Although Bruce Gilbert has been a steady presence at Cumulus Media and its Westwood One radio network for more than a decade, the last year has brought forth a series of seminal triumphs and tribulations for the company. The longtime media executive, with 40 overall years in the business, has helped fuel innovation in audio content. The company has a blend of sports and talk radio programming, including a relationship with the NFL to broadcast prime time and playoff games, along with a broadening distribution strategy.
Cumulus Media, through its owned and operated stations, subsidiaries and affiliates, offers patrons choices in the audio format and subsequently tries to generate a strong return on investment. Yet as media faces trends tailored towards greater individual autonomy and diminishing attention spans, it is essential for programming to resonate with the ear and prevent the listener from flipping the proverbial dial.
“We have to be where consumers consume content, so I believe strongly in being platform agnostic,” Gilbert said. “I believe in having your content in as many places as possible because you don’t know where you’re going to get discovered or how you’re going to get discovered, and discoverability is vital in today’s crowded media landscape.”
Gilbert has had a successful career in the business, and measures his own performance based on the fortunes of others while he remains dedicated to serving listeners and advertisers. Seeking to move beyond societal animosity and vitriol, he does not take his occupation for granted and values the many responsibilities it entails at the local and national levels.
“I feel very lucky to get up and do [my job] every day because we have a chance to reach people in so many different ways, and we have a lot of talented people that do that in creative ways each day,” Gilbert said, “and it’s really exciting to be part of that as it continues to evolve and change.”
A recent topic in the industry has been the reduction of the credit threshold to a three-minute qualifier for audio measurement from portable people meters by Nielsen Media Research. Whereas Nielsen had previously set the metric to five total minutes since the launch of Arbitron in the 1960s, the new standard for stations to receive credit in the quarter-hour could presumably boost total U.S. listening levels by 10% this year, according to the Cumulus Media and Westwood One Audio Active Group.
“We all believe we know what it’s going to mean,” Gilbert said. “I think we’re all confident it’s definitely going to raise average quarter-hour shares and persons, but at the end of the day, we’re here again to captivate and engage and provide interesting content for an audience, and if you do that, you better be good enough to do it for three minutes, five minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes.”
Among an expansive group of radio stations in the country, SportsRadio 96.7 and 1310 The Ticket was selected as the recipient of the NAB Marconi Radio Award for “Major Market Radio Station of the Year,” an honor that had not been bestowed within the sports talk format for nearly three decades. Cumulus Media has owned the station since 2006, and under the leadership of market manager Dan Bennett and program director Jeff Catlin, Gilbert is confident in its direction as it celebrates 30 years on air.
“Radio stations don’t do what The Ticket has done in 30 years’ time,” Gilbert said. “Radio stations don’t have a morning show that’s been on the air for 30 years. It’s phenomenal; it’s a great story. Someone wrote a book on The Ticket probably 10 or 15 years ago, and there should be a whole new book. That book is completely worthless at this point because the book continues to be written. It’s a remarkable property that we are all extremely proud of.”
Regardless of their desired platform, Gilbert evaluates talent based on their ability to forge connections with the audience. Recognizing that most people consume audio individually, he deems it essential to cultivate individual relationships with listeners and turn them into loyal fans. Through ingenious storytelling, provoking thought and lighthearted repartee, personalities have been able to strike a chord and keep people invested. This can make it difficult for listeners to accept outcomes of industry headwinds, such as KNBR laying off beloved personalities Paul McCaffrey, Tom Tolbert and John Lund in the last two years.
“The secular decline of advertising revenue means that we have to operate on smaller, tighter budgets, and we have to recalibrate as the business recalibrates, and I feel like we’ve done that in San Francisco in a very effective way, not without some pain and some very difficult decisions,” Gilbert said, “but we did everything in our power to maintain that ‘Sports Leader’ mentality of being there for fans of the Niners and the Giants and in other Bay Area sports, and we hope to continue to serve those fans loyally in 2025 and beyond.”
There has been purported instability and turmoil at the San Francisco-based radio station beyond the aforementioned layoffs, such as moving the studios to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara and ratings adversity. Nonetheless, Gilbert regards the staff of KNBR as good people who are placing the outlet in positions to succeed. Moreover, he applauds the work of market manager Larry Blumhagen, who he affirms has been a steady presence to guide the outlet through difficult times.
“When you’re willing to take chances and you’re an agent of change, some of those things aren’t going to work out and you’re going to have to go back to the drawing board and start over,” Gilbert said, “and none of them failed miserably, and none of them failed because people weren’t doing their very best to make it work. Some of them were just circumstantial and a victim of timing and other things that you can’t control.”
Since the departure of program director Jeremiah Crowe in July 2021, KNBR has appointed three different people to work in the role in less than four years, most recently promoting Mike Hohler to the position in July. The situation surrounding afternoon host Adam Copeland, who stepped down as program director last May after approximately seven months, generated significant headlines. Gilbert takes full responsibility for what happened with Copeland, acknowledging that the company “put him in a horrible position” and pushed him to do things for which he was not ready.
“We are completely to blame for however things went down in San Francisco, but one thing has been consistent when it comes to Adam specifically, and that is that on air, he is a wildly entertaining, funny, imaginative and opinionated guy, and we are so lucky to still have him as a host in afternoon drive,” Gilbert said.
“And the fact that we didn’t lose him as part of our on-air lineup over some stupid decisions that we made and some positions that we put him in that we should not have put him in, and I’ll be the first one to raise my hand when I’m part of the problem, and thankfully, we have people that were smart enough to help us rectify that.”
Gilbert previously served as the general manager of ESPN Radio while the national network featured hosts such as Dan Patrick, Colin Cowherd and Mike Greenberg among various others. Making the transition from managing programming and operations at Susquehanna Radio to joining a multiplatform media company was an imposing move, but he considers himself lucky to have been chosen for the opportunity. Gilbert worked alongside Traug Keller, the senior vice president of ESPN Radio and the ESPN Talent Office, along with a litany of people he regards as smart and prudent.
“All of us in the radio division at ESPN benefitted from him being this incredible campaign manager for ESPN Audio because you can imagine inside this massive television company is this little audio division, and Traug was always our advocate and always waving the flag of audio and how important it was to the constituents of ESPN and to the advertisers of ESPN,” Gilbert said. “So I learned a ton from Traug and will always treasure that time and consider him a dear friend today.”
While working at ESPN, Gilbert compiled a list of deadly sins for radio to ensure hosts and listeners would be able to maximize every segment. Two years ago, at the BSM Summit, he presented a revitalized version of the list featuring 20 ass-kicking attributes, some of which consisted of ubiquity, clock discipline and the tease-plot-payoff strata. Reflecting on the current state of media, Gilbert would place an asterisk by the properties that compel hosts to be more unique and connect to listeners. Garnering interest, he contends, attracts listeners more than conveying information, but the C-suite evaluates performance beyond individual dayparts and traditional ratings.
“Our live endorsements, getting responses [such as], ‘What are the real-time numbers of people listening to our stream? How many people are listening to our podcasts in time-shifted ways?’” Gilbert remarked. “We’re looking at all those things to see what’s trending, what’s growing, what’s going up, what’s going down and, ‘How can we adjust and make those things better and stronger in all areas and not just rely on ratings alone?’ because they can be fickle, and they can provide some false narratives if you’re not careful.”
Mike Eaby is within his first year working as the vice president and executive producer of Westwood One Sports, succeeding Howard Deneroff after the company did not renew his contract. Gilbert understands the difficulty Eaby faced stepping into the position but commends the professional approach he has taken. Eaby had previously teamed with Deneroff for over two decades and was surprised with his departure, but he has continued working with Gilbert and adjusted to the new responsibilities.
“He’s put his own ideas into action, he’s challenged his team to look at things differently, and for me, he’s been such a great executive,” Gilbert said. “I don’t have to worry about anything when it comes to the quality of the Westwood One product because Mike is never going to let that suffer, and he takes great pride in producing an incredible broadcast.”
Westwood One has been syndicating and distributing The Jim Rome Show in afternoon drive since early January, a lineup change that involved Rich Eisen broadcasting earlier in the day on the Infinity Sports Network. Eisen’s show is distributed by Westwood One as part of a partnership with Audacy, but he and Rome’s programs were airing simultaneously under the previous arrangement. Gilbert reputes the arrangement to be a win-win situation for Westwood One being able to represent both award-winning hosts and feature their programming.
“I give Jim Rome an amazing amount of credit for, after all these years, being willing to make a massive change like that and move his show three hours later and continue to do what he does in a new daypart, and the fact that he put his trust in us to be the network that represents him speaks to what a loyal guy he is, and he’s such a hard worker, and we’re excited to continue to have Jim,” Gilbert conveyed. “And we already know from working with Rich all these years that [he] is going to be such a natural fit on the Infinity Sports Network – his style and his natural delivery and the incredible guests he gets.”
As Gilbert looks forward to the future with Cumulus Media and Westwood One, he views himself as an in-house consultant who is accessible, inquisitive and understanding. Observing that sports functions as a currency that unifies the population, he remains exhilarated about the function it serves in the lives of consumers. Gilbert views the partnership with the NFL as critical and recognizes the captivation its events, teams and personnel procure. Furthermore, he values the balance with other sports and cherishes the opportunity to collaborate with radio operators and stations around the country.
“I just want my key card to keep working so they’ll let me into the building,” Gilbert said. “Again, I think this is a privilege to get to work with this group of stations, and I hope they’ll let me stick around to continue to be part of it for many years to come because I’m really enjoying it.”
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Derek Futterman is an associate editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, email Derek@BarrettMedia.com or find him on X @derekfutterman.
