Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan is making the media rounds these days. He is out promoting his memoir Never Ride a Roller Coaster Upside Down.
Wednesday afternoon, he was a guest on the Paul Finebaum Show. The host asked Smulyan about his past success, what made a show like Mike & The Mad Dog work, and how Don Imus was able to establish a new business model of putting talk radio on television.
Then Finebaum turned his attention to the future. He asked what the future of mass media consumption looks like. Jeff Smulyan answered that it is hard to know for sure until someone comes up with a guaranteed way to make money in the streaming space.
“You know, I grew up in an era where we had 3 TV stations and 6 radio stations, and today the choices are limitless,” he said. “The most fascinating thing is we’re seeing it in TV as we saw it in radio. Streaming is very attractive for consumers but there’s not a great economic model.”
What Smulyan is sure of is that the audience will always find great talent. For talent, Smulyan said that Finebaum is actually a great model for sustaining a career in the media industry.
“When you connect with an audience and you matter to an audience, that works. It’s very simple.”
He added that there isn’t always a mutually beneficial relationship between a local station and a property like The Paul Finebaum Show, but that hosts like Finebaum make it an easy decision for stations to put them on the air.
“It is hard to be the distributor, because sometimes the distributor doesn’t reap the rewards, but a connection with a community, connection with an audience is what makes the most difference and it always will.”
