Let me explain how Rush got to be so powerful on the AM radio dial and why it is highly [View all]

[WCGreen]

unlikely to happen again...

Back in the 1980's, the law of the land restricted the number of radio and television stations one person or company could own in any given market. It was called Duopoly and that kept the local airwaves competitive.

But when cable TV moved into the picture, everything changed.

Suddenly, the small businesses in these small and medium sized markets could now afford to advertise on Cable. Am radio which was a way to make a decent living for the owner/operator, lost a ton of ad money to the cable companies.

Rush, or whoever was working with him at the time, saw an opportunity to get his show off a few stations and into hundreds by offering all these struggling mom and pop radio stations a chance to stay in the business. His EIB network worked like this, they would syndicate for free and allow the local station to place a certain amount of ads during his show.

Rush had several national accounts from places like Snapple which was struggling to get a toehold in the US soft drink industry. So he would make his money off of the national accounts.

At the local level, the owner could run those three hours without having to pay a DJ. They hired kids who wanted to be in radio to stay in the booth so that if anything happened with the signal, they could switch over to live radio.

Everybody wins in this scenario. Rush makes money and increases his reach with little to no cost. The local owner doesn't have to pay an on air talent and the local advertisers liked the idea of being on a national radio show even though the signal was beamed in.

By the end of the 80's, Rush had built such a large following that he could go into the larger markets and sell his show to the struggling AM radio stations.

That's how it started and Rush pushed to make it a one shot deal by lobbying to get rid of those restrictions on market ownership percentages and poof, all those mom and pop radio station were quickly snapped up by companies like Clear Channel.

That is why this kind of stuff cannot happen again. Large media conglomerations own most of those AM radio stations across the country and the only way to get programming on to those stations is to go through the big corps.

Now I am sure there are hundreds of little radio stations out there in small to medium sized markets that are still hanging on, but that means you would have to go to each and everyone and try and sell your format.

No one has done that because it is a monumental task to first ID the stations and then convince a local business person who probably belongs to the local Chamber of Commerce to put progressive talk shows on their station.

Good luck with that.

To me, I think continuing to build a presence on the web is the way to go because that is where our core market resides and it is a lot cheaper to break into.