Independently Owned and Operated. . .

I was reading one of my favorite Bloggers today. . . Mark Cuban over at Blog Maverick and he had a very good post on the whole Don Imus situation. In his blog he mentioned that b/c Imus was owned by a large public company that he really didn’t have a chance b/c these companies fight so hard to maintain their “squeaky clean” image that they, in a nutshell, are going to choose their battles wisely and this isn’t one they’re going to take on. In talking about publicly owned shows he made the following comments:

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” Excluding Premium Subscription Networks like Showtime and HBO where subscribers know what they are paying for, ” What TV networks would stand up for Maher or Imus and let the show go on ?”

Maybe Fox News. Fox is controlled by NewsCorp, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch. If you and Rupert were on the same side, then your show might have a shot. If you weren’t on the same side, then you probably wouldnt have a show in the first place.

Would any basic cable network ? Digital Network ? I doubt it. Why ? Because just about every one is owned by a public corporation. Can you name the cable networks that are privately owned ? What about individually owned ? Besides my HDNet, the only one I can think of is RFD TV. I guess you can include the Outdoor Channel in the indie mix although they are a public company, but glancing at the listings in USA Today’s TV listings, I didnt see a single network that wasn’t owned by a major public media company.

The same applies to radio. How many nationally distributed shows anywhere (near) Imus’s listener numbers are privately owned ? I dont know of any.

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I commented on Mark’s blog that he need to look no further that in his own city over to AM570 KLIF between 1p-4p each day. Over there he’d hear the largest independently owned and operated nationally syndicated talk radio show in the country. 100% Private. The Dave Ramsey Show.

Now cleared in over 318 cities including major market clears on top stations:

Atlanta – WGST

Kansas City – KCMO

Dallas – KLIF

Houston – KPRC

San Antonio – KTSA

Salt Lake City – KNRS

Portland – KEX

Nashville – WWTN

I don’t know what Imus’ numbers were but I have a feeling we fall in the “anywhere near” range. I would suspect that there is a reason Cuban’s HDNet is individually owned and I would suspect that it’s the same reason The Dave Ramsey Show is. Independent and Individually owned means faster and more creative. When we want to do something, we do it. . .today. We don’t have to wait for board approval. We can make a decision immediately and act on it.

There is no doubt this is one of the key elements to our success.

Celebrating #300!

 

This almost slipped by unnoticed. When the team here cleared KNRS in Salt Lake City it had officially cleared The Dave Ramsey Show in our 300th city! Why did it almost go by unnoticed? B/c we’ve already surpassed 315 clears. They are coming too fast.

We announced this clear in our recent ad campaigns so the industry was aware of it but on a personal celebration level. . .we just kept truckin’ and never really stopped to go. . .WOW!  It’s a big deal. It’s something worth celebrating.

Great job to the affiliate relations / sales team of The Dave Ramsey Show:

Suzanne Simms, Joe Leavitt, Bob Borquez, Chad Nikazy, Amy Severson, Sarah Mitchell and Laura Ball. . .

400 should be here in a couple weeks! 🙂