On November 12, The Library of American Broadcasting Foundation will induct the 2024 Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts at New York City’s Gotham Hall. Among those honorees is McVay Media President Mike McVay. Radio Ink talked with McVay about what it means to be a giant of radio.
Radio Ink: What does it mean to you to be named a giant of broadcasting?
Mike McVay: It’s a little bit surreal. Okay, maybe a lot surreal. As busy as I am, I never pause long enough to assess where I am in my career or what my accomplishments have been. Family and close friends will often tell me I need to stop and smell the roses.
The magnitude of this one is big because when you look at the history of the names of others who’ve received the recognition in the past, it’s huge and it’s beyond radio. Big, monstrous names from the ’30s have been acknowledged. And so it means a lot to me. It’s surreal enough that I don’t think it’s fully sunk in yet and probably won’t until the minute I hear my name from the stage.
Radio Ink: And you’ll be sharing that stage with some big names, including ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, who you’ve worked with extensively in the past. That has to be a pretty special moment for you, just on its own.
Mike McVay: Stephen is an amazing talent and I first worked with him many years ago. He had been at ESPN for a while. He’d been there for a couple of years, did not get renewed, and sat out of work for about a year. Julie Talbot and Jen Leimgruber at Premiere Networks hired him to do the morning show on the East Coast for Fox Sports. They reached out and asked me if I could work with him. And from that, a relationship started.
Stephen honored me by giving me a page and a half in his book. That unto itself was not only an honor, but a surprise, because he talked about how he looks to me as a mentor. And so having Stephen there on that stage with me at the same time is special because I have the greatest respect for him and what he’s accomplished. And, frankly, I don’t know that I’m worthy to be on the stage with him getting that recognition. But I am proud of him and honored to be there.
Radio Ink: To become a giant, you have to go through some trials. Are there any particular moments that you found tested your resolve but ultimately made you a stronger leader or broadcaster?
Mike McVay: Every year and every job, there’s one of those moments.
I can remember being a morning talent and program director in Wheeling, West Virginia, and thinking I was never going to be in a market bigger than that. I can remember being in Los Angeles as a program director, hearing the radio station’s being sold, and wondering if I will ever get back to a major market. There are times as an independently employed person you sit and look at the checkbook or the economy and you realize that consultants and outside services are the first things to be cut when there is an economic downturn. And so that roller coaster ride has challenged me many times.
But when you eat what you kill, it’s why you keep killing when the herd is coming by. So it’s why I am so busy all the time because you just never know when there’s going to be a famine.
Radio Ink: As someone who’s helped guide the industry through so much change that you talk about, I mean, what do you see as some of the biggest challenges and also some of the biggest opportunities for radio in the years ahead?
Mike McVay: Well, there’s good and bad in many things, right? You see things that look good that turn out to be bad but could become good again. In the ’90s, when consolidation took off, it was a very good time for a long time. People like myself who consulted radio stations saw great growth, so I benefited from that consolidation. But then as consolidation reached that critical mass, the only way you could continue to grow financially is by making cuts. Those challenges became deep and serious.
Out of that, it forced us to become better operators. Now, that’s arguable. There will be those who will read this and think we’re not better operators. But the first wave of consolidators took on a lot of debt that the second and third wave of operators are dealing with today.
The benefits that have arisen are things like the ability to broadcast across multiple platforms and generate revenue from it, and the opportunity for a talent to be in one market and perform in several other markets. The sad part of it all is when people lose jobs, but that culling of the herd does put us in a position where the industry can grow in the future.
Radio Ink: The Library of American Broadcasting and the Foundation, their goal is to preserve radio and television history. To you, what is the importance of safeguarding radio’s history?
Mike McVay: So many people today forget where we came from, or don’t even pause to think about where we came from. What’s the famous quote? “Those who fail to know history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.” And that’s a big part of it.
But the other part of it is there are many people whose shoulders we stand on. If you are a woman in media, you’re standing on the shoulders of Lucille Ball. You’re standing on the shoulders of Diane Sawyer. You’re standing on the shoulders of other women who accomplished things that even today are considered greatly successful. If you are a person of color, you’re standing on many shoulders.
If you are a broadcaster who has never experienced having a pretend radio station in your parents’ basement or attic, you’ve missed something. With today’s opportunity to have a podcast where people can actually hear you – many of us didn’t have that. So I think it’s valuable to think back to that history.
I had a conversation just the other day with a leader in the broadcast industry talking about how just 20 or 25 years ago, there were morning talent on both spoken word and music stations who were individuals by themselves who could entertain a full audience for four hours by themselves. Today, that seems to be a lost art. Everybody has to have three, four, and five people around them to create those different experiences.
History will lead someone to an amazing communicator who can do it by themselves, like a Delilah or a Mark Levin. Those are people who can tell stories and present something without a safety net.
Radio Ink: You tie that in so nicely to the final question. On a personal level who are your giants of broadcasting?
Mike McVay: I was very fortunate to grow up in Pittsburgh, which had a lot of on-air personalities back in the time I was growing up. And so people like Jack Bogut, who I later worked with and coached, Jim Quinn, Bob DeCarlo, Chuck Brinkman, are all names that I heard on music radio who were great entertainers. Jackson Armstrong was another one who I ended up listening to while I was a kid in high school and being the program director for when I was in Los Angeles. I learned from them.
Charlie Tuna, a legendary morning man in Los Angeles at multiple stations for years, was the morning man at 10Q when I was there.
I was talking to a friend not long ago and I was talking about what I learned from working for big-name personalities. My friend said, “Did you hear what you just said? You said when you were working for those big-name personalities.” I really felt like I was because my success was dependent on their success. My job was to help them accomplish success, so we all had success. I point back to Pittsburgh, growing up with those talent and with so many mentors who taught me how to be a good on-air talent, how to be a Program Director, how to be a Market Manager, how to be a station owner. All of those things have come back to help me. And I’m continuing to learn.
Those who know me have heard me say before, I am a lifelong project. I never want to sit down and go, “I’m finished, it’s baked, we’ve done it, the bread has risen.” It hasn’t.
The Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts ceremony, presented by the LABF, supports the preservation and expansion of the Library of American Broadcasting’s collection at the University of Maryland. The library, one of the largest of its kind, plays a crucial role in preserving and providing access to broadcast archives that showcase the industry’s profound impact on global culture and history.
Additionally, proceeds from the 2024 Giants of Broadcasting luncheon will assist the Broadcast Education Association in funding research, creative grants, and academic publications related to broadcast media.
Tickets are available on the Library’s website.
Much Respect…