Jan 29, 2025 2 min read radio

Personalities Don't Matter

Take the local out of local radio at your peril

It was strictly a cost-saving move.

Allen Media Group, owners of 27 TV stations across the country (and the Weather Channel, too), pink-slipped dozens of local weathercasters and anchors.

Hereafter, all your local weather would come from someone hundreds or thousands of miles away at the Weather Channel hub in Atlanta.

It's just weather, right? And who needs all those personalities...er...anchors?

Besides, this is good for the consumer! "This initiative aims to transform the way local weather is reported — ensuring the most accurate, timely, and engaging forecasts for communities across the country,” Allen promised.

The results were devastating. Not at all what Allen expected or intended.

Just watch this heartbreaking goodbye from Allen Media Group’s Terre Haute, Ind., station WTHI-TV anchors Patrece Dayton and Kevin Orpurt (really, watch it).

Grab some tissues before you watch this, gang

Allen Media Group had not just saved expenses, they assassinated relationships. They stole from viewers their trusted friends, the folks they rely on to tell them what matters when it matters. The folks around the corner who go through the news and the weather tragedies with them.

It's like joining the dinner table and asking "where's little Timmy," only to be told that Timmy has been cut from the family and some kid from Atlanta is going to take his place.

Good luck with that.

In radio, this stuff happens all the time. It's happening right now. We can say it doesn't matter, but only if the folks behind the mic are not our friends, are not trusted, are not part of our families, have not been part of our day-to-day for years. That is, only if they are not great personalities.

Personalities matter when they try to matter. They matter when we, the audience, say they matter. They matter when we need them.

Variety's Michael Schneider:

💡

...What’s lost in these moves to centralize coverage is the local expertise and nuance that comes with having your boots on the ground, knowing the intricacies of your community and having a personal relationship with viewers. Ironically, removing all of that will only hasten the demise of local media as we know it. What is more local than the daily weather forecast? Stripping away the very selling point that still makes broadcast valuable — its live, local nature — may help save a few coins in the short run, but it’s a recipe for obsolescence in the long term.

"Local," as I like to say is just an address unless you make it mean something to the audience. But once it does, beware.

To paraphrase Schneider, "take the local out of local radio at your peril."

Mark Ramsey Media does audience research for Christian Media - Perceptual research, digital studies, donor studies, music studies, etc. Learn more here. Call Mark at 858-414-4191 or email markramsey@mac.com.

And if you want a strategy to solicit major donors to pay for your research, look here and download this Listener Impact Study solicitation for donors from WAKW-FM.

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