in love with it,” Smulyan said. He added, “if we could put an FM chip in every smartphone…we could save portability for the industry.”
For Rick Cummings, President of Programming, selling Power 106 (KPWR), Los Angeles, in 2017 was the defining event. He said, “I think LA opened the floodgates for us. We were looking around and going, wow, look at Austin, where we have a full complement of radio stations, a full cluster, then at Los Angeles and New York and other places where we have far less than a full cluster. Even though we’re driving ratings, it’s a completely different business. We sort of control the (radio) world in Austin, Texas. Even though we’re killing it in ratings in Los Angeles and New York, we’ve got one or two stations, and it’s just not the same kind of business. LA opened our minds. After we started looking around going, wow, it really is a case of go big or go home. That is when we started thinking about an orderly exit.”
Lacking full clusters in the largest markets meant Emmis either needed to buy or sell. The business climate dictated the decision. Smulyan elaborated on why they decided to sell. “Once you realize you can’t make a business grow anymore and all you can do is hit your head against a wall, nobody can be happy in a business that doesn’t grow. Your employees aren’t happy. Your shareholders are unhappy. Your advertisers are unhappy. Your listeners are unhappy. We realized that we couldn’t do the things we loved doing and win…When you realize that, I think it changes your mindset.”
Whether or not a group has a full cluster in a market, it would be refreshing for other companies to reach the same conclusions and get out of the business rather than trying to cut their way back to growth.
Jeff Smulyan made the most profound statement I’ve heard from the head of a broadcast group. “The over-commercialization, I submit that, was the death knell of the industry.”
Talking about radio’s death knell is one thing, but Smulyan didn’t just talk the talk; he walked the walk. He explained, “we voted with our feet over the last five years. We loved it, but we felt that it wasn’t growing, and that wasn’t fun.”
If the here tone seems negative, it belies the entire conversation. Both men are upbeat and jubilant. Each made it a point to state their affection and affinity for the industry. At one point, Cummings said, “this industry has been really good to me for decades and all my life. I have nothing negative to say about it. We were just in a circumstance where our size, in particular, said we cannot win the way we are accustomed to winning. Therefore, it’s time for us to look for another hill to climb where we can.” They made a business decision over time.
My interview with Jeff Smulyan and Rick Cummings is eye-opening and educational. I look forward to sharing more of it with you soon.
In hindsight, it shouldn’t have stunned people when Emmis sold its Indianapolis cluster, the last market where it actively managed radio stations. Smulyan summarized the company’s departure this way, “I think people knew that (Emmis was leaving radio). I don’t think it surprised anybody that we sold Indianapolis. Maybe it was to some people. It’s hard to be gone, but it was harder to stay.”
For people working in radio and people who used to work in the industry, it’s harder with Emmis gone.
Andy Bloom is president of Andy Bloom Communications. He specializes in media training and political communications. He has programmed legendary stations including WIP, WPHT and WYSP/Philadelphia, KLSX, Los Angeles and WCCO Minneapolis. He was Vice President Programming for Emmis International, Greater Media Inc. and Coleman Research. Andy also served as communications director for Rep. Michael R. Turner, R-Ohio. He can be reached by email at andy@andybloom.com or you can follow him on Twitter @AndyBloomCom.
