Radio Needs To Fix Its Balance Sheet

9

Trila Bumstead owns 11 stations in Astoria, Oregon, Wasilla, Alaska, and Anchorage, Alaska. She worked at the stations since 1999 when she was with New Northwest Broadcasters. And in 2011, she purchased 9 of the 11 stations when NNB went through their sales process. Bumstead is part of the upcoming Independent Warrior Special Report in the May 23rd issue of Radio Ink Magazine. As part of that report, we asked every one of the independent operators we interviewed what they would like to see radio do better, to make it stronger. Trila Bumstead echoed what many had to say.

RI: What Should Radio Be Doing Better?
Bumstead: Given the fact that I’m a recovering CPA, (she worked for Deloitte and Touche for five years), I would like to see much stronger balance sheets. I would like to see much stronger performance and less leverage in the industry. More on a singular level, on a station-by-station level, it’s figuring out and holding rates. Charging rates for your radio station that are more than what it costs you to run it. If you always have the best stations in town, selling their products for less than what it cost them to operate, using it as a loss leader, it’s bad for all of us. Because if you’re in a second or third place station and you can’t charge what you need to charge to cover your operating expenses, then you can’t invest in that product.

Those are the two big things we really need to look at industry-wide, to make sure that we’re healthy and viable as we move forward. Because realistically, at the end of the day, if you don’t have a profitable industry, you cannot invest in innovation, like new technologies, like digital, and all of that. That’s part of why we’ve been slow to the pick up here, because the balance sheet has looked bad for so long, and they just continue to not be strong. Until that gets fixed, I think we’re in for more of the same.

Independent operators are sticking it out, gutting it out. Alpha Media was the first group in a super long time to put together a consolidated group. It’s just not happening. Well, there’s a reason for that. Given my financial background, that’s the take I have on it. It resonates when I’ve gone out and tried to raise capital. That’s where the stress is. My balance sheet looks great. But as an industry, investors are nervous about it. That’s my two cents for whatever it’s worth.

Reach out to Trila to say hello at t[email protected]
To subscribe to Radio Ink magazine in time to receive this issue, GO HERE

9 COMMENTS

  1. Don’t you just love pretentious offerings like Patric’s?
    “new media, multimedia,relevant,viable,monetize,multimedia” Go play with your cellphone.

    • Says the guy who wants radio to return to 1986.

      The point, Mel…is that radio had a window to evolve, along with the rest of the world, and stubbornly refused. Now newspaper, and tons of new media is stripping listeners, advertisers, and next generation customers, and radio continues to eat itself with lower rates…no viable alternatives…and doing their best to keep the “status quo.”

      I am far from a kid “Playing with my cell phone.” I have been in and around broadcasting for 35 years, owned an ad agency for 17 of those years, and have owned a company that has been trying to get radio to become relevant again, since 1999. The problem isn’t i-Heart, or Cumulus, or even RAB/NAB. It is the owners who continue to think their competition is the radio station down the street…rather than every other option that the listening public has (that isn’t the same old format…delivered the same old way…at prices that are in many cases LESS than they were in 1996-before the deregulation created homogenized, cookie cutter, non-local formats).

      • Figured you were a consultant looking for work.
        Really wish people who have left radio would stop coming back here for a visit. There is a reason that you didn’t make it in radio and we are doing fine without you.

        • LOL… Yer killin’ it Mel. I never left radio. Radio, as we knew it, left radio.

          Same formats…audited by the same inadequate rating systems…neglecting the hyper-local audience that used to rely on you.

          Once radio became all about “real estate” and “wall street” and not about main street, the listeners, advertisers, and creative providers all headed for more fertile pastures.

          There are some great radio operators out there. I’ll be curious to see who Radio Ink has deemed worthy of “warrior status.”

          • Patric, m’ lad..
            To you and the other “formerly in radio” commenters-
            next time, come back after you’ve been invited.

          • Mel is one of the old timers who believe radio holds the same relivence as it did twenty years ago.

            Those still working in the industry are the people who do far more for much less money, at a noticeably poorer quality.

            He wouldn’t recognize a need to improve the product because he has no idea how difficult quality radio is to make – therefore, whatever comes out of the speaker is good enough for his aging audience.

  2. There are so many things wrong with this post, that it makes my head spin. I want to make sure I get this straight…so, radio is “slow to pick up” when it comes to new media, multimedia (simply evolving with the rest of the world), but can’t/won’t invest in something that can save it from itself, because it can’t/won’t hold rate?

    How about creating a relevant, viable product that the listener/users want, so the station has more ways to monetize, while helping their advertising clients reach a larger, more multimedia-centric audience?

    Radio. Yer killin’ it…

  3. Tom gives evidence in writing on why you should never hire him. He can only sell if he has no competition. Tom’s logic has it that the GEO should have been the best selling car in history.
    Congrats to Trila Bumstead on her well-run operation and giving the industry a business approach to rates and cash flow.

  4. If you have the only stations in town–you can hold on rates. In most markets, there are too many stations. And if you are in the same market as an I-Heart cluster–watch out! I-heart is grabbing any buy coming down the pike–rate be d*mmed!

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here