What is Memphis? Dan Barron would love to tell you because he doesn’t just live there now. He is a native, someone that has watched the city go through a variety of phases.
Memphis is a world unto itself. The history and culture of the place is so rich, that your roots have to be deep in order to have on-air success there.
The same may not be true on the money side of the media business, but when you are invested in Memphis the way Dan Barron is, that success has a deeper meaning. It isn’t just about your bottom line. It is about your community thriving.
The Market Manager for Audacy Memphis is the focus of the latest column in our Meet the Market Managers series presented by Point-to-Point Marketing. In our conversation we talk about why sports betting money isn’t slowing down in Tennessee, how you sell a major talent change to your clients, and managing up when your market is one of the smallest in the company.
Demetri Ravanos: How do you tell 92.9’s success story now? The ratings are astounding, but I think everyone acknowledges that ratings only tell part of the story. So what information do you want your sellers armed with when they meet with potential new clients?
Dan Barron: That’s a great question. What we have determined, looking back at our history, what makes 92.9 successful? We stumbled into this when we got into the sports business. The predecessor to 92.9 was an active rock station that was loved and beloved by a small constituency and passionate constituency.
People loved that radio station, but from a sales standpoint, we couldn’t fill even a very small bar with listeners when we would do anything to do an event. So the station was hemorrhaging and so we flipped it to sports to stop the bleeding.
We built it in what I would call a responsible manner with writers like Gary Parrish and Geoff Calkins. I’ve found that writers and journalists care more about what they say instead of how they sound. We radio people tend to be more concerned with the deep baritone or the ballsiness of our voices, and writers care more about what they say, and when they write something, they tend to be able to support their reasoning behind it versus just get into a lot of talk.
So with that being said, our guys, most importantly, they’re great storytellers and people that listen to and engage with 92.9, I think they’re there because they want to hear the stories and they’re more interested in hearing the way our guys tell them.
Most of the topics on our sports radio station in Memphis are maybe the same or similar topics to what’s going on in the other stations in the market or in the country, for that matter. But our guys have a different, unique, and maybe better way of telling the story that’s engaging.
So as our sales team goes out and talks to clients and advertisers, that’s a big part of our message “You, Mr. Advertiser, have a great story to tell. And we have the best storytellers, so let us help you tell your story.” That’s essentially it.
DR: Across the country in this format, so much of the business is local. When you are pulling in the kind of ratings you do though, does that open the door for some national business that doesn’t usually come sports radio’s way? Do you think there is a different balance of local versus national business on 92.9 than there might be elsewhere in the country?
DB: The majority of our business is local business, but to your point, you know, as we’ve gotten bigger and have a track record of success, it does attract the attention of national advertisers and we welcome that business. The difference is that business can certainly be more ratings fickle. So, if you have a dip, and frankly, we haven’t had many dips, but if you have a dip that national business can leave you for a little bit.
What we’ve found is our local customers on 92.9, and I take a lot of pride in this, so many of our customers, if they haven’t been with us from day one, once they start with us, they stay with us. Now, it’s incumbent upon us to be good stewards of their investment and continue to show them ways to leverage the popularity of the radio station to attract customers.
It’s a healthy mix of local and national, but without a doubt, the majority of our business is driven by local advertisers. As a born and raised Memphian, Demetri, that’s particularly satisfying for me. What a luxury it is to me to be in this chair and have the opportunity to have a profound positive impact on local Memphis-owned businesses!
DR: You talk about being a good steward of your clients’ brand message. Obviously, losing Gary Parrish is a huge blow, but I know you guys have a lot of faith in what Gabe Kuhn is going to create in afternoons. Take me through the conversations you were having with clients, particularly those local clients, in the last few months regarding the change, assuring them that ‘Yes, this is going to be very different, but we know we have the right guy.’
DB: That’s a great question. We understood our responsibility here because we’ve created quite a track record. The message to the client was also the same message in the building to my staff when we when first informed my staff about Gary moving on. I reminded them that we have a track record of any time that we have made a change or been forced to make a change on the sports station or quite frankly, any of our music brands, we’ve come out not just as good, but better.
So we, thankfully, had built up about a lot of credibility, not just within the staff, but also in the marketplace in terms of modifications that we’ve made, because we’ve come out as strong or stronger.
I asked my building and the listeners to be patient, to take a leap of faith with us because our goal is to build a bigger, better brand, not a watered-down brand, and we know Gabe has that, too.
I said to Brad (Carson, ESPN 92.9 Brand Manager) “We have a lot of distractions. We got a lot of people coming at us. We have a lot of naysayers, but let’s stay focused on what we believe is most important, and what we believe is most important is putting the most informative and entertaining show on the air”. If we stayed focused on that and avoided the noise, I knew we’d be fine. Thankfully, an early ratings indication shows this is such. It’s proving that. The clients have been patient with us and we made the right choice.
We had some other names that were actually in the hat that might have been more known or more popular that had some people saying “Oh, yeah, of course, they’re going to do that”. Once we met Gabe, we kept coming back to “Man, this guy’s really, really good”. Oh, by the way, he has a journalism degree from the University of Memphis, and a great story.
I love Gary Parrish. I would never say anything bad about Gary Parrish. I love that guy, but maybe, just maybe, it was time to do something different on 92.9 and Gabe’s different, and much like the others, he’s a great storyteller.
DR: So I want to talk about something else that I don’t know if you had to have conversations with clients about, but the business side of that relationship with the Grizzlies. Obviously, they are having an extraordinary season. They are a big part of what you guys do in Memphis. But when you have something as out of left field happening as what the team went through with Ja Morant this year, are you having conversations with clients that are concerned about their association with that player or the team in general?
DB: I can’t speak to any direct conversations with clients about that other than that in Memphis, we love our Grizzlies. I mean, just love them. I think the Grizzlies and sports, in particular, is the one thing in a community like Memphis that brings all of us together. There is a lot of divide in Memphis – racially, economically, you name it. But what brings people together is sports – the Tigers and the Grizzlies.
So I would say any conversations were related to Ja Morant is such a great player and will be a legendary player. What an opportunity it is for him and for the franchise, and we all are just in it together, and I hope he gets it together and we all get it right. We’re firmly behind the Grizzlies, and Ja Morant. We’re all behind whatever’s best for this young man.
Maybe in bigger cities, it might be different. Here in Memphis, we really protect our own. We’re very protective of our people.
I probably didn’t answer that as eloquently as I would like to, but I never heard a listener or advertiser say “I’m not going to listen to that radio station because Ja Morant’s doing crazy things.” It was like, “Gosh, he’s a young man that’s got a lot of money and we hope everything gets back on the right track because it’s good for the Grizzlies and it’s good for Memphis.”
DR: If it’s good for the Grizzlies, it’s good for you guys. Have you thought about or do you have in mind what a deep playoff run would be worth in terms of advertising dollars for 92.9?
DB: No, I really don’t. I don’t think about it in those terms. I think about how great it would be for the city, and certainly 92.9 would benefit. It would be for the city to have a great story and a great run, and bring home the trophy because Lord knows Memphis has been in the news for a lot of bad situations over the last 18 months. 18 years for that matter. So how great would it be for the city?
DR: Sports gambling has been a financial windfall for every state that legalized it. Where is Tennessee in that lifespan now? Is there still plenty of money to be made in terms of advertising, or have the books’ approach to advertising changed?
DB: You know what? I guess I’m aware that one day it may go away or diminish certainly, or get watered down, but it hasn’t slowed down yet, Demetri. It’s my understanding, from talking to these national players, that the state of Tennessee in particular continues to grow and boom in money spent and dollars spent on advertising.
There’s also other players coming into the market. Every year, every few months, there’s another entity coming in and wanting a piece of this pie. I’ve got to figure that people are coming into Tennessee because they see the market is growing or at least not yet overly saturated.
DR: Is there a category you can look at right now as another potential sports gambling? Is there any sector in particular where you see the potential for significant growth?
DB: I wouldn’t say significant growth in comparison to gambling because that’s been just an entity unto itself. But the staples are still showing signs of a steady growth and consistency that were there pre-gambling, pre-COVID, etc. You know the ones – automotive, wireless, retail. Automotive in particular took a dip during COVID. Those have come back and are continuing to come back strong. So that’s a positive sign.
DR: You have one of the best, most well-regarded programmers in the business working for you. Brad Carson is a staple of the top quarter of our BSM Top 20 every year, so we know he’s successful in his role, right? But I wonder how has what you need or expect from that role changed in the last decade that you’ve been in this business?
DB: When Brad first took the reins, I invited him into my office early on a Monday morning. I think I said, “Brad, we’re about to take this station and flip it to sports and you’re going to be the program director if you’re willing to accept it”. He said, “Dan, I’ve never programmed a sports radio station,” and I said, “I know. That’s why you’re going to be great at it”.
I needed somebody that looked at sports, not through a traditional sports radio lens. I needed to look at it more through a pop or contemporary lens, if you will. We’re not old-school sports radio that’s all about stats and bats, because we’re all becoming more and more addicted to our phones. 15 years ago, maybe we were less addicted than we are today, but even then I realized that if you wanted stats and bats, you’d get those on the phone, you don’t need the radio guy to tell you how many points Ja Morant scored last night. So, that was step one.
Since then, the role of the program director for all of our stations has changed and modified in that we use all these other social media platforms that were barely around when we launched 92.9. We use all these other entities to engage with our listeners and to promote our brand.
Back in the day, the sports program director was more siloed. It was just about “Make your radio station look and sound and feel as best it can”. Now you’ve got these other advantages, but it also takes more time to use all these other venues and pieces of technology to promote and support your brand, and drive listeners to your shows and topics. That requires a lot more personal bandwidth and situational awareness for people like Brad and he does it masterfully.
DR: How do you manage up when it comes to Audacy Corporate? Certainly, the company owns bigger markets, but just looking at their sports brands, fewer are more consistently dominant in their market than yours is in Memphis. So how do you get that message across without being disrespectful when it comes time to have conversations about your budget or maybe tougher issues?
DB: Yeah, you’ve got to earn your keep, right? One thing that I’ve loved about Audacy since I’ve been here is they’ve given me a lot of rope, and I’ve earned it. As I mentioned earlier, every change that we’ve initiated or been forced to initiate, we’ve done really, really well.
I want to believe that I’ve earned their trust and respect, and on the occasion when I needed to make a case for something, while they require me to do my due diligence and provide them a plan, I think in many cases they’re perhaps more trusting of me, and continue to give me that rope.
I try to run this place like I run my own financial self, and I look at every dollar I spend — even though it’s not my money — like it is my money. And so I’m not going to spend my money nor the company’s money irresponsibly.
When I ask for something, I’ll make the case for it. In most, if not all cases, they’ve allowed me to do what I believe is in the best interest of the brand, which is inevitably in the best interest of the company.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
