One forward-looking radio company is a
throwback to the good old days when "keep it local" was a mantra
for success.
IF YOU HAPPEN to tune in
to KPIG, an FM radio station based just outside of Santa Cruz,
California, you might be surprised by what you hear - or, perhaps
more accurately, by what you don't hear.
Don't expect to get a steady, endlessly repeating loop of songs by
Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and the other select few
much-hyped pop singers so many stations rely upon. Instead, you'll
find that KPIG cranks out a steady stream of, well, surprises.
During one stretch, you might hear songs from Wilco, Little Feat,
and Johnny Cash. In fact, KPIG has a playlist that spans decades
and genres: It includes everything from classic rock and bluegrass
to Hawaiian tunes and New Orleans funk.
KPIG proudly calls itself an anachronism; it's the kind of radio
station that was more common in the 1950s and '60s, when DJs had
considerable latitude in handpicking the kind of music they thought
their listeners wanted to hear. But KPIG isn't an anomaly. It's one
of 34 stations owned by Los Angeles-based Mapleton Communications,
a company that has aggressively pursued what it sees as an unmet
demand for radio programming tailored to the tastes of small and
midsize markets across the western United States.
"We are thinking local and acting local. You want to be locally
relevant, so the brands and all the stations that we are operating
focus and cater to the local community and audience interest so
that we can super-serve the communities," says Adam Nathanson,
Mapleton's founder and president.
"Super-serve" has become a mantra that Nathanson and his colleagues
work in to conversations with almost alarming frequency, which is
understandable, given that it's the nub of Mapleton's philosophy
for catering to advertisers and listeners in markets like San Luis
Obispo and Chico, both in
California, and Medford,
Oregon. And
super-serving is an approach that seems to be working. Since the
company was founded, in 2001, it has grown to become the
second-largest radio group in California, exceeded only by industry
goliath Clear Channel Communications. Mapleton's gross revenue in
2006 was $21.5 million, and some of its stations saw a doubling or
tripling of revenue. While radio is not exactly a Wall Street
darling these days - which is understandable, as the advent of
iPods and digital music certainly poses a threat to the industry -
last year, the Lazard Alternative Investments' Corporate Partners
II Fund purchased a 39 percent stake in Mapleton, giving it the
kind of cash it needs in order to continue expanding.
IT WAS PROBABLY inevitable that Nathanson
would carve out a career for himself in radio. For one thing, his
grandfather Don Paul Nathanson was the publisher of
Radio Showmanship Magazine and even
owned a radio station. When Nathanson was growing up in Los
Angeles, he was neighbors with Irving Azoff, the manager of
bands such as the Eagles, Journey, and
Van Halen. Not
surprisingly, he developed a passion for music early on, and
after attending Tulane University in New Orleans - where he
was introduced to that city's vibrant live-music scene - he
got what he describes as a dream job: working for
MTV in
London.
While his official job for MTV was to help build the video
channel's brand throughout
Europe, Nathanson was such a music
junkie that he spent much of his free time hanging around the
network's studio, hoping to catch live performances of the many
bands that played there. "I would volunteer to hold the cables for
the camera operators so they wouldn't trip in the studio," he
recalls. "So every night, I would be down [there] listening to the
Smashing Pumpkins or
Lenny Kravitz or Aerosmith." After his stint
at MTV, Nathanson worked for a record label that handled the
Beastie Boys and other such bands.
By 2001, Nathanson was ready to venture out on his own, and he
pitched his idea for Mapleton to his father, Marc, who had made a
fortune running, and later selling, Falcon
Cable TV. Like his
interest in radio, Nathanson's focus on small and midsize markets
can also be seen as hereditary.
"Most of the markets we are in, with the exception of Merced, [are
markets] my father used to be in in the cable business," he says.
"So we kind of know some of the economics of the markets, and
having previously operated a local business there helps a lot. We
are familiar with the markets and the economics and the
communities. There's history."
And as far as Nathanson can tell, there is also plenty of
opportunity. Small and midsize markets, he explains, just aren't a
big priority for his main competitor, the conglomerate Clear
Channel. Nathanson says that big radio operators like Clear Channel
focus on major metropolitan areas. "That is where their bottom line
is coming from. They have to focus on the lion's share of cash flow
and revenue," he says. That's not so with Mapleton. "Mapleton
treats Monterey and San Luis Obispo and Merced as our L.A.,
Chicago, and New York."
THAT'S WHERE the whole concept of
super-serving comes in. In practice, at least on the
programming side, it means ditching the homogenized
playlists, which often make a station in New Hampshire
indistinguishable from one in
Alaska. "We combat that," says
Andrew Adams, a senior vice president and the general manager
of Mapleton's Radio Merced. "We don't play just the same 200
songs." And the stations also focus relentlessly on anything
and everything local, from news to events to contests.
"Where our competitors may do national contests, we are doing
everything local, with local winners," says Nathanson. "It's a
fantasy experience on a local level that people get to touch and
feel through radio. That makes it special."
Because of their focus on smaller communities, Mapleton stations
can also deliver personalized attention to the local businesses
that advertise with them. That can translate into ad salespeople at
the stations forming one-on-one relationships with business owners
and getting real-time feedback about which ads work and which
don't. Bigger stations, by contrast, devote their attention to
national advertisers. "We feel that we can control our destiny by
focusing on local advertisers and building the relationships and
helping them grow their businesses. By doing that, it helps us grow
our business," says Nathanson.
Growth is what Nathanson has in mind for Mapleton. The company
recently signed a purchase agreement to enter the Spokane,
Washington, market, which will allow the company to add seven
stations to its portfolio. To Nathanson, this is just the
beginning. And thanks to the success he's had thus far, he fully
expects other companies to mimic Mapleton's local focus. "I think
companies like Mapleton are the future of radio, and we take some
pride in that," he says.