Pat Barry, On-Air Personality: "We Can Increase Our Audience And Revenue - Without Operating Costs Going Up"

You’ve introduced the Rolling Stones at the Rubber Bowl in Akron, hosted an afternoon-drive Talk show during the 9/11 attacks and currently are on-air in afternoons with a locally owned Country station in Cincinnati. You’ve literally had a front-row seat and been behind the mic for the last six decades of radio. What stands out to you about radio?

Pat: A powerful fundamental remains constant. Radio stations can increase their listening, even doubling or tripling it, and there is no corresponding increase in operating costs. What other business besides broadcasting can say that? If a pizza place doubles its customer count, sure the revenue goes up, but so do the costs. Even streaming doesn’t work like that. Radio truly has a unique business model where we can increase our audience and revenue without costs going up.

Over the years, radio has continued to thrive because we consistently adapt and grow. What are the opportunities for radio moving forward?

Pat: Since the adoption of color TV in the 1950s, radio’s “days have been numbered.” If we don’t have the confidence to navigate current and future disruptions by now, shame on us. Last time I checked, we remain the most consistently profitable audio platform by a very healthy margin.

Let’s hope Randy Michaels does something soon on a large scale. The radio industry needs his leadership and innovation. Each part of broadcasting has a leading expert on sales, programing, marketing, engineering, and more, Randy is the only person with high degree of expertise in every broadcasting category.

Radio’s current model of playing too many commercials, too many commercials in a row and too many really bad commercials is not sustainable. If you are selling spots and not buying into what Jerry Lee is preaching, you have a limited future. How many bad, non-engaging, non-effective spots run on your station every hour? I can remember when “copywriter” was a job at every successful radio station.

As an industry, we spend a lot of time looking for ways to fix radio; how can someone reading this article benefit from your wisdom and maximize and enhance what’s already working?

Pat: I feel lucky to currently work for a local owner, Jeff Ziesmann. Fifteen years ago, Jeff took a Northern Kentucky rim-shot loser and made it huge success. Last October he added the massive signal 105.9 WNKN in Middletown, OH (between Cincinnati and Dayton). A great investment.

I started in May of this year and we are now the #2 Country station in Cincinnati. We add cume every month. We run the same jocks and same music on both stations, but we do separate shows with different content for each station. Even different contests. We also sell either station or both. Smart guys, the Jeff Z-man and our PD Peter Z.

It’s a very creative way to do business. We also do very cutting edge things like limit the number of spots in each stopset and give category-exclusive in each set. Recently on Sunday night at 11:10p, I was listening to another station and heard 10 spots in a row, followed by a two-minute contest disclaimer. Why would an advertiser want that?

With radio consumption dominated by employed people who have money to spend with our advertisers, what’s the best opportunity for radio to accelerate its momentum?

Pat: Live reads and endorsements. Best example and still the gold standard is Paul Harvey. If he gave a product the Paul Harvey stamp of approval, it was a big success.

The national weekend how-to home improvement show with Gary Sullivan is a good current example. Gary has tremendous credibility and the advertisers benefit when he recommends a product.

Radio listening isn’t being upended by time-shifted consumption like television. There is no DVR for radio. How does radio use that to its advantage?

Pat: If you don’t hear my show and the content live, then you’re NOT going to hear it. It creates “Can’t Miss Moments” and there’s no easily available rewind button. And while some of it may be tracked, I still do a ton of research for every show. I try not to miss anything that’s going on, which matters to the listener.

TV is produced way in advance. And available in many forms. Only their local news is live. But the TV producers have scared the viewers. Now every story is ‘Breaking News.” A sunny day doesn’t require eight reports every half-hour. And TV does a poor job of what radio can do easily. Radio can help put you in a better mood. Driving your car on a sunny day with the right song on the radio is a complete mood changer.

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Thanks for reading and working each day to drive radio forward.