One year ago today, radio lost a dear friend and long-time companion when All Access closed after 27 years.
A year later, I had the opportunity to catch up with Joel Denver, the President, Publisher, and Co-Founder of All Access, a figure many of us have a personal connection with.
Jeff Lynn: Let’s start with full disclosure. At the time of the closing, I was working for you in Nashville as Country Editor and Promotion. And I stayed with you for a while after the closing.
Joel Denver: Yes, you did. Thank you.
JL: Let’s start with the fact that a year ago today was the day that All Access shuttered, and it sent a shockwave through the industry. I think people looked at it and were like, this is my friend for nearly 30 years. What am I going to do? How will I do my job?
JD: Yeah, it was a shock. It was a shock to have to do it. First, you being part of the staff, you know how much I tried to take care of all of you guys.
I really, really enjoyed working with all of you. It was a wonderful staff. Sadly, the financials in the business changed, and we just didn’t have a choice.
We had to do something, and as you know, we made a couple of moves to try and generate some new revenue—the podcast directory and a few other things like that. But it just never made up for the difference in money that the record companies were not investing in our services.
That came down on a national basis. UMG said at the top of the year that they were going to take the revenues that they paid people to promote radio or market to radio and cut the budget in half. It just wasn’t enough for such a big staff as we had and our fixed costs to be able to move forward with that.
So that’s what really happened. At Morning Show Boot Camp this past week, everybody, oh man, I wish we could bring it back, and I miss it. And I went, yep, I wish I could bring it back too.
I wish I never had to take it away. It’s one of those things that economics dictated. I’m really happy that everybody has found a job.
That’s really encouraging to me.
JL: I thought it was so special and almost heartwarming to watch the industry rally, if that’s the right word. I even remember seeing; I think it might have been Jay Philpott who wanted to start a GoFundMe page. People wanted it to stay that badly. That’s a great testimony to you and what you built.
JD: Well, thank you, man, I appreciate that. You know, it really was something. I mean, I did not have a real big choice in the matter; at the end of the day, it worked out, and as I said, many people ended up finding jobs from it, which was good. That was a really good thing.
JL: So, let’s turn the corner and quit looking back. What’s Joel Denver doing these days?
JD: Well, I am still fortunate enough to be calling radio stations and talking about music. I have a lot of great friends out there and wonderful friends at the label side on Top 40 and Hot AC, which are the areas in which I’m specifying my services. I’ve done a little Country promotion, too. I had a couple of projects this year on that.
That was a lot of fun. I’ve been highly involved in the distribution of marketing materials. The new top-level domain, DotMusic, has been a lot of fun to do, and we’re getting close to sunrise on that, which is the 15th of September. At that point, we’ll continue to sign people up, but that’s been a lot of fun.
New domains do not come along all the time, and my friend Roger Schnur got me into this thing. Konstantin Rousos put the idea together and did all the necessary paperwork. It took him 11 years, 10 or 11 years with ICANN, the governing body for all things Internet, to get this top-level domain approved.
There is tons of paperwork, just all kinds of rules and regulations; it’s a very complex process.
We have literally thousands and thousands of sign-ups for it. All the major labels, all the major publishing agreements, all the rights companies, and some fantastic artists like Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga are on board. I can’t get into all of them because some of them are under NDAs, but the point is it’s been terrific.
It’s been a terrific response from the industry.
JL: I think you forgot some voice acting.
JD: I’m getting into that. I’ve been doing some voice talent work and some voice-over work, and you can find the demos at joeldenver.com. I have a VO demo and an imaging demo, and so I’m working with Benztown on some of their stuff, and I’m doing some stuff on my own and still seeking representation.
That’s difficult out there because there are so many people who jumped into this lane of career path back in when COVID hit, and as people, attrition out of business and no longer could find jobs at radio stations, they did this. So, many of the agents are fully booked up as far as capacity is concerned for the number of clients they can represent. I’m still knocking around on that. Somebody reached out to me, and I landed an audition, and then I got the job of narrating a book.
JL: It helps so much if you enjoy what you’re doing.
JD: I love talking radio.
I love talking to my label clients, hearing what the new music will be, and then imparting that information to radio programmers. I talk to people from all different walks of career paths in the radio business and love doing it. Sadly, some of the same things are continuing to affect radio.
Number one in my book is Nielsen. I think the Nielsen system has really just done a very big disservice with PPM. They’ve done that because PPM does not reward creativity, it does not reward playing new music, and it’s terribly under-sampled. Of course, radio has not chosen to figure out a way to re-monetize itself without playing 22 minutes of commercials an hour.
Sadly, they have deemphasized the importance of true talent. Talent, on-air talent, is what separates you from everyone else. Yes, there’s imaging, there’s stationality, but it’s when somebody gets behind the mic and you listen to them and go, wow, what an amazing person that is or what are they doing for the community?
That’s fantastic. It all comes down to being human, and I think the ability to be human and show people while you’re on the air that you care about what they’re doing, what they’re thinking, and how you’re coming off to them.
I think that’s the word authenticity, and I think authenticity is an amazingly missed emotion or standard of communication that really goes a long way when somebody can be very, very authentic when they’re communicating and talking, cracking a joke, having fun with their teammates on the air, or just talking about a record, an artist, or an event going on in the city.
Those are the things that make the difference for radio, and I think they’re a terrific advantage that radio has over many other mediums. Unfortunately, our medium is not what I would call convenient to listen to. I mean, it’s not convenient to listen to 22 minutes of commercials, hear the same songs over and over again, and listen to people who are not particularly entertaining.
Radio has really shot itself in the kneecaps for decades now. We all know the problems, and they just never get fixed.
JL: That’s what I always say, Joel. If the radio is dead in some places, it’s a self-inflicted wound, just for the reasons you said.
JD: These are forced errors. These are self-inflicted wounds, forced errors, or whatever you want to call them. Still, the point is this: as I said publicly before if a car dealership was doing business with my cluster. They didn’t feel that we were delivering to all their brands that some of these clusters have; some of these car dealerships have seven or eight brands they’re working on.
When you have a couple hundred-thousand-dollar contract with a station or a group of stations in a market, and they don’t feel that they’re being delivered, that the audience is coming in, or that their money is not helping, you know what they do? They either renegotiate with you, or they take their business elsewhere.
We just spend millions and millions and millions of dollars on Nielsen, and the markets are so under-sampled. They’ll say 1,100 meters in this market. And how many are lit up? 200, 300. That’s terrible. Then, the weighting stretches the boundaries of what I think is good math.
JL: Anything I haven’t asked you want to drop in here?
JD: No, I think we’ve covered it. I want to say this: I feel blessed for the amazing support and friendship of the entire radio and music community for those 28 years. I just had a blast working with my staff, and I’m glad they’ve all found jobs, and things look good.
JL: Alright, last question. One kitty lover to another. How are your cats?
JD: Cats are good. Macky has had a few health challenges this year, but we’ve got him on the right path. That’s my little orange and white tabby.
And then our main coon cat, Mitty. He’s just as fun and sometimes as aloof as ever.
And don’t forget our dog, Allie.
You can ALL ACCESS Joel Denver here.
Jeff Lynn serves as Editor of Barrett Media’s Music Radio coverage. Prior to joining Barrett Media, Jeff spent time programming in Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Madison for multiple radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Townsquare Media, NRG Media, and Entercom (now Audacy). He also worked as a Country Format Editor for All Access until the outlet shut down in August 2023.
To get in touch with Jeff by email, reach him at Jeff@BarrettMedia.com.
