Radio Waves
The panel was entitled “Radio News: Past, Present and Future.”
With panelists whose careers dated back to the ’50s (Gil Haar) and the ’60s (Stan Burford, John Catchings and moderator Peter Cleaveland), there was plenty of nostalgia at the Broadcast Legends’ most recent luncheon. It fell to KCBS’ director of news and programming, Jack Swanson, and morning co-anchor Stan Bunger to talk about radio news today, and tomorrow.
Like the star that he is (he ran KGO’s news operation during many of its years atop the ratings), Swanson stayed quiet until halfway through the hourlong discussion, when he was called on, following a parade of stories from radio’s past. With his booming voice, Swanson proceeded to steal the show.
“The challenges are different today,” he began. “Doesn’t mean radio news is gone. The KCBS newsroom is probably bigger than it’s ever been. … Our biggest competitor is a news and information powerhouse, KQED. So the big race in radio is about news and information — it hasn’t died. But it is no longer protected by the government, the FCC. It’s protected only by banks and people who want to make a lot of money.”
He continued: “You could buy the No. 2 radio group in America today, something like 475 radio stations for something in the neighborhood of $15 million. Jim Gabbert (the former owner of radio and TV stations, who was in the audience) could trade his boat and be the second biggest broadcaster in America (Cumulus Media).” LOL. “He’d also get about $2 billion in debts and have a company that’s headed for the rocks of bankruptcy. The two biggest companies — iHeart and Cumulus — will be in bankruptcy or receivership by the end of the year. I don’t think anybody wants to bet against me on that one.”
Swanson was optimistic about his employer, CBS Radio, which is merging with Entercom, “because the debt’s a little less.” He added, “We’re still in the radio news business. We’re just more in the business than the news, to some degree.”
Bunger was always more into the news. Graduating from S.F. State, he gained experience at various small-town stations before returning to San Francisco. Those stations amounted to a radio equivalent of a farm system. “They don’t exist anymore,” said Bunger, “and that’s part of the tragedy. It means the people in those towns no longer have a local voice,” by way of reporters covering local news. That function, Swanson said, is being filled by sites like Nextdoor, which allows neighbors to communicate online.
Swanson recently spoke with a 22-year-old KCBS staffer and wondered aloud, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a 3½-minute summary of all the news, including sports and entertainment?” She responded, “I would never want that!” Why? Swanson’s theory: “The younger generation views news not as a blue-plate special, but as a big smorgasbord — pick what you want. ‘I don’t want you telling me.’ ”
Years ago, he said, “We were the news. Now, we don’t control it. They have access to everything we have now — and music.”
“The reality,” said Bunger, “is that we’re not the first source of information much anymore. Twitter beats us on most everything; let’s not kid ourselves. It’s more our job to be the interpreter, the analyzer, the separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaffer.” Indicating his phone, he added, “This is the conduit to the world. Everything I need to know is here.”
But he struck a hopeful note about his medium. “The part of radio that’s having trouble is the part that’s easily replicated. The part where people talk and communicate with others, about news, sports, things they’re passionate about. … There’s still money in radio. There’s a future.”
Swanson called Bunger and co-anchor Susan Leigh Taylor his “company” every morning. “They hold my hand and get me going. Google can’t do that. Alexa can’t do that. TV can’t do that. … Radio can do that, and that hasn’t stopped.”
Cleaveland opened the discussion with a reminder that in the ’60s, most stations, of all formats, carried full news departments, in part because they had to satisfy an FCC dictum that a license holder operate “in the public interest, convenience and necessity.” No more.
As the panel concluded, Gabbert, who was a fiercely independent station owner and programmer, rose and echoed one of Swanson’s points. “The industry is run by Wall Street and investment bankers,” he said, “and they don’t give a s— about public interest or anything else. If they could run 35 commercials an hour, they’d do it. And that has really hurt the broadcast industry.”
Cleaveland then called on Haar to conclude the event the way he closed his newscasts on KYUU and elsewhere, and Haar happily complied, intoning: “So now you know.” R.I.P.: At the quarterly Broadcast Legends luncheon, Cleaveland noted the deaths of several broadcasters in recent months. They included Dave Anderson, 66, a top-rated announcer on KOIT for years; Ron Cowan, 82, owner of KJAZ and the developer of Harbor Bay Isle in Alameda; and Bob Benson, 74, a news programmer and manager who is credited with teaming Jim Dunbar and Ted Wygant on mornings on KGO in the late ’60s. And, from Peter Boam, I learned of the death in January of his fellow KLIV DJ, John Bettencourt. “He was a great guy, and too young — 68 — to pass.”