UMG Nashville CEO – Radio Is The Key

0

Mike Dungan is Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group Nashville. UMG Nashville is the biggest — and one of the most successful — labels in country music. Some of the format’s biggest names call it home, including Luke Bryan, Keith Urban, Sam Hunt, Lady Antebellum, George Strait, Eric Church, and Alan Jackson. Dungan is also on the cover of the February 13 issue of Radio Ink, which also includes our Best Country Program Directors in America list.

In our cover story interview, we asked Dungan what he believes radio’s role is with his label and how important radio is to increasing his business. Here’s an excerpt from that interview.

Radio Ink: What do you see as radio’s role in the relationship with your label?
Mike Dungan: Radio is key. It’s still the biggest driver that we have in our business and for our business. Things have changed; it’s not the only driver now, but it’s still the quickest way to connect the lines and connect the dots between A and B. I recognize that radio has a different task. Their job is not to break records, break artists, or help me make money. Their job is to develop a listenership and draw revenue off of that listenership, and I try to give them everything that we can from our end to accomplish their goals. It’s very symbiotic for us. It can be frustrating sometimes, but for the most part, some of my best friends have come from the radio world. I started as a radio promotion guy in late 1979, and I still have relationships with people that I dealt with then.

Radio Ink: You can go elsewhere now. It’s not just radio. When you have to turn somewhere else, what are your choices? Where do you go to try to push the songs out?
Mike Dungan: The Internet gives us a whole bunch of different opportunities. We pound those as hard as we can, just trying to connect the dots between the fans and the music and the fans and the artists. You can drown in those opportunities, there are so many. I literally have people that their whole job here is just to assess who we want to interact with, whose “new service of the day” — because we seem to get three a day — we are going to start to pay attention to or start to interact with or start to spend some money on. There are a lot of different things that you can do to connect the fans and the music right now. But usually when we do so, we are trying to get the metrics to a point where radio will actually take it very seriously.

Radio Ink: It sounds like radio is still the best place to break an artist — is that accurate?
Mike Dungan: Well, I would say yes. I value our relationship with radio and the dynamic between radio and our business incredibly.

To subscribe to Radio Ink in time to receive our special Country Radio Seminar issue downloaded directly to your digital device, CLICK HERE

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here