It’s not a secret that digital media is an ever-growing sector of the media industry. Some have been slow to adapt to digital distribution platforms. But Seattle Red 770 AM is adopting a new identity, with a broader reach in mind.
Previously known as 770 KTTH, the station underwent a rebrand to Seattle Red 770 AM, prioritizing the “Seattle Red” moniker on its digital platforms.
Seattle Red Program Director Jason Antebi said that this has been a long time coming.
“It’s an idea that I have discussed internally — I want to say — 13 years ago, or at least 10 to 13 years ago,” said Antebi. “We had talked about this as a potential idea for a website, not necessarily for a rebrand. And we got that URL registered back then, and we just never really did anything with it. It wasn’t ready. Then we decided, ‘You know what? Now is a good time. Let’s do it.'”
What makes now the right time, though?
“You’ve got to do it when you’ve got the right resources in place,” he shared. “The time commitment that is required, when you can bring in the right staff to work on it, and we’ve got it now. Staff writers on the site, in addition to the op-ed voices. It was just perfect timing.
“Clearly, the direction of radio is you’ve got to be everywhere. We’ve got a YouTube channel, we’ve got a Rumble channel. And top local talent, as well as the national names that deliver us the kind of branding lift that’s necessary for a conservative brand,” Antebi continued. “Everything fell into place. I’m really happy with the direction.”
The strategy is similar to that employed by the brand’s sister stations in the sports genre at Bonneville International. Many of the company’s sports brands utilize the city name followed by “sports” — for instance, Seattle Sports 710 — as branding elements, with the company’s website and digital platforms focusing on the “Seattle Sports”, with the dial position only being used with the radio station’s portion of the brand.
Being able to see that branding process play out inside his own cluster helped Seattle Red get off the ground.
“Having gone through that kind of rebranding with a sister property obviously made it a little bit easier to understand what all needed to be done,” Antebi admitted. “We had the playbook. Everything, including changing signage and changing email signatures. It’s not just like the big stuff, it’s a lot of the little stuff, because they were so successful on the Seattle Sports side in how they executed their game plan, it made it a lot easier for us to be prepared for this.”
He joked that, in spite of seeing the sister station make the widespread changes when it moved from 710 ESPN to Seattle Sports 710, Antebi said that “you’re never truly prepared for the amount of work that goes into these kinds of things,” but that it ultimately did help make the change to Seattle Red easier.
With the new brand, a commitment to increase the content produced by the brand has been enacted. A staff of writers is penning stories about the hot-button topics in the market, as well as the Pacific Northwest as a whole.
“We’re doing original content, original reporting,” the Seattle Red brand leader shared. “We’ve got op-eds from talent in the building, but also external talent who are contributing as well. This was a lot more than just changing a logo on a website and just doing everything we were doing. We’re now doing a lot more, and we’re already seeing it pay off.”
The audience has been more than receptive to the brand change and increase in content. The brand is “being consumed in numbers that we haven’t seen before,” Antebi said.
As for what’s on the horizon, plenty of opportunities abound for Seattle Red both digitally and on 770 AM.
“I always want to put out more content,” said Antebi. “A lot more video, exclusive, digital only. It’s in the works. We’re working on something now that will unleash at the beginning of the new year. It just takes a little bit more time to get the practice. We want to make sure that we’re doing it right. Doing it right.
“But I always look at this and I say, ‘What more can we do? What more content can we put out there? And what else are people interested in? Can we get even more expansive into Idaho and Oregon with the kinds of stories that we’re covering and the voices that we feature?’ So I’m always looking for that.”
Seattle Red 770 AM is going to continue to be an audio-forward brand after the change from 770 KTTH. And that lies at one of the hot-button issues for Antebi.
“What drives me nuts is when you do a really great segment and then it goes off into the ether,” he said. “It’s great in the moment, and people listening in the car or listening on the app, they love it, and then it just doesn’t go anywhere.
“So I want to make sure that we’re constantly repurposing the kind of material that we’re really proud of doing on the radio to make sure that it doesn’t just go away after the segment is turned off.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
