LeGeyt: Broadcasters Must Stay Vocal As AM Bill Awaits Action.

In the wake of Connoisseur Media’s acquisition of Alpha Media — creating a company with 218 stations across 47 markets, reaching approximately 20% of the U.S. population — Connoisseur Media CEO Jeff Warshaw shared some of the company’s plans going forward with Borrell Associates CEO Gordon Borrell, on Borrell’s “Local Marketing Trends” podcast.

“There’s a lot of work to do,” Warshaw says, “[but] we don’t anticipate a lot of changes. I feel like my job is to listen [and] understand the operations better. When I talk to the managers, I really want to know what we can do that would help them grow their business.”

Asked whether Alpha has room for growth when it comes to local focus, Warshaw tells Borrell, “We all have room for growth. Although [their stations] are very much local focused, we have the resources and the belief that larger sales forces, with relationships and the ability to sell multi-platform, is really critical for radio to be successful.”

As to the importance of multi-platform, Warshaw notes that “we sell digital, we sell events, we sell radio. We sell lots of things to try to get results for our clients. Our job is to make our clients happy, and they’re going to buy digital, so we want to do as good a job as we can providing that service.”

Pressed by Borrell on what his “secret sauce” is for radio’s success and how to compete with digital, Warshaw responds, “Local advertisers need help getting better results from their advertising [and] are hungry for creative ideas [and] community involvement. Radio is a very trusted medium, local talent is beloved and trusted and a very effective advertising tool in a local community. We can bemoan the fact that the business is much more competitive because digital has become by far the dominant chair grabber of any media, or we can sit back and say some of this damage is self-inflicted, and we’ve taken our eye off the ball, and [that] we’ve forgotten our unique selling proposition is to be vital to our communities [and to] provide ample opportunity for our employees to grow and to be part of an organization that they feel good about.”

Asked why Connoisseur would purchase more stations going forward, Warshaw says, “We have a great balance sheet and a proven track record of success in every market. We have historically been the number-one operator in most of our markets, with very high market share. We have a great balance sheet, and that’s not something that’s very common right now in our industry.”

With this and future station group purchases, is Connoisseur aiming for the top five radio owners vs. just the top 10? Warshaw’s answer: “The goal is not to be the biggest. It is to be the best.”

Borrell’s response: “That’s a damn good answer.”