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“TV gives everyone an image, but radio gives birth to a million images in a million brains” – Peggy Noonan.
Lauded Speechwriter Ms. Noonan knows a fair amount about the imagination of the spoken word – as outlined in this weekend’s CBS Sunday Morning piece.
The Election Week layoff tsunami from iHeart has receded as the Cumulus bloodletting continues. The time is ripe to resume the search for a million images from true LOCAL radio across the heartland.
Read the first half of our October journey – HERE.
During that westbound I-70 pilgrimage for a grandkid visit, we traveled from our Indiana home to Columbia, Missouri.
The nearly six-hour trip exposed us to some 100 different radio stations along our journey.
As a casual experiment and a bit of low-key research, we built impromptu Subaru radio-scanned playlists by sampling stations across each region.
In radio, there’s an adage that every quarter-hour —15 minutes — should tell your brand’s story through elements like imaging, talent, and contests.
Since the average listening session measured by PPM data is around 12 minutes — essentially a quarter-hour — we decided it was only fair to give each station we tuned into a single 15-minute listen.
Leaving St. Louis County and plowing the birthplace of the interstate system—St. Charles County—we’re entering what residents of The Gateway City know as The Westplex.
Westplex
This area covers towns like Warrenton, O’Fallon, Dardenne Prairie, Cottleville, Washington, St. Peters, and dozens more.
The Beasts of The Westplex belong to Kaspar Media of Missouri. The recently deceased Steve Kaspar ran great LOCAL brands including Country 99.9 KFAV, Rock 100.7 The Viper and Classic Country AM 730 KWRE. The Kaspers have been in radio since the 1950s. Yet, these brands could not provide local connections approaching sunset.
The KSLQ call letters are nearly 40 years old and are now in the hands of Brad Hildebrand, licensed to Washington, Missouri, at 104.5 FM. Brad—along with his brother Lance—built a St. Louis traffic empire in the 1980s, which—when sold—made them a handsome sum. Given his local pedigree, the lack of LOCAL programming here was also surprising. The same is true with his sister, Westplex 107.1.
The surprise of the Westplex scan came at 1220 AM—Americana KLPW (with a translator at 92.7). Licensed to Washington, Missouri, they are robust with audio about local high school and college sports. Their website also touts long-time St. Louis radio vets Diane Jones in mornings, along with KSHE Legends Katy Kruise and Radio Rich Dalton. Bravo!
Columbia
About 90 minutes west of The Westplex, we come within earshot of Columbia, a robust college town and home to the University of Missouri. As for radio, it’s truly a dual city as radio out of the Missouri State Capital of Jefferson City also penetrates the metro.
Our scan first encounters a collar county station in Mexico – Country 96 KWWR. As two of my kids graduated from Mizzou, I’ve encountered the frequency a dozen times. Nearly two decades ago, this brand was a vibrant LOCAL outlet. During the syndicated Original Country Gold with Rowdy Yates program, a brief mention of a shoe drive in Vandalia reflected any local flavor.
In the spirit of fairness, most local brands, including our clients, run syndication at night.
This low-budget experiment, ‘Kentucky-Windage’ research, will resume at first light.
Columbia – Day 2
This market has been robust and competitive for years. Columbia is the sort of market where talented air, programming, and salespeople come – and never leave.
The Cumulus brand 102.3 BXR is a prime example. Somewhat of an outlier for this company, it’s an Adult Alternative with an interesting Music Matrix (Muse – Peter Bjorn – Cage The Elephant) and highly LOCAL.
Their morning and afternoon talent collectively have five decades of time-in-grade, and they are at every huge Columbia event, including their own Barktoberfest—a Yappy Hour with cocktails and canines. In a company that prides itself on iPhone-generated playlists, 102.3 BXR certainly bucks its system.
Contemporary Christian Spirit FM has been our partner on and off for two decades. Jim McDermott’s Camdenton-based religious format is a legend in the Christian Radio world. Spirit FM has nearly a dozen frequencies covering 3/4 of Missouri. We pulled in their Class C out of Huntsville, Missouri. We were white-knuckling it for their local staff when The University of Northwestern added Spirit FM to their national stable of frequencies in July of 2023. Happy to hear that their tenured LOCAL personalities are thriving under new stewardship
The Gold Standard in Columbia radio – or and market – is Zimmer Communications. Founded in the middle of the last century, Zimmer has morphed as times change. Their industry trophies could fill a warehouse. An association with any Zimmer cluster and you’re ahead of the industry curve. This listening session was no exception.
On their Y107 brand, the married and energetic duo of Cosmo and Kat greet the sunrise with solid benchmarks like ‘Did You Know…’ – with plenty of live audience interaction. You would never know Kat is in St. Louis while Cosmo is on Columbia’s Route 63.
Zimmer’s talker 93.9 The Eagle boasts a five-person ensemble morning show, and with the election a month away, the studio was buzzing. On the flip side, the Cumulus News Talk is nearly 100% syndicated. All Zimmer brands scream LOCAL. Have a listen.
Lessons learned – verified – from this non-scientific research experiment:
- LOCAL radio is vibrant and thriving in smaller markets where owners invest in LOCAL talent
- The spiral demise of true LOCAL radio is a death by a thousand cuts
- Researching each station proves that those with a robust and growing social/digital footprint are winning the LOCAL battle.
Who will remain after the non-stop people bruising to create those ‘a million images’?
Time has the answer.
On the way back to my Indiana home on Sunday morning, the only LIVE product was Audacy’s KMOX.
Eliminating live, local weekend talent was one of the original – ‘thousand cuts.’
