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David Kantor will retire at the end of the year. He says he is ready for a new challenge. That’s understandable, because he hasn’t found one yet at Radio One and Reach Media that he wasn’t ready for.
This is the guy that helped make Tom Joyner a force in the world of syndicated morning shows. He was the man in charge in the early days of ESPN Radio and Radio Disney. Kantor is proud of what he has done and thinks he’s earned a new, less stressful life, and who could blame him?
Radio saw plenty of innovation and evolution during his career. David Kantor shares what he was happy to see and what he wishes he had seen the business accomplish during his tenure. We also talk about the state of syndicated radio, how broadcasting has responded to the emerging digital ad market and so much more this week in our Meet the Leaders series courtesy of Point-to-Point Marketing.
Demetri Ravanos: When you announced your retirement, you said there are other things you still want to do. Is it all personal or do you have other professional goals in mind?
David Kantor: Oh, not professional. They’re mostly personal. I want to travel. I also just bought a brownstone in Brooklyn, so I’m looking forward to spending time in New York City. There are three children up there and several grandchildren. So, it’s almost all personal. I think, business wise, I’m pretty much done.
DR: As you look back with the end in sight, what innovations for the radio industry are you thankful to have been around to experience both the before and after?
DK: Well, there are a couple. I think some are governmental. Clearly, I was around from before consolidation and after consolidation. I think that that was certainly the most impactful thing going from days when we could only own 7 AMs and 7 FMs to pretty much unlimited ownership now.
The technology has really driven the industry significantly. I mean, both in the studios, where everything is computer oriented now, and also in terms of how we program and content. We can now do voice tracking. That’s one of those things that was certainly not available when I started my career.
DR: I want to circle back on regulation. This is something that you hear a lot on the TV side. Studios and TV companies argue that it might be time to revisit some of those laws now that the big tech firms are competing in this space as well. Certainly, that’s true in radio, too, when you consider all of the streaming options. Do you think it’s time to go back and look again at what should be and should not be allowed in terms of ownership?
DK: I don’t think there should be any. I mean, I thought that there should have been ownership limitations years ago. I think we went maybe a little far at first, but at this point, I think we should allow complete deregulation.
As long as we’re competing with the Internet companies and the streaming companies of the world, we need to be on a level playing field. They obviously have no barriers to whatever they want to do, and broadcasters do.
DR: So, the flip side of that first question I asked you would be, is there anything that you wish you had gotten to see radio either rethink or get its hands on before you walk away?
DK: I’d like to see it get to a complete digital solution, which I don’t think we’re at yet. TV is going through that now with television converting from broadcast to clearly digital delivery and streaming delivery. I think radio still has a way to go, mainly because of the way we distribute through cars and offices.
The whole advertising medium has gone the way of individualization, whereas I grew up, and most people in radio and TV grew up, in an age where you were at one point reaching as many people as you can. I think the nature of advertising, because of the digital and Internet companies, has gone from you’re one person that can reach as many different spots as you want to those companies addressing you individually. That is a complete opposite of how things used to be. I would have liked to have seen that through in audio, but I think it’s going to take audio a little more time.
DR: I do wonder what the state of the radio syndication business is today. It isn’t what it was when you and Tom Joyner were together at your peak, but clearly, it’s still a sector that Urban One remains invested in and wants to keep innovating.
DK: It’s more accepted now because of the economics and because of the success, particularly shows like Tom’s, which were able to get to number one in a marketplace. I think station owners are much more open to running syndication.
I remember a time when nobody would run long-form syndication unless it was talk. Now, pretty much in every format, music or spoken word, there are successful syndication products.
On the flip side you have that same one show reaching lots of people versus reaching individualized people. I mean, I’m sure that that will change with streaming.
Streaming is probably what? Double digits? Let’s say ten to twenty percent are listing now. At some point in time will be closer to 80, 90%. It may be 20 years, but it will get to that point. And I think then you’ll see a real resurgence in radio because they could compete on a much more level playing field than they have.
DR: You’ve been with Radio One for a while now, and you have seen the company go from being largely focused on Urban and Urban AC formats to acquiring a much more diversified portfolio of brands. I wonder from your position within the company, what are you doing when the company prepares to enter a new format, whether through a flip or an acquisition?
DK: Well, most of my career was non-urban. All my years with ABC and with AMFM were primarily non-urban. So, I have a lot of experience in that arena.
What we decided was to compete locally, we needed to have bigger footprints. Nationally, we compete very effectively. We’re the number one urban player. We’ve developed a lot of business that’s proprietary to us because of that position. But locally, it’s much harder to compete if you’re not the number one, two or three player in a marketplace.
We made the decision in the markets we were in, where it was economically viable, meaning you had sellers selling good stations at what were reasonable prices that we would fill out our footprints like we have done in Charlotte, Indianapolis, and in Houston. We would love to fill out more of our markets so that we can be more competitive on a local basis with iHeart or Audacy, who are primary competitors in those markets.
DR: When you talk about filling out the footprint, you guys are acquiring in a time when not many other radio companies are. Is that luxury or necessity?
DK: I think if you look since Covid, outside of EMF, which has a totally different strategy, we are the largest acquirer. I mean, we’ve made three relatively good-sized acquisitions in major markets over the years. It was to complement our holdings in those markets that we already have in Urban, but also to expand into other formats, so we could be a full general market competitor locally. Most of the dollars are still local.
DR: As I’ve been getting ready, not just for our chat, but for other conversations within this series, this Nielsen study keeps coming up as I do my research. The gist of it is that the loyalty of Black radio audiences is not just to the station, it is also to the brands that they hear over and over again on the station. How much do you think that information, that reality about the kind of audiences that are there, is reaching the sort of businesses that don’t think their advertising belongs on Urban and Urban AC formats?
DK: You know what the funny thing is? Fifteen years ago, I would have said I hear that a lot. There were a lot of businesses who had a “no urban” preference. We’ll leave it at that.
It’s really diminished over the last ten years. I don’t hear much of that argument anymore. I think we have, like any narrow-focused format, one that focuses on just a segment of the population, it could be us, it could be Hispanic radio, it could even be news/talk, we all have a core audience that are very loyal to both our stations as well as our personalities. Ultimately, they work very effectively for advertisers.
Our most successful stations are probably the news/talkers and the urban stations where there are strong personalities involved because most advertisers want to be associated with one of them.
DR: Has the aversion to any narrow-focused format been replaced by more businesses saying that they have an overall radio aversion now?
DK: I don’t think it’s an aversion. It’s that there are so many more choices for where they can advertise. I mean, if you’re a smaller business, you know, the Internet is very effective and very efficient in allowing you to define who your target is. We are not.
When you buy an ad or match, you’re going to reach a lot of people, but we can’t say you’re going to reach the guy ready to buy a Lexus, living in this zip code, who makes X amount of money, which Google and Facebook are able to do. We aren’t able to have that many variables yet, which is, again, I look forward to the day, it may or may not be in my lifetime, certainly won’t be my career, but the day when we have the ability to facilitate those advertisers better.
I think that’s the nature of advertising, is to go for more and more qualified leads, and qualified leads means able to define who you’re reaching with your message.
DR: Because you brought up how effective the digital advertising can be for really small businesses, I’ll ask you one more thing. Has radio responded appropriately to just how low some digital companies are willing to take their advertising rates?
DK: Well, I think the leaders in our industry have unfortunately followed the pricing downward. That obviously means we have to sell more ads to make the same amount of money, which means then there are more ads on radio. That ultimately has, in my opinion, a negative effect on programing.
Look, you can’t stop progress. I mean, the digital companies, the Internet companies clearly created, in some ways, a better entertainment distribution pipeline than we ever had, because ours was just one pipeline. And not just us. Television was that way, newspapers were that way, magazines. All old media was that way – one place to lots of people. You had a lot of control.
Now it’s lots of programing. And then the individuals pick out what they want, whether it be audio, TV, video, even print. There are just so many more choices for the individual at this time that it was inevitable that time spent listening on radio was going to go down. Same with television, it’s no different. I’m a broadcast person and I watch very little broadcast except for news and sports, because everything else is much easier to just stream.
To learn more about Point-To-Point Marketing’s Podcast and Broadcast Audience Development Marketing strategies, contact Tim Bronsil at tim@ptpmarketing.com or 513-702-5072.
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.
