Since the BSM Summit became open to the public, I have been to every one. Two in Los Angeles and two in New York. Between my changing role here and projects with my new full-time job, this will be the first time I am not in the room.
I could tell you why the event matters to me. Everything I say, whether it’s about networking or education would be sincere. I think we put on a great event. However, there are plenty of you that would think “Demetri was JB’s right hand man for five years. Of course he is going to sing the praises of the event.”
Instead, I will turn it over to people that chose to spend their money and use some PTO in order to be in New York next week. Why does the BSM Summit matter to our industry? Let’s hear it from people in the industry.
Jay Recher is a regular at the event. He’s seen it staged in both New York and Los Angeles and will keep coming back for as long as he can.
“To me, it’s all about the education,” the midday host and APD of WDAE in Tampa says. “To learn from some of the best in the country and bring that knowledge back to our station in Tampa, it’s really invaluable. The do’s, the don’t’s, what the trends are looking like across the nation, how to adapt to an ever changing medium, I really do get so much out of those two days.”
Listing the advantages of being there is easy. Recher notes that he relishes the connections he has made, touting Freddie Coleman as “a true professional” and Jake Asman as “easily one of the fastest rising stars in our business.” Recher became friendly with both of them through attending the Summit.
There is a challenge though. How do you take the excitement of the room and bring it home with you?
Recher and his boss John Mamola will be in New York, but part of attending the BSM Summit is taking all of that knowledge you gained back to your market and using it to make your station better.
Since they attend as a duo, Recher and Mamola put their heads together and come up with a plan of how the information from the Summit makes its way into the iHeartMedia building in Tampa.
“What [we] have done is take the notes we’ve compiled during the Summit, combine them together & then highlight the parts that would make the biggest impact on each of our three shows on WDAE. For example, last year we took what we learned from the digital discussions to completely revamp how we attack our presence on social media,” he says adding that last year’s knowledge made an immediate impact.
“I implore you to check out 953WDAE on socials and compare it to last year, it’s like night & day!”
The story is different for Terry Ford. He is making his first visit to the BSM Summit this year. All he has to go on is what he has heard.
“Jason has been telling me for years to get my butt to the BSM Summit! And he’s not the only one who has said that to me,” he says. “Folks who have attended are always excited about the things they learned, took back to their brands and applied those lessons. So, it was about time for me to see for myself. I am very stoked to attend.”
Ford may be new to the Summit, but he’s a radio veteran, spending time on air in Seattle, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Baltimore before landing in South Carolina, where he programs 107.5 The Game in Columbia.
He may be representing one of the smaller markets in the room, but Ford has high expectations for his station and staff and he wants to know how he can help them meet those and get ready for even bigger ones in the future.
“We are in market 85 but everyday we attempt to swing above our weight class,” he says. “I want to pick the brains of people smarter than me in medium markets like mine on how we can do anything and everything better with the resources we have at our disposal.”
Ford runs a unique product and he is looking for unique ideas and solutions. He wants to hear all that comes from the stage, but he also knows that going to the BSM Summit is the only way he will have access to people that have faced the same challenges The Game does.
“I do want to zero in on video streaming since we just launched The Game TV. Also, I want to find programmers who dispense content to multiple markets so we can better serve The Game Network that we started last fall in three markets.”
Since I started working with Barrett Sports Media, I have been to NAB events, NSMA events and more. All of them offer something interesting, but what I always took pride in is that the BSM Summit never had filler. In two days, everything coming from the stage was going to be interesting and useful. Nothing was a sales pitch described as education. There were no twenty minute sessions designed to answer a made up problem.
If next week will be your first BSM Summit, soak it all in. You’ve heard it from plenty of powerful people in this industry. It’s just as much your event as it is theirs. Go say hello. Ask questions. Share opinions.
If you’re an old pro, go out of your way to introduce yourself to people you haven’t met before. Make them feel welcome. Growing this event is good for our industry and the best way to grow it is to make it clear that in the audience, there is no hierarchy. We are all buying tickets and booking hotel rooms with the hope that we leave New York just a little bit better than we were when we arrived.
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.
