Randy Michaels has never been shy about challenging radio’s sacred cows, and he’s still rewriting the rules. From his early days behind the mic in Buffalo to his leadership at Jacor, Tribune, and now Radioactive, LLC, Michaels has spent decades pushing boundaries.
In a candid and unfiltered conversation with Radio Ink Magazine, our 2025 Lifetime Leadership Award honoree reflects on the business of fun, the folly of chasing low-yield demos, and how AM can still win.
Radio Ink: You’re now running The Oasis (WOXY) in the Cincinnati/Dayton area. What is it like running an oldies station in 2025?
Randy Michaels: We don’t call it oldies, but I think it’s completely logical. The people using radio are people over 45. Those are the people who have the money. We are targeting people who have the money. Advertisers say, “We want 18 to 49, or we want 25 to 54.”
Really? That’s not who has the money. They say people over 50 have already made their brand choices. The younger people are the ones who are buying homes. Where do they get the down payment? They get it from Mom and Dad or from Grandma and Grandpa, who also give them advice on what to buy. We’ve got all the garden centers on because the people who own homes and who have the time to garden are all over 50.
If you’re selling a high-end car, those aren’t being sold to teenagers or 25-year-olds. They’re being sold to retired people who have the money to purchase a luxury car. Those are also the people who use the radio.
And so, with a couple of suburban signals that don’t really cover the city, we’re making a very nice cash flow by making direct calls to people. We won’t sell them time. Jeff Ziesmann is the guy running those stations, and he is a master at identifying the right clients. We won’t sell somebody a schedule unless they have enough money to buy enough time to achieve results, because we don’t want to sell ’em one schedule. We want to get them results so that they will renew and become a long-term client. If you don’t have enough money to spend to get results, we won’t take your business.
The salespeople go through training so they learn how to identify prospects. Most of the business we have on the air is enterprise. It’s business that the big guys don’t even call on, and if they do call on them, they try to sell some digital product that isn’t going to work for the client.
I’m not opposed to digital, it’s just what radio’s doing is almost criminal. The money is in the demos we’re targeting, and it’s the demos none of the big guys want. So we’ll take it.
For the full conversation, you have to pick up the July issue of Radio Ink Magazine! You won’t read this on our website or anywhere else. Get your digital copy here, right now.
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