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Dave Shakes, SVP/Strategic Development, Results Radio: "The Chief of Police was learning about the latest developments during the wild fires from us."
May 23, 2019
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. The local personalities who, over time and brick by brick, have built a reputation for knowing these streets and towns and relating to everyday life, are extended family members. When those personalities are telling you frankly and calmly what's going on, and what to do about it, it can be comforting as well as informative. A known and trusted personality calmly sharing lifesaving information is a public service radio broadcasters must do when the listener is freaked out, stuck in traffic with their hands on the wheel, eyes on the road
- Radio Rally Point was created by DMR/Interactive and All Access to shine a spotlight on the power of AM/FM radio. In this edition, DMR/Interactive Pres. Andrew Curran catches up with Dave Shakes, Senior Vice President/Strategic Development, Results Radio.
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You operate stations in Northern California and last year, wild fires made a devastating impact on the communities you serve. As you look back, what helps local radio stand out in these situations?
Dave: Two things come to mind.
Information: The heavy car traffic congestion heading away from the conflagration dealt with network-busy signals, and in some hilly/mountainous terrain, we know there are dead-spots for cell service even in normal circumstances. Radio's one-to-many transmission should be an asset for emergency services to get accurate information to the population when they can't get wireless Internet because of network congestion or when the power is out.
Companionship: The local personalities who, over time and brick by brick, have built a reputation for knowing these streets and towns and relating to everyday life, are extended family members. When those personalities are telling you frankly and calmly what's going on, and what to do about it, it can be comforting as well as informative. A known and trusted personality calmly sharing lifesaving information is a public service radio broadcasters must do when the listener is freaked out, stuck in traffic with their hands on the wheel, eyes on the road.
What are the challenges that stations should be aware of when reviewing their disaster response plans?
Dave: Beyond the words and action-steps of the station's disaster plan, are the fundamentals -- is everyone okay? Nearly everyone on staff had to deal with either evacuating their own homes, or knowing and worrying about a relative, friend, or co-worker who were evacuating their homes. The staff you thought might be available, might not be. You may not even be on the air, waiting for backup to kick on. Is the plan easy to access-in other words, it might be in a drawer or in someone's head, and the available staff doesn't know how to find that info.
Little things like "Where's the employee phone list" and you know it's distributed and everyone has it, but then someone changed their number and it's not updated yet on the list. But past that, assuming we're on the air, we have to get accurate information and get it out.
And here's another one, do you have press passes for your music DJs? In Redding, our building was in a mandatory evacuation zone with National Guard troops who wanted to see press passes, or they couldn't get in to do their jobs informing the public. Our Market Manager, Beth Tappan, was able to secure those through a city hall connection, but that was an unexpected hassle.
How do the various stations in your clusters and markets complement one another, share information and minimize duplication of effort?
Dave: We did experience duplication of effort in gathering information. In a major part, that's because one market might not know what the other nearby market is doing and so both are writing up the same regional information. A regional news operation wouldn't make that error, but we're talking about music station staffs who were very focused on getting information as quickly as possible.
They understandably were not thinking they needed to get on a conference call with another market while their town is burning; they've got work to do! But one great thing we already had in place to minimize duplication was something we call an "e-cart." It is a single audio cart shared by all the cluster stations, and it's already hard-wired as first-in stopsets. When we load it with audio, it is automatically ready to play on each cluster station. Updating it one time, extends the update immediately to the next airplay on every cluster station. We had it in place already for things like breaking news, major traffic, and fire coverage.
For the Camp and Carr Fires, our e-cart system was a real boon. In Redding, our KNCQ Q97 is Country, but has a strong image for local news and is probably #1 in the mind of the public for forest fire coverage year in and year out. The upper Sacramento Valley is surrounded by mountains to the east, north and west. Over the years, anytime there's smoke on the horizon, Q97 is talking about it. So that team felt an intense responsibility to get it right.
We formed teams of 3:1 person to gather info, two persons to tag-team broadcast live, supplemented with sister station air staff from our rock and Top 40 stations. They did that live, 24 hours, for almost a week.
With your local brands that have strong ties to their communities, what’s the response been from listeners and community leaders following the fires?
Dave: The response from community leaders was gratifying. For example, the Redding Chief of Police stopped by the station shortly after the worst was over to personally thank the team; he said there were some points as he was driving around managing his team, that he was learning about developments first from Q97.
And from listeners … so heartwarming. Redding and Chico have a lot of service-industry employment. These listeners can't cut big checks for charity. But they want to contribute-to do something! And we found that coin drives were a smash success. We raised tens of thousands in nickels, dimes, quarters. Kids bringing their piggy banks down, and adults handing cash to our DJs, trusting and knowing that the money would help their communities recover. That only happens because these local personalities have invested in a real relationship with the audience over many months and years. In sum: Coin drives are mass demo and mass appeal, which also deliver a mass impact.
When in disaster response mode, what role do your digital and social media channels play in keeping listeners informed and safe?
Dave: We updated and posted to let followers know the status of the station broadcasts. Frankly, most of our energy was placed on the motherships -- the radio stations. There was a lot of digital information out there and we would be only part of a sea of digital info, but our FM signals were the primary focus and gave us our best ability to really inform and comfort the public.
When communities have been impacted by a natural disaster, there’s plenty of rebuilding to be done, which means insurance and construction among other industries need to get the word out. What’s your experience been with demand for inventory?
Dave: Demand for inventory definitely increased from out of town insurance and legal services. We made sure to take care of our long time local advertisers. The businesses in the local markets are very supportive of each other, and we're one of them.
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Thanks for reading and working each day to drive radio forward.
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