At the end of January, Salem Media sold its Fish-branded radio stations to EMF, bringing a close to the brand and leaving many people looking for their next opportunity.
Mike Blakemore was the VP of Programming and Program Director for WFSH, The Fish, Atlanta. He told me that the selling of the stations came as a surprise.
“Huge surprise. The one thing when they hired me as VP of Programming, they were like, this will definitely be job security. When they sold The Fish Nashville, and then they sold Hawaii and our Greenville station, which wasn’t Christian, but it was a great station.”
“Anyway, when they sold those to get money, we thought it was just a matter of time before they sold more. I always thought Portland would be next. The Fish Atlanta and The Fish Dallas made so much money that I never imagined them selling it.”
“In fact, I thought maybe the worst-case scenario was they might fire everybody on all of our stations and just have my Fish Atlanta staff be syndicated on the rest.”
Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) is growing in popularity, and with it, the ratings of stations that program it. Something that Blakemore attributes to the divisiveness in the world.
“There’s so much division in the world. Everywhere you turn, people are talking down about other people or their political ideology. It seems like nobody can get along, and to me, our stations just naming The Fish Atlanta, we used to say, ‘in a world divided, we are Atlanta United.’”
“We were a place where everybody was welcomed. We always laid our station in the welcoming arms of Christ, and fought like crazy not to have any political mentions on our station. Obviously, because we’re a commercial station, we were forced by the FCC to take political advertising.”
“That kind of stuff really hurt us because we’d have listeners say you say you’re never divided, and now, you’re are you supporting so-and-so? We’re not supporting candidate so-and-so we’re required by law, so literally before every commercial announcement, I’d have a little disclaimer that would say the following is a paid political ad that we’re required to air by law that may not reflect the views of The Fish.”
Blakemore shared a heartwarming story about how The Fish and CCM impacted listeners.
“I have a great story of a guy named Jason. I was running to get my car washed in Buckhead. This is numerous years ago, and he was working there at the car wash, and he came up and saw my Fish bumper sticker; he said, sir, that station changed my life. I said, Well, tell me more about it. And he said my wife and I were going through hard times. I was doing drugs. The media and music I consumed were horrible.”
“And then he said I was looking for some Christmas music, and I found it on The Fish, and I fell in love with the station and the personalities, and then I stuck there after Christmas and fell in love with the format because it was the same people but different music.”
“And I just developed this love for the Lord, and now my marriage is stronger than ever. I’m off the drugs. My whole phone is full of Christian music that I love, and my world has changed. He’s bragging about the station to me, not even knowing who I was. I said wow, that’s really special to me because I am the Program Director of The Fish. He literally fell to his knees and started crying. I tell the story over and over.”
Blakemore has had a long career programming radio stations but says that CCM radio is his favorite.
“I call it radio on steroids because not only are you doing a mood service or whatever with the music, but what’s happening in between those songs is changing lives. It’s almost like what you hear between the songs really impacts you, and then the song just kind of compliments it.”
“I can’t tell you how many times the perfect song comes up after a listener call. There was something very personal or inspiring to them, and then you play a song, and it just fits beautifully. CCM radio is my favorite it changes lives.”
Salem provided its stations and on-air talent the opportunity to put a bow on things and allowed them a “long goodbye.”
“I really want to thank Salem for how they let us go and say goodbye because I’ve been in all kinds of different formats. I started in 1979 at 16 years old, and I’ve seen stations come and go. The one big complaint I’ve heard from listeners was my station just left, and I never got to say goodbye.”
“Now, we didn’t want to be sappy. We didn’t want to be anything like that. We wanted to go out on top and take what we called a victory lap instead of turning it into a funeral. A victory lap with our listeners might be the best way to describe it. I’m thankful that Salem let us do that because it’s very rare in the industry today.”
What’s next for Blakemore? One thing is a syndicated streaming version of “Keep The Faith,” a show he works with David Sams.
“With the sale of Salem, ‘Keep The Faith’ lost about maybe 50 to 60 percent of its affiliates. We had some pretty big stations on it, like Fish Atlanta, KLTY in Dallas, and Fish Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Portland. I’m working on a streaming version of that right now. We have it up and running, and I’m actually working on it now as we speak.”
Blakemore said the show is available at keepthefaith.com and most streaming platforms as Keep The Faith Radio. Former Fish Atlanta evening host Penny is on the KTF channel weeknights 7-midnight (ET).
Consulting and voicework are also on the table. “I think between consulting, doing some voice work, and then working with my friend David Sams on Keep The Faith and the Keep The Faith radio stream. Those are my main priorities.”
Reach Mike Blakemore by email here.
Or at 678-641-2269
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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.
