The July edition of Radio Ink Magazine is here, and with it comes the release of the 40 Most Powerful People in Radio. Built from the ground up each year, this definitive list is more than a who’s who – it’s the industry benchmark for influence, leadership, and impact.
Alongside the rankings, honorees address three urgent issues facing the business: how to grow digital revenue without cannibalizing core radio, whether scale always wins in the era of deregulation, and how their companies are mentoring tomorrow’s leaders.
This issue also includes our Top 40 Advertisers, revenue data for the Top 40 Ownership Groups, and a full retrospective charting every honoree since the list’s 1996 inception.
What else will you find in July’s Radio Ink?
Lifetime Leadership Award: Randy Michaels
From his beginnings as on-air talent at WGR to a remarkable ascent into executive positions with Jacor Communications, Oak Hill Capital Partners, and the Tribune Company, to his current role as owner of Radioactive, LLC, Randy Michaels has had an incredible media career, and he’s not done yet! Our interview with Michaels touched on many topics, including:
- How he got into radio as a college student.
- The importance of making radio FUN.
- The impact of corporate debt on radio programming quality.
- The future of AM radio.
Leading Like Churchill
Radio Ink President & Publisher Deborah Parenti knows a thing or two about leadership. In her monthly column, Parenti lauds the example set by Sir Winston Churchill during World War II, when he led his nation through one of its darkest hours. Parenti points out how Churchill exemplified leadership (including his masterful use of the radio!) and encourages us all to take heed.
As Sir Winston himself said: “Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.”
Put Down The Prompt
AI can be a useful tool, but it has its limitations. The Wizard of Ads, Roy Williams, explains the psychology behind writing ad copy for radio and notes how and why relying on AI to write copy falls flat. He demonstrates how the human factor is indispensable to effective copywriting.
Plus Exclusive Content From More of Radio’s Top Voices
John Shomby explores how to identify and overcome impostor syndrome, AI expert Dara Kalvort gives tips to cut out those nagging routine tasks, Grace Agostino shows radio sellers how to harness social media for prospecting, plus plenty more takes that will make you money.
You won’t read this on our website or anywhere else – you have to pick up your copy!
If you are already a print subscriber, your issue is on the way! Ensure that you never miss another issue: click here to subscribe! Already a subscriber? Renew your subscription or consider a gift subscription for a colleague or team member!
Dear “40 most powerful people in radio”
While this list acknowledges your “power,” what the industry really needs from you right now is your leadership.
Some of you have been given responsibility over a massive amount of radio stations and platforms and all that you’ve managed to do in the last 5 years is lose an astonishing amount of money and severely weaken your companies as a result.
Some of you vaporized a few hundred million. Some of you flushed several billion down the toilet, so let’s be frank for a moment. Your power meant that your decisions have had a devastating effect on your companies and the industry as well. They have literally dimmed its future.
More importantly, your decisions have caused and continue to cause a lot of people to suffer. That’s where I have a problem and always will. You’re damaging people’s lives by forcing them into impossible situations without proper support and demanding them to do things that you yourself couldn’t possibly do on your best days. You’re setting them up to fail. Is that a sustainable plan? Is that thinking long term. Is that an effective use of your “power.”
While you took home some sizable paychecks and bonuses, it was at the expense of hard working front line employees out there who were forced to do three or four people’s jobs, but paid for only one, then fired if they pushed back or didn’t somehow manage to pull it off. You took a once fun, small, local, highly profitable business and turned it into a stressful, money losing mess by crushing the creative magic that it once had, then you still had no earthly idea how to generate enough revenue to pay your bills and make a profit because at the end of the day, you’re not talented managers. You’re opportunists. There’s an enormous difference.
While plenty of small, independent radio station owners continue to make a substantial profit, the largest radio groups in the industry have been bleeding money at a record level. It begs the question, “Why?”
Do legitimate, high quality management teams lose money for 20 quarters? Is 20 quarters enough time to assess whether or not a management team knows what they’re doing? Let’s be honest about it. It’s more than enough time.
I’ve worked for small, independent radio station owners. I’ve also worked for several of the largest radio groups in the industry. The small radio group owners had, by far, the most intelligent, practical, winning strategies made the most substantial amounts of profit per station and paid their staffs the highest. It wasn’t even a contest. They weren’t perfect, but they were exceedingly more successful than the larger companies they competed against.
It’s because far too many people with “power” sit on management teams that have no idea what they’re doing, no idea of the value and capability that radio station platforms possess and no idea how to turn that capability into long term revenue growth.
Do you think the largest advertisers in the nation can’t see and aren’t directly impacted by all of this colossal buffoonery? They started stepping away from radio 20 years ago for other media choices that offered highly trained professionals with impeccable follow through and instant, tangible results with each “click.”
A few HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS just blew past radio and went straight to pay per click in 2024 alone! How many hundred billion dollars more do you have to watch completely bypass radio’s capabilities before you admit that your company has a MANAGEMENT problem and radio has a BRAND problem and now you have a FINANCIAL problem as a result? The carnage can all be traced back to the people who could do something about it. The 40 most powerful people in radio have had the 40 best chances to “get it right” and take it to the next level and pull radio out of this awful tailspin.
Did they?
Will they?
Here’s the most important question: “Can they?”
Let’s hope so. I’m rooting for them, but I’m also realistic. Let’s see some leadership, folks. A 3 year old can lose money each year, then fire a bunch of people. There’s no special talent required for that.
Let’s see who can start making some profit again with assets that have a very long history of making substantial profit. Let’s see who can lead. Let’s see who the real managers are and who the “fake it till ya make it” opportunists are. We’ll know when the second quarter earnings reports come out-and every quarter after that. You’re not fooling anyone. You’re either making a profit, or you’re failing. It’s that simple.
When a nine-year-old selling lemonade on their front lawn on a summer afternoon makes $7 dollars in profit and that $7 is literally over $4 BILLION DOLLARS MORE than the three largest radio groups COMBINED made in profit the last 5 years, that should tell you something about how people are using their power these days.
You can do better, folks.
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