Radio Ink Magazine March 16, 2020

Unless you have participated in or attended the Hispanic Radio Conference at some point over its 11-year history, you may not be aware of the origins of the conference. And if you aren’t part of Hispanic radio, you may think the story is not relevant to you. You would be wrong. Don’t stop reading. To begin, figures don’t lie. The growth of the Hispanic population in this country continues to trend upward with no sign of stopping. Even if none of your stations programs a Hispanic format, chances are you currently compete with Hispanic radio in your market, or soon will. And as we all know, it’s smart business to understand the competition. But there’s another overarching lesson in this story that transcends formats, cultures, and just about everything else. It’s that familiar…

In February Radio Ink, along with Sony Music Nashville, honored the 2020 class of Best Program Directors in Country Radio with their plaques. The event took place during Bob Kingsley’s Acoustic Alley, which highlights songwriters, at the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville. Here is Radio Ink Publisher Deborah Parenti with a few of our first-time winners: And we ran into a few of our good friends along the way! All these artists performed at UMG’s annual luncheon at the Ryman. Photos by Jillian Rose; www.photosbyjillianrose.com…

Richard Kessler is a celebrity in his hometown of Milwaukee, with 50% of the population of that city having heard at least three of his radio ads every week, 52 weeks in a row, for the past 30 years. Richard’s daughter, Monica, was his sidekick on the radio for five years, then became the principal voice of the Kesslers ad campaign when Richard retired. But Richard Kessler also has a son: Hi, I’m Rob Kessler — yeah, that Kessler, son of Richard and brother to Monica. I invented a new kind of shirt that makes guys look fantastic. You’ll see what I mean the moment you look in the mirror after trying one on. “Wow! Is that me?” And you can try one on right now at Harleys Menswear. My company…

Could you walk away from a job where you were cashing five-figure commission checks? Nine years ago Lisandro “Chando” Madrigal said goodbye to a job he loved at Apple to live his dream — a dream of owning a business. It’s a business that started with a small vacant food stand in North Sacramento. Now, with six locations throughout the area, including an entertainment venue, Madrigal has used radio to grow his business and build his brand, Chando’s Tacos. Radio Ink: Where did this desire to own a business come from? Madrigal: I was number seven of eight kids. We were migrant workers, so we traveled up and down the West Coast. I learned a lot from my dad because he was a farm worker contractor, and at a very young age…

I knew nothing about sales. In fact, before I accepted my first radio sales job, I rejected every sales opportunity. So on day one, I had no bad selling habits, because I’d never sold anything. Sometimes a blank slate is the best place to start learning because you know that you know nothing. I was ready and willing to learn. Not everyone is a prospect. I began my career at a small AM station with no ratings and a questionable reputation on the street. We spent our days cold-calling every retail establishment in a 20-mile radius. For the most part, we followed the other media reps, on the premise that if someone spent money on advertising, they were a prospect. In reality, that only made them suspects. We were chasing after…

In December 2019 we launched a brand new list: Radio’s 30 and Under Rock Stars. We wanted to shine a light on the next generation, those men and women coming out of college and jumping into radio as a career. They provided us with so much great information, we couldn’t fit it all into one issue. One of the questions left on the 2019 cutting room floor was this: “What is the number one challenge you face every day, and how are you overcoming it?” Here’s what several of them had to say. One challenge I face is helping local businesses recover from bad experiences with other advertisers or mediums. They find comfort in knowing that brands that advertise through radio experience five times higher brand recall than brands that do…