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Doug McKelway’s Change of Pace

BNM Staff
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A change of scenery is often good for the soul.

And possibly quite literally, in the case of television news broadcaster Doug McKelway.

Axios reported last week that McKelway has been tapped by the Christian Trinity Broadcasting Network to anchor its new program, “Centerpoint.”

The program is expected to cover the news of the day and other stories, presumably through a Christian, conservative lens. It will air weekdays at 7:30pm, with a rebroadcast later in the evening.

The fit may prove to be a comfortable one for McKelway, who retired from Fox News in September of 2020 with what the Washington Post called an “eyebrow-raising video.” The video, posted on his Facebook page, featured McKelway praising specific Fox News executives, including the late Roger Ailes, as well as offering advice for aspiring television news on-air talent.

“You make a deal with the devil when you work in television news,” McKelway said in the 2020 video. “You make a Faustian bargain. You got hired in part because of your looks, and that’s the Faustian bargain. Over time, you start to age. You don’t look as well as you did. And there’s another crop of young, good-looking, talented people who are making their own Faustian bargain.”

In the video, he then went on to share how Ailes, upon meeting McKelway, told him he was good looking but “no Megyn Kelly.”

“When that day comes for you to leave, a piece of advice….don’t leave embittered. Don’t leave feeling like a victim,” he said before taking a swig of what he said was Winston Churchill’s favorite champagne. “Leave with your head held high, and with graciousness. With grace.”

As McKelway becomes the face of “Centerpoint” for TBN, he joins producer Michael Clemente, former Newsmax CEO and Fox News EVP of News. TBN VP of Marketing, Nate Daniels, told Axios the network’s goal is to create a “Christian lifestyle brand,” rather than just a network known for “preaching and teaching.”

TBN was founded in 1973 and now spans 175 countries. In recent years, the network has moved further in the direction of news and political programming. They welcomed Former Arkansas Governor and Republican Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, as a talk show host in 2017. Late last year, actor and Christian evangelist, Kirk Cameron, took the hosting reins of his own program, “Takeaways.” The network is also expected to launch a new program in May, featuring hosts Mike Rowe and Matt Crouch, the network’s President.

McKelway indeed has deep journalistic roots. His grandfather was the Editor of the Washington Star newspaper and President of the Associated Press.  During a 2021 conversation about Big Tech censorship with Tony Perkins, McKelway referred to his grandfather as “a powerful defender of the First Amendment during the Cold War years.”

“He wrote that it’s incumbent upon publications, upon newspapers, and now of course moving into the digital age which did not exist back then, incumbent upon individual publishers to exercise their rights responsibly,” McKelway told Perkins last year. “And there’s a message in that for today’s digital age. A lot of these guys are not being responsible overseers of their technology. And algorithms won’t do it. Algorithms cannot have the kind of judgment that individual human beings who are morally grounded have. And that’s what seems to be lacking here.”

McKelways seems to be well-positioned for the move to TBN. Morality and responsibility, two strongly-rooted themes of Christianity.

Logistically, the move should provide additional comfort for McKelway. He reunites with producer Clemente, whom McKelway, in his aforementioned retirement video, thanked for helping him get hired at Fox News back in 2010. 

McKelway, who also spent time as a correspondent for the Washington Examiner, has publicly chided the current Administration, tweeting on March 10th that “a statement from this Biden Administration should not be taken at face value, nor as the gospel truth.” In an April, 2021 piece for the Examiner, he detailed “A Dangerous World: Biden Foreign Policy.” In the video piece – well before the United States’ horrendous withdrawal from Afghanistan and today’s current list of world crises – McKelway foreshadowed how Biden’s approach could lead to destructive consequences.

He also drew the ire of many in the mainstream media for leaked emails from his  time at Fox News, when he defended President Trump. However, many polls estimate the former President garnering roughly 80% support among the Evangelical community.

McKelway’s Twitter profile reads,” Blissfully retired. I speak for no one but myself.” 

In the days to come, he will speak to, and perhaps for, many Christian viewers as TBN expands its programming offerings.

Mike Florio Tried to Scare NBC Away From Partnering With Pro Football Talk

BSM Staff
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Over the last 20 years, Mike Florio has gone from a lawyer in West Virginia to being the founder of Pro Football Talk and being one of the top NFL insiders in the business. Now, he is also an author, as his book Playmakers: How the NFL Really Works (And Doesn’t) was released recently.

Florio was a guest on The Adam Schein Podcast this week to talk about the book, his career, and some of the trades that happened in the NFL involving Russell Wilson and Carson Wentz. He mentioned that when he was doing radio spots in the early years of Pro Football Talk, it helped him become better as a lawyer as well:

“I started doing radio spots very early on,” said Florio. “I love doing radio spots because I looked at it this way. It was a way to market the business without it being an obvious advertisement. I didn’t have to pay for it. All I had to do was talk about football for 15 minutes and whoever happened to listen to it, here is the name of the website 4-5 times and maybe they go check it out.

“I was practicing law at the time and you have to talk on your feet on a regular basis when you do that. One thing I learned is that all the radio I was doing was actually making me better in court because you learn how to get comfortable operating with no net whatsoever, no notes, you just got to talk about whatever comes out, and you have to sound like you know what you are talking about.”

Once Dan Patrick left ESPN, Florio was a guest on his show. However in July 2010, he got an unexpected offer from the show. He thought he would just be a guest as the fill-in host when Patrick took a week off, but it ended up being a new opportunity for him.

“It was 2010. I was already with NBC, but I wasn’t a regular weekly member and didn’t know where this all was going to go,” Florio recalled. “Dan’s people called me in July 2010 and said Dan’s off next week, can you come on the show? I was like sure, whoever the replacement host is, just have him call me.

“They were like no, no, you’re the host. Time out. It’s one thing to talk for 10 minutes; for 3 hours, there’s no way, no how I can do that, but I did it. I was over-prepared for it. I had way too many notes and I was scared to death. I had no idea what a hard break was.”

Florio went on to explain that he ended up taking a hard break a minute earlier than he was supposed to. He ended up learning from it and is now one of the hosts of Pro Football Talk Live with Chris Simms and he’s part of the NBC Football Night In America crew every Sunday night during the season. 

Before Florio was on TV, NBC Sports tried to make a pitch for ProFootballTalk to be a part of NBCSports.com in 2009 and while Florio tried to scare them away in a parallel to a Seinfeld episode. However, it ended up becoming a key part of the website:

“When NBC, which was woefully behind its competitors on the dot com side, they didn’t have much of a presence on NBCSports.com. It was run by people who had Olympics background and didn’t care about football, baseball, basketball, etc. Rick Cordella, who is now the Chief Revenue Officer of Peacock, he was in charge of NBCSports.com and he called me in January 2009 and he made the pitch about how he wants to partner with PFT. I tried to scare him away. I didn’t want to do it.”

While Florio was afraid to do it, he said it was the best professional move that he ever made to join the NBC Sports family. 

Fox News Is the Top Destination Coverage on the Russia-Ukraine War

BNM Staff
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Fox News Is the Top Destination Coverage on the Russia-Ukraine War

FOX News is the top destination for breaking news coverage of the war in Ukraine and is the most-watched network in all cable across all categories and dayparts.

According to Nielsen Media Research, Fox News outperformed CNN and MSNBC in the key 25-54 demographic and the 18-49 demo across the day and in primetime.

FNC has averaged 2.2 million viewers and 474,000 in the 25-54 demo since the start of the conflict, earning double-digit percent advantages over CNN across the board and widening to triple-digit advantages over MSNBC.

FNC continues to surpass the cable news competition in primetime, garnering 3.4 million viewers and 725,000 in the demo, again besting CNN by double digits and MSNBC by triple digits in all categories. From 8-11 PM/ET, FNC even outdrew broadcast networks NBC in overall viewers.

Fox News comprises over half of the cable news share in total day and primetime viewership.

N.Y. Times Reporter Says Coworkers Overreacted to U.S. Capitol Riot

BNM Staff
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N.Y. Times Reporter Says Coworkers Overreacted to U.S. Capitol Riot

Independent news agency Project Veritas released a video Tuesday showing Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg ripping his colleagues for overreacting to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.

Rosenberg is heard making derogatory references to his co-workers who believed that they were in danger when several thousand people stormed the Capitol building.

“It’s not the kind of place I can tell somebody to man up, but I kind of want to be like, ‘Dude, come on. Like, you were not in any danger,” Rosenberg stated.

According to the New York Post, Rosenberg also seems to call two colleagues, Emily Cochrane and Nicholas Fandos, “f—ing bitches”

“The left’s overreaction — the left’s reaction to it in some places was so over the top,” said Rosenberg. “They were making it too big a deal … that gave the opening for lunatics in the right to be like, ‘Oh, well, nothing happened here.

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe confronted Rosenberg Wednesday at a coffee shop and followed him to a pharmacy where the interview ended with a “swift no comment.” 

JVC Broadcasting: Hiring Spree is Sign of the Industry Getting Stronger

BNM Staff
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JVC Broadcasting: Hiring Spree is Sign of the Industry Getting Stronger

New York-based JVC Broadcasting is touting its recent hiring spree as an example of how the industry is getting stronger. According to Talkers, JVC began its recruitment efforts several months ago, which culminated in 16 hirings, including some internal promotions. 

“The current radio market is great for employment,” CEO John Caracciolo told the website. There was a lot of trepidation for media companies in 2020 and 2021. People wanted to see how things would work out and if the radio business would bounce back, and it did stronger than ever.

This week, JVC announced the hiring of former Cox Media personality Lil Shawn as co-host and producer of the “The Justin Clark Show.” In addition, the company made lineup changes to its news/talk brands in Fort Walton Beach and Orlando. 

“The most important and most rewarding investment an entrepreneur can make isn’t a new client or a cool piece of equipment; it’s your team of employees,” Caracciolo added. “I have built this business by surrounding myself with fantastic people who are visionaries and leaders.”

JVC Broadcasting is headquartered in Ronkonkoma, New York. The company owns and operates five radio stations on Long Island, New York, and 12 FM stations in Florida.

You Are Not Your Medium

BSM Staff
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You Are Not Your Medium

You are not your medium.

This is something that everyone working in radio needs to understand to have any chance of adapting to the digital future of this industry.

You don’t make radio, you make content. While that content may currently be broadcast by a radio station and distributed digitally by a radio station, the product itself is not radio. It’s not even strictly audio given the proliferation of video in live streams and social media. You are making content that is designed to reach and retain an audience, and while this column I’m writing is primarily aimed at those labeled as talent in our industry, it applies to other aspects as well. You’re not selling radio so much as radio advertising is one of the ways companies can include their advertising with your station’s content.

This all sounds pretty straight forward or at least it should, but it is a conceptual shift that everyone working in radio must make because the industry is changing. The portion of the audience that listens to the over-the-air broadcast of a live talk show is shrinking, which is another way of saying it’s becoming less and less valuable to advertisers. Now maybe the audience will seamlessly shift to the live streams, delivered on an app or via the Internet, and maybe the advertising dollars will move there in their entirety. If that happens, the job that is currently described as a radio host may not change all that much.

I don’t think we’re going to be that lucky. Listeners ages 13 to 24 are shown to be twice as likely to consume spoken-word via podcast than over the radio. Maybe they’ll reach their 30s and decide they want to start listening to over-the-air radio, but I doubt it.

It’s not just podcasts, though. It’s Discord, Twitter Spaces, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok. Whether you refer to these entities as a medium, a platform or by the device used to access them, they are all methods of conveying your product — your content — to your customers, which is the audience. Some of these tools will be easier to monetize than others. Some of these tools will generate a larger audience than others. Each is going to need content, the shape of which is going to vary according to the type of tool, the medium being used.

This is why it’s so important to see your job not as a radio host, but as a content creator. If you believe you work in radio, your future is tied to the viability of the medium, which is something you can’t control. If you see yourself as a content creator, your job is making something people will listen to via any variety of outlets, and if you view the industry this way, there is a huge opportunity here. Absolutely enormous.

The structure of this industry is about to be upended. I’m not talking about the ownership side or even management. I lack the experience and probably the intelligence to offer much insight about that. I’m talking about the talent side, the hosts who I’m saying need to call themselves creators.

The economic order of our industry has been entrenched for decades. The most remunerative positions in a radio lineup are the weekday hosts in the daytime lineup. The most lucrative spots in that lineup have been the two drive-time slots, morning and afternoon.

What do you think will be the most lucrative job in spoken-word 10 years from now? Maybe it’s podcasts. Joe Rogan’s deal with Spotify certainly speaks to that. Then again, Pat Mcafee is doing a live show in his deal with DraftKings, and Dan LeBetard has a significant amount of live programming as well with FanDuel becoming the title sponsor and getting the ad inventory.

I’m not trying to predict what the next big thing will be. That’s like hoping to win the lottery. I’m telling you to have your eyes open to the possibility — the likelihood — that there is going to be something else that comes next. That the daily radio program as we know it may not be the most lucrative, the most desirable outlet for our content in the future. If you have that mindset, you’ll have a better chance of figuring out what the next big thing will. Hell, you’ll have a chance of making the content that does become the next big thing.

That all starts with understanding that you are not your medium. You make content that can be carried by any variety of media, and while radio has been and may continue not just a viable but lucrative medium, you shouldn’t think that you or your work are defined by it.

Allow me a brief analogy to wrap up.

Railroads had a hell of a run in this country. For more than 100 years, they played a huge role in the development of the United States from the industrial revolution in the Northeast to Westward expansion. The industry is thought to have employed a million people when it peaked around 1920, and while the federal subsidies provided to the auto and aviation industries played a role in what has happened to railroads in the 100 years since, the railroads also made a critical error. They thought they were in the train business, competing against other trains. The reason they thought that was because for a number of decades the train was the only real choice for someone who wanted to travel any significant distance over land.

But the railroads weren’t in the train business, they were in the transportation business and as such their competitors wound up including cars and planes and the trains wound up losing that competition in part because of the advantages of those other forms of transportation but also because the railroads had an overly narrow vision of what they were.

I’m not saying that radio is going to be wind up like a railroad. Radio has nowhere near as much infrastructure, it is much more flexible and radio doesn’t have to go that far to from broadcast audio over the air to distributing audio in a digital format.

For you to make that switch requires an understanding that you can not be defined by your medium. Not if you want to retain control of where your career goes.

Radio Should Follow TV and Create Exclusive, Paid Streaming Services

Pete Mundo
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Radio Should Follow TV and Create Exclusive, Paid Streaming Services

The race is on across all of the media towards paid streaming services. Whether it’s Peacock (NBC) or FOX Nation, and everything in between, all news networks are moving towards a world of creating unique and exclusive content on their streaming services to try and get customers at as rapid a pace as possible.

This is happening, in large part, as a result of cord-cutting. People aren’t mindlessly spending money on cable packages anymore because they’ve realized they’re watching a fraction of what they’re paying for. Plus, they’re coming to the conclusion that they’d rather cut their cable price and invest in subscriptions like Netflix, Hulu, YouTubeTV, and others.

To stay ahead of the curve, TV networks are trying to drive subscribers to their digital platforms (likely at a big upfront loss), understanding the fragmentation of media is only continuing, and relying on the old-school model of cable packages is a losing proposition over the long term.

So while understanding that’s the play for TV, I would ask radio what it is doing to combat the evolution of media?

In fact, why isn’t radio, at the national and local level, doing its best to create its exclusive, paid streaming services? Especially given the strength of some of its brands, the potential is enormous.

Sure, there are national and local examples of podcast networks being built out by radio groups to create new revenue streams via the traditional advertising model. This is a smart step to take, and having the power and still, massive reach of radio to cross-promote the podcasts makes complete sense.

However, even that isn’t happening with the frequency it should be happening.

And what about thinking even bigger?

I know radio has stood on its branding of being “free” for decades. And yes, the fact it is “free” allows it to reach more people than any other traditional media platform.

But what about thinking bigger? And thinking “paid”? Why can’t and why shouldn’t radio truly invest in the kind of programming that you’re seeing on the TV news side of our business?

One could argue that this is more imperative for TV, as the cable bundle was always a crucial part of revenues, and those are at risk in the future. OK, well, radio, and all traditional media in general, has the same problem in that revenue streams are harder to maintain as advertisers continue to have more options in a digital world. It’s supply and demand.

So while radio isn’t necessarily needing to replace a revenue stream like TV, there’s never harm in adding a new one.

Here’s the problem, though: to do it right, it would take serious investment, time, and attention.

Do you think the industry is interested in that at this point in time? I don’t.

That’s certainly their prerogative. But it’s a missed opportunity. We have more than enough evidence that people are willing to pay for quality content, whether it’s written, audio, or visual.

In fact, consumers are getting more programmed to have to pay for content they really like and want.

So for radio to take a back seat at this moment is a mistake. Whether it’s exclusive, subscriber-based, long-form audio content, or even building out digital TV content that is unique to a market or is national in nature, there is demand for the content.

But who has the audacity to take the first step?

Seth Resler Wants Stations To Rethink How They Find Clients

Jeff Caves
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“Cold calling and prospecting are techniques that should be left in the 1990s where they belong.”

How much do you prospect? If you’re a new rep, probably 80% of your time is spent looking for meetings. Even veterans have to invest 20% of their time in new initiatives and prospects. Without enough prospects who take appointments to buy, we will never hit our budgets.

Hubspot says 72% of companies who have under 50 closing appointments a month will not hit their goals. If the sales staff get as many as 51-100 asks, 85% will HIT their goals. So, how do we find prospects willing to take an appointment?

According to Seth Resler, we ask the wrong people to handle the processs. Resler has worked on-air, as a programmer and is currently a digital strategist with Jacobs Media. He helps radio stations design action plans to combine web, social, email, SEO, content, and lead generation. He also thinks we are going about prospecting all wrong. And, I agree. It is time for radio stations to invest in a Sales Marketing Director, not promotions.

Hire someone who knows where the money is, not the promotions or supplies closet. Consolidate wherever you have to in the station but hire a person who creates leads every month for new business, NTR, and target accounts already on the air. We can save sales jobs if we hire Sales Marketing Directors. Seth has some ideas on station organization, digital lead gen, and where we should be prospecting for clients and shared them with me recently.

JEFF CAVES: How should a radio rep in a mid-size market prospect for new business? In-person or phone cold calling seems to dominate.

SETH RESLER: Radio sales reps should not be prospecting for new business. In the radio industry, a Marketing Director is tasked with growing the audience. This is different from most other industries, where a Marketing Director is charged with attracting new customers. Marketing departments often generate leads to pass to the sales reps. In the radio industry, we don’t have marketing staff on the sales side of the building; instead, we ask our sales reps to be marketers. This is a mistake because sales and marketing require two completely different skillsets.

Radio stations should hire a Marketing Director for the sales team — a completely different position from the Marketing or Promotions Director on the programming side of the building — who is responsible for generating leads for the sales reps. The sales reps should follow up on these leads, not developing their own. Cold calling and prospecting are techniques that should be left in the 1990s where they belong.

JC: What are some examples of how reps can develop digital content to attract new clients?

SR: The Marketing Director should create digital content to attract clients, not the sales reps — though the sales reps can undoubtedly help out. Start by brainstorming a list of questions that sales reps consistently hear from clients, such as “How do I write a great radio commercial?” or “How do I figure out which dayparts are best for my business?” Create content to answer each of these questions. That content can take multiple forms — articles, videos, podcasts, webinars, etc. Don’t be afraid to recycle content by answering the same question in multiple formats.

JC: Where should that content be promoted to gain traction with ad buyers, small business owners, and even office managers who buy or decide who gets to sell advertising?

SR: Google. Radio station tends to devote a lot of their attention to social media and very little to search engine optimization. If you wanted to know how to write a great radio commercial, what’s the first website you would turn to? Probably Google. That’s where this content needs to be.

JC: What has been the success of station sales staff hosting webinars on radio advertising topics? How does it work?

SR: Webinars are a fantastic tool. Start by finding a question or series of questions that potential clients ask. For example, you could write a webinar on “What Advertisers Need to Know About Nielsen Ratings.” Create a slideshow presentation and set up the webinar presentation on software like Zoom Webinar, GoToWebinar, or WebEx.

But the most important part is to find a partner for the webinar. Good candidates are local chambers of commerce, business publications, economic development corporations, hospitality groups, or other industry trade organizations. A good partner is an organization that serves the same people —  local business owners or local marketing directors — but does not compete with your radio station. You also want a partner who has a robust email database that they can use to promote the webinar.

The partner’s organization benefits from the radio station’s webinar content; it enables the partner to provide value to their members or constituents. The station gets value because the partner organization will promote the webinar, attracting attendees from businesses that the station might not reach on their own.

After the webinar, make sure you get the email addresses of everyone who attended. Do not give them to sales reps yet. These are not qualified leads; these are just people who attended a webinar. These people should be added to the sales email database (not the listener email database) and put subscribed to a lead nurturing email campaign. 

“But wait! ” you exclaim, “What’s a lead nurturing campaign and who puts that together?” That’s why you need to hire a Marketing Director.

JC: What can reps do in content or webinar marketing if they do it independently of the stations’ assets? Some reps don’t feel welcome asking others to change how they spend their time working.

SR: The best thing sales reps can do is make the case to their GM and GSM that the station needs to hire somebody whose sole job is to generate leads for the sales team. If a sales rep has strong marketing skills — not all do — they can make the case that their role should be changed to focus solely on lead generation.

ESPN 103.3 In Dallas Flips To Religious Format

BSM Staff
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ESPN 103.3 In Dallas Flips To Religious Format

This is a story that we knew was coming. It was just a matter of when. ESPN 103.3 in Dallas is no more. The signal is now home to a religious station.

The station launched in 2001 as an ESPN/Disney owned and operated property. That continued until 2013. In August of that year, Cumulus entered into an agreement with ESPN. The company signed an LMA with Disney that would give them control of the station.

ESPN 103.3 operated under those terms until October of 2020. That is when the LMA ended and Cumulus ceased all local programming on the station. It had been airing a straight feed of ESPN Radio since then.

The station was the radio flagship of the Dallas Mavericks for its entire life until this season. The team moved its radio broadcast to iHeartMedia’s 97.1 The Eagle.

It had been known that changes were on the way. Disney sold the signal to VCY America in December. The evangelical Christian ministry owns and operates 31 stations across the country.

On Wednesday night, the call letters officially changed and 103.3 is now home of KVTD and airing VCY America’s nationally syndicated programming.

At one time, Dallas was considered an outlier for having three sports stations. Now, it may lead America in Christian formatted signals, with nearly 20 in the metro.

Benjamin Hall: The Media Isn’t Drumming Up Emotional Response

BNM Staff
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Fox News reporter Benjamin Hall has a very different take on the war in Ukraine than his colleague Greg Gutfeld. 

During “The Five” on Tuesday, Gutfeld said the media was trying to create a “galvanizing narrative” to sell an idea about the war.

Two videos tweeted out by The Daily Beast document the varying perspectives/opinions of Hall and Gutfeld. Hall has a front-row seat to the horrific devastation caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion. 

“Speaking as someone on the ground, I want to say that this is not the media trying to drum up some emotional response,” Hall said. “This is absolutely what is happening.”

Prior to Hall’s comments, Gutfeld said, “If you try to counter the drumbeat, you’re seen as an inconsiderate, cold-hearted p—y.”

Hall played a clip documenting how an emotional Ukrainian woman decided to leave everything behind. “There are more videos than we know what to do with,” he said.

“It’s an absolute catastrophe and the people who are caught in the middle are the ones who are really suffering,” Hall added. According to the Associated Press, an estimated two million people have fled Ukraine as of Tuesday. 

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