Paul Jacobs: Start Selling Solutions

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound of podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:13  
Paul Jacobs returns to the show to talk about selling radio. His advice hasn't changed since the first time we did an episode in April of 2019 it was stop selling

Paul Jacobs  0:24  
radio. The data doesn't lie. Radio revenue is flat to down. It isn't growing. So if you want to grow your business, you need to become a much different

Matt Cundill  0:35  
seller. Today we bring this conversation into 2025 with innovative ways to make money everywhere. A traditional radio station is now placing its content. We'll dive into how public and commercial radio can adapt, innovate and thrive in a changing landscape, and why embracing newsletters, apps and digital is the way forward, and being local in those places is also a thing. And now Paul Jacobs joins me from just outside of Detroit. Paul, why is selling radio ratings getting harder and harder

Paul Jacobs  1:08  
for sales people, there's a real disconnect between the value of ratings and the demand side. The fact is, is that radio revenue overall is like a leaky balloon. It's not falling off the table, but it's not growing so if a radio station is dependent on ratings as their KPI, then they're focused on a declining market. And that's why, when you look at the curve of traditional revenue versus digital revenue, they're going in opposite directions, and frankly, Nielsen has failed in being able to provide measurement that covers the spectrum of where revenue is going, and that's really a shame.

Matt Cundill  1:55  
So I had a moment at an event where I sat next to an ad buyer. It was Radio Days North America, and we were having lunch, and I asked, What was the obstacle to buy more radio? And they said it was the turnaround time. And I said, turnaround time. I find that interesting, because I can get you an ad by noon, or maybe tomorrow, you can have a listen to it. But I felt that they really liked two things. They liked the turnaround time of just being able to just insert their ad, whether it was a banner ad or whatever, into the digital space, and they seem very addicted to the numbers that come back, whether it's impressions or whatever numbers that they're coming back. They feel that the attribution is just better, and I don't think it is. I don't know how we get people off that drug.

Paul Jacobs  2:37  
I think there's a great place for the type of buying they're talking about, but they failed. Marketing, 101 you know, and marketing 101 starts with brand reach and filling the funnel. And no media does it better with reach than radio and even local television. And so, you know, it's great. You can measure your clicks and measure that level of response. But if people don't have an impression of you, if people don't have any emotion about the business or any kind of connection, particularly locally, they're missing a key piece. And the fact is, even though both radio and television have aged and overall, listening has slipped. The ability to reach masses is a key component in media buying, and I think they're taking the easy way out, and I think they're giving their clients short shrift.

Matt Cundill  3:33  
We had Dave sturgeon on this podcast a few weeks ago, and he's an ad buyer, and one of the things that he said was he needs to purchase radio in order to sustain the client. How is it possible that there's just so much churn in the digital space, and you know, local advertisers, or any advertisers aren't really picking up on the fact that, you know, this isn't really making my cash register

Paul Jacobs  3:52  
ring. Maybe we just haven't sold ourselves as an industry. Well, you know, when was the last time there was a real marketing plan for radio to the advertising community, and we stopped doing that. So, you know, we've reverted to one station peeing on another, and they suck, and you know, their morning guys are drunk, and I mean, all that stuff. And frankly, nobody's out there championing what's good about our industry on a sustained basis. I mean, the R, E, B tries. Each individual company tries. But you know, marketing, if we don't have a cohesive message that is reflected by the literally 1000s of feet we have on the street, we're not going to make the right impression. And then you layer on it this generation of media buyers, and I hate to stereotype, but most of them are under the age of 50, and probably didn't grow up with radio. So the imperative of our business is just not baked in. And so we have work to do, and frankly, we haven't done the work.

Matt Cundill  5:04  
I'm 55 and this predates me, but growing up, I used to hear radio red hot because it works. So take me back to that era. Why did radio people get together for that? And I felt they were really going after television and newspapers that may have been infringing on their territory, but give me the story behind how that came about, maybe we can make that happen again today.

Paul Jacobs  5:31  
I would love to, but I'm going to probably move into controversial waters here with that simple question. Back then, no particular ownership group had any power over the others. Everybody was maxed out with 7am and seven FM stations, and so there wasn't a company or two that could stop the presses, if you know what I mean. And today, the power is concentrated into a few companies, and I'd love to tell you, they play well together, but if we can't get all of them to agree on a strategy, then it's going to fail. So nobody's at fault. But today's reality is, yeah, so

Matt Cundill  6:14  
I see an example of that happening in Canada, where the companies are not aligned when it comes to CRTC policy and trying to get aligned on what's going to be best for the medium, because the two biggest companies do not have radio as the number one thing they need to really pay attention to in their stack of whatever it is that they're paying attention to exactly.

Paul Jacobs  6:36  
So it's the same problem. And yeah, so just the way radio is structured today is so different from those days when, frankly, it was a heck of a lot easier.

Matt Cundill  6:47  
One of the things I did the last few weeks was drive down to Buffalo to see the Buffalo Bills play. Always loved doing my trip down to the US. And one of the things I noticed as you cross the Peace Bridge and you clear customs and you make your drive down as you pass this beautiful building NPR and I think PBS are housed together at the side of the highway, and they even have the words serving Toronto, or at least Toronto is presented there, and the relationship they have from there. And I couldn't help but think of public radio and its role that it plays in today's landscape. And I know that you do a lot of work with Public Radio, whether it's you know, the studies you provide. So how healthy are they, and what do they have to look forward to in 2025

Paul Jacobs  7:28  
they got a pretty serious cold in a lot of levels. I'm going to go long here. Let's start with the obvious, and that's just the shot they have taken with the demise of CPB and the amount of base funding that is disappearing. This isn't just buffalo. This is across the entire system. Public Radio. I can't comment as much on TV. I'm a radio guy. Public Radio, all too often, has operated wrapped in a warm blanket of security with CPB funding, many are licensed to universities, and they've got that guarantee. So the urgency to grow compete that we have as commercial broadcasters isn't as endemic with the culture of public media. So now you take away this funding, and all of a sudden they're being asked to do things and use muscles that they haven't had to do before. So a lot of what we're doing with stations is we're pulling out our commercial playbook. And this is not to mean that they're going commercial, but it means that they can no longer just rely on tote bag driven pledge drives, or the generosity of some local sponsors who give them some money, and they now have to move into a more competitive world, revenue is more important than ever. So that's one part, but the other part has been a lack of development of program content. We say to people, when was the last hit show? People love hits drives. Listeners, when was the last hit show? Created by NPR, Monday through Friday, and you can't tell me what that is, because it's been so long. Is it fresh air, is it? Ty Ann ream, so there also has not been an investment in programming that compels new listeners and excites old listeners, and so they're kind of caught between some really challenging forces here. Now there are situations and you brought up buffalo, there are situations where leadership saw this coming. And Tom Calderon, who we know from his commercial days and his time with us, and a great radio career and TV career, and MTV and VH one, he saw this coming, and he has been getting his staff ready. Ready to start thinking differently. And this coming Thursday, we're going to be in Buffalo launching a major digital content and revenue initiative that is probably more aggressive and expansive than most other public radio stations in the country.

Matt Cundill  10:21  
Give us a little small peek into what would be different and what would be new that you might

Paul Jacobs  10:26  
be unveiling here. Well, the philosophy will be incredibly different, that our development team will not just be selling credits, you know, sponsor credits on the radio or their PBS station, but rather will be selling an entire suite of digital products. So we're going to be selling Ott, we're going to be selling SEO and SEM and social media, but at the core of it is the unveiling of btpm plus a fast TV channel with seven different channels within it that will allow us to begin to develop audience in other parts of media and obviously monetize that as well major content investment. They've made other smaller content investments. But this is a big leap, and we're going to be doing it. Chris Brunt and I are going in, we're going to kick it off with a big presentation in front of the advertising community. Then we're going to be meeting with them over a couple of days to make sure they understand that this isn't your father's public media company anymore. Little 10 second credits are a part of what we do, but we now are a competitive multimedia company for Buffalo and Toronto and Southern Ontario. Yeah, and I look

Matt Cundill  11:48  
at Buffalo, Buffalo looks and feels a lot like where I am right now in Winnipeg. And I know a lot of people try things out in Winnipeg. I know that you know, Jacobs media has had a lot of success in Buffalo with 97 rock and a few other projects that you've done. So is this a test market?

Paul Jacobs  12:06  
No, we rolled out what we call Jacobs Dr digital revenue about a year ago with Chris Brock. We're working with about seven or eight radio stations around the United States. A couple of them are public. The rest are commercial, all medium to small markets, where we literally are building a digital revenue program for them that contains, some are as full as what we're doing in Buffalo. Others are a little narrower, but we're really focused on this digital revenue component. Because again, as we said at the beginning, man, traditional revenue is going down if we don't make the shift, and if we don't get sales people to wake up and stop fighting this, and we don't get general managers to put their head in the sand and not realize this, we're in trouble. So we're really pushing this out hard, and so far, we've seen some decent success. And I think in year two for these stations, we're going to see some significant success.

Matt Cundill  13:09  
Podcast is a very big part of NPR. Are there new ways for them to monetize in the podcast space?

Paul Jacobs  13:16  
No, I don't think so. I think they've created some incredible podcasts. I think the repurpose of a lot of their on air iconic programs has also done great for them. I don't know where they go with that, but I again to my previous point, while they've invested incredibly well in podcasting and deserve, you know, a lot of high fives, they haven't invested in radio programming. So we don't work for them. So I don't know what they're thinking, but it's curious to me that there hasn't been an investment, and the stations haven't been crying for something new and relevant and, frankly, exciting.

Matt Cundill  14:00  
A lot of those podcasts were repurposed radio shows that went to the front. And if you look back at the big hits from 2017 most of the top 10 was public radio, and if you look at it today, it is not public radio anymore. Those those shows are no longer there. But talk about radio stations and apps, because we've had this fight inside radio for many years. Let's get an app. No, we're gonna get a group app, and we're gonna get another app. No, we're gonna be part of radio player Canada. Part of radio player Canada. You know what? We're just going to join the I heart app. And seem to be rather exclusionary. I like the idea of being everywhere, but something that you touched on recently was the importance of bringing back your own radio station

Paul Jacobs  14:37  
app. Yes, I think it's important, and I agree with you having your own app and being on I Heart, or tune in, or Odyssey, or whatever, that's fine. If that's where the audience is, and you cut a good deal with them, go for it. At the same time, you need to have, in most cases, your own app. There are. Some cases where we'll work with a company in multi markets, where the larger medium markets get their own app, but the tinier markets don't, and we do a little cluster app for that market, and that's as much financial as anything. But frankly, it makes sense. At the same time, the problem with mobile apps for radio stations aren't the apps. It's the Hey, we have an app you can stream us. Isn't that great? And then the app stops doing anything else. I mean, occasionally there'll be video or podcasts, if the station has it. But stations are not thinking about mobile apps as a programming tool, an audience engagement tool, and being able to do more than just push station stuff out there. Great example, we work with a hip hop radio station that on Black History Month. They create a section in their app which is a salute to local, black owned businesses, and there's lists and maps and features. It's freaking brilliant. I mean, it's on brand, it's good business, and it serves the local community. The problem is not a failure of apps or even money. It's a failure of imagination.

Matt Cundill  16:13  
I don't think I have any local apps other than the one I might use for transit, and if I had a radio station, I would love to have news notifications in there, anything that would talk about something local, because my iPhone is a lot like my radio dashboard. I've got about six or seven apps that I frequent all the time, and the other ones I just go to once in a while if I need something. But I don't have any local apps other than my transit

Paul Jacobs  16:36  
app, right? Because they're not giving you a reason to use them. And what you've really touched on is an area we've been pushing hard, and that's guides. Why are we allowing the audience to go to Yelp to find a restaurant or to find out what's going on this weekend? You know, that's like stupid, if you really are local. Why aren't we providing information our audience wants. This isn't hard, but like I said, it's a failure of imagination, and we're leaving it on the table.

Matt Cundill  17:11  
It also feels like the same reason you should have an app for your radio station is also the same one why you should have a newsletter. And you know, for years, we passed on newsletters. Oh, we don't need them. And lo and behold, in Canada, we had some legislation that was misguided, that went through, and now you can't share information on Facebook, don't you wish you'd spent years building up your newsletter list and marketing to your listeners.

Paul Jacobs  17:34  
Yeah, isn't that amazing? You know, it's funny, and Fred talks about this all the time, and we've been testing this in our tech surveys, and you know this will make you crazy as a podcaster, but we compare the audience engagement with podcasting versus newsletters, and it's more than double to newsletters. Yet newsletters are easier to make, much less expensive and have higher appeal because of their ease of use. And, you know, there's a ceiling to the podcast audience, you know, plus or minus yet radio stations, hey, we do audio, so therefore they're into a quick story about one of the most successful newsletters I've ever seen. Again, a lot of stations use newsletters to promote their own stuff. Well, that's nice, but, you know, here we go again, just driving Nielsen numbers. There's a public radio station in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Ws, h, u, it is an NPR and classical station. I mean, it covers one county. And a few years ago, one of their employees had this idea for a newsletter, and her whole thing was, you know, we talk about hump day on Wednesdays. On Wednesdays, I like to take a pause. So she created a newsletter called the pause. And what the pause is just two or three or four light stories to brighten up your mid week, to get you through it. And they have almost as many subscribers as they have q because they hit a nerve, and now they monetize it again. Failure of imagination,

Matt Cundill  19:08  
that's incredible. I actually have podcasters who have just said, I'm not doing this anymore. I would rather just do my newsletter and focus on that, because I can get 10 times the number of people you know, subscribing to it. It takes me less time to do I don't have to work with Matt Cundill and his company to get the audio right. I don't have to go through hoops to booking guests or doing all the things because, you know, audio is it's hard, it's expensive, it's hard to make. And, you know, writing things, you can get a captive audience, and if you can get a good open rate, you'd have a great subscriber list. And it can be very lucrative and very marketable.

Paul Jacobs  19:42  
And again, that's not to diminish podcasts. As you know, I'm a voracious podcast listener, and you know, I probably consume 12 to 15 a week minimum, so I love them, but they take up 3040, 60 minutes, and I can read the newsletter in about four. So both have a real important place.

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Matt Cundill  20:24  
making a small mistake here by sort of comparing one against the other, because I try to get people not to do that with things. But you know, reality sets in, and people only have so many hours in the day to create things. And you know, you're talking about selling digital many different platforms in many different ways, with radio Q and whatnot. What advice do you have to somebody who's selling to keep people from comparing numbers against one another? I have 30,000 of this, but I've got 3000 of this in audio, comparing audio against maybe print or comparing it against a Facebook impression, because everyone has their own way of counting. So what is the best strategy to get people to stop comparing numbers. In that

Paul Jacobs  21:02  
sense, here's the dirty secret, the money is not, in most cases, in your O and O products, okay, the revenue is not the number of website hits you have, or even app downloads or stream starts. That's small money in most cases, unless you're in a mega market, the money is in selling other people's digital like I talked about earlier, a philosophy we're trying to build into public radio stations is, yeah, we'll take the low hanging fruit of selling banner ads on our website for, you know, two bucks 1000 but if you want to follow our audience wherever they go outside of when they're listening to us or watching us, if you want to follow them and hit them when they're watching to be or, you know, listening to Spotify or whatever, we can now provide that for you. So now, all of a sudden, you're building up the value proposition of your audience, and you're beginning to expand the way you're monetizing that audience well beyond that. And by the way, for public media, you're not bound. When you sell ads on Tubi with language, you can say whatever the heck you want. You could even sell it to weed dispensaries. So it's like some public radio sales people are going, Wow, what a dream. And I'm like, Hello. So we've got to just stop thinking we're selling our radio station and our station assets, and invert that model and become full bore digital strategic advisors and providers, and it's a big leap for a lot of people.

Matt Cundill  22:48  
What am I to make of the change in measurement for radio? You know, the five minutes used to get credit for 15, and now it's dropped to three minutes. And, oh, look, it's a new way to count.

Paul Jacobs  22:57  
Is that it that's all it is. It's nice. But again, you know, go back to the leaky balloon, you got slightly higher numbers for a space that has declining advertiser interest. And again, I don't want to be doom and gloom about the importance of radio revenue. It's still going to be the core of what these stations have, but it's not growing. I think I said this to you the first time you interviewed me. When I start sales training with a brand new sales team, the first thing I asked the team, show of hands, how many of you want to make more money this year than last year? And everybody raises their hands because they're greedy sales people. And I go, great, stop selling radio. And they get pissed at me, and I'm like, No. And then I show them the data, you know, I show them Burrell, I show them e marketer, I want you to sell into growth. And it takes time, because they think they're radio sales people, and they're not.

Matt Cundill  23:57  
So I'm having flashbacks, and actually titled The episode, stop selling radio. Oh, there you go. Tell me about the value of radio being free and being able to sell that

Paul Jacobs  24:08  
critically important came out of a question. We started asking in tech survey a few years ago. We provide a list of all these options of you know, why do you listen to your favorite radio station. And the first year we asked it was probably 567, years ago, it's free, came in second, and has remained there. And actually the value of that proposition has gone up as subscriptions have also gone up, you know. And there's a real parallel here. A lot of consumers during covid began to subscribe to all the plus TV stuff and everything else because they're stuck at home, and that became their entertainment while all of a sudden they're checking their visa bill, and they're like, oh my goodness, I spent all this every single month for all this stuff. So the radio is free piece, but. We tell sales teams lead with that. That is a value proposition of what we do. I think I might have shared this with you several years ago. I moderated a panel at the All Access event, and Tim Westergren from Pandora, the founder, the genius behind Pandora, was on the panel. I'd never met him before. You know, he planted his flag as wanting to destroy radio. So I'm thinking, Okay, this is going to be a knockdown drag out. I found him to be brilliant, engaging, kind and warm. And so during the panel, I said, Tim, is there anything you like about radio? And he gave a long answer, but basically, what he said is, radio has two things we will never be first, it's free, and second, it's easy. In order to listen to Pandora, you got to download the app. You got to do this stuff. He goes with radio. It's a one touch solution, and we will never have that yet as broadcasters, we take that for granted because it's just been baked in the cake, and the fact is, it might be more important today than it has ever been. But do we tell people about that?

Matt Cundill  26:11  
No, is there something we shouldn't sell inside the radio station? Because I can see with all the new things that are available, I look at everything right down to the dash. You can sell parts of the dash, perhaps. But is it possible that it can get so cluttered? Is there something we should just sort of skip and maybe not do and leave that to programming

Paul Jacobs  26:30  
tattoos? No, I think selling into the dash. And full disclosure, we consult to the company that provides that service. So I'm probably not the right person to say that it's wonderful, but it is. It works, and we've done the research. I think necessity at this point requires that we look at everything. However, these eight to 10 stop sets on the air are abysmal. And you know, this whole thing of programming to Nielsen and programming to the bow tie clock and all this stuff, as a listener, I can't listen to it. And as somebody who sells advertising, I could not, in good conscience, convince a client, or even try to convince a client that being seven out of eight in a stop set is a fine thing.

Matt Cundill  27:25  
Local radio station is actually promoting free against my Spotify playlist. So I did notice that said, Maybe you're tired of your Spotify playlist, and maybe you're tired of subscriptions, and maybe you'd like to try out the radio because it's free. And I I kind of like

Paul Jacobs  27:39  
that. I love that. That's exactly what I was talking about. That's the value proposition.

Matt Cundill  27:46  
There's a picture, by the way, on the blog post for this episode, for anybody who wants to go and look, I think it's smart. And you know, maybe, you know, a cynic might say, oh, that's just not gonna work. But you know what? It does work because my Spotify playlists suck. I also don't like to curate my own music. I only do it if there's a party and we want to listen with friends.

Paul Jacobs  28:06  
It's a lot of work. You don't want to work for it. No.

Matt Cundill  28:10  
And I'll tell you one of the joys that I've recently discovered, again, that involves radio. And it took me to all this time in that satellite radio, and the only time I ever had it was if I rented a car, or if I had crashed my car and had a loaner, you know, I would listen to, I go, Well, you know, this is, this is kind of nice to listen to. And I finally sprung and have satellite radio about 10 minutes, just before Howard Stern's about to depart, I might point out, but tell me about satellite radio and how you look at

Paul Jacobs  28:38  
it or listen to it. I like satellite radio, as a radio guy, and from the music standpoint, there's surprise and delight occasionally, you know, and you hear a little more depth. And I'm not a depth triple a musicologist guy, I but I don't like hearing the same 272 classic rock songs over and over again. So I like the variety. Like, you know, you talked about the apps on your phone. I probably listen to eight or maybe 10 stations and that's it, even though I'm paying for 9000 or whatever it is. But I think it's great. And, you know, I've got a 10 minute commute to work, so it's not like there's a lot of value for me with that. I actually listen to podcast traffic to work, but I like it. Could it be better? Sure. Could the fidelity be better? Oh, please, but it's great. And then on top of it, I'm heavily into news. As you know, I'm a news junkie for many reasons, and so the variety of voices that I can get is also great. So it's viable, no doubt,

Matt Cundill  29:49  
one of the things that I really love is that you're still on x. I know your brother abandoned x, but it's great to see that you're still on x. And you know, you put out a few political opinions from time to time, but I. I always appreciate your takes whenever we get together about Okay, so one of the questions I'm not asking today is, what is going on in America right now? And I actually did write that down, but I'll focus specifically on the Jimmy Kimmel, the role of the FCC, and things we should be paying attention to for over the air broadcasters. So today, as we wake up, what should we be paying attention to about what could happen over the next three and a half years?

Paul Jacobs  30:27  
We wrote about that today, and it was a very carefully considered blog post that was less about Charlie Kirk and more about repression and more about if the leaders of our industry aren't careful. We will chase away the talent. The talent will find other places to have their voices heard, thought of as fascinating with Colbert, within two weeks of the show announcement, he cut a $13 million deal with Netflix, and there's a quote in our blog today from Brian Stelter, who I think is just a brilliant media observer, who really made that point and brought it home. And I'm proud to say, by the way, he retweeted me today that was a proud moment. But I'm concerned. I'm concerned about free speech, even speech I can't stand. I'm was never a Charlie Kirk fan, but it was more like I didn't pay attention to Charlie Kirk, but even if he was the most heinous individual in the world, he has every right to say what he says, and Americans have every right to listen or not listen. And I feel the same way about Jamie Kimmel, and I feel the same way about Howard Stern. I feel the same way about Rush Limbaugh, if he were alive, and our Constitution has served us well, and there are bedrock principles, and I'm really concerned when the government says, You can't say that. And so I think we're at a really delicate moment, and I don't think it's left or right. I really don't. If I'm at Fox News or I'm at Newsmax, I would be deathly afraid of empowering the FCC to make decisions about content, because they know one day the other party could get in there, and you just don't want to go down this number one, but number two, part of being a great country is freedom of the press and freedom of speech. And as I recall, that's the first amendment. There were a whole lot after that, but there's a reason why it led the way.

Matt Cundill  32:41  
And I'm very thankful that you brought back the story of Alan Burke, because it was one of the first things I thought about last week when the news broke about Charlie Kirk.

Paul Jacobs  32:53  
Yeah, that came out of a conversation Fred and I had Friday afternoon. I mean, you know, some blogs kind of write themselves, and, you know, Fred comes up with the idea at 530 in the morning, and we publish at eight. This blog today was considered over probably five days, and we didn't feel we had it. We didn't feel our point of view was good, or we were just saying what everybody else was saying. And Friday afternoon, one of us brought up Alan Berg and the parallels between what happened to Alan and for your listeners who don't know, he was a controversial radio talk show host at night on koa in Denver who was assassinated on his front lawn about 44 years ago, and the parallels to Charlie Kirk are incredible, and so it's not like we haven't been here before, but it just means that the fight isn't over, and we need to fight to defend Charlie Kirk, and we need to fight to defend Alan Berg and everybody in between.

Matt Cundill  33:57  
Need to wind you back a few weeks, when just around the start of football season. But when was the last time that you cared about both the Tigers and the lions at the same

Paul Jacobs  34:07  
time? Probably four years old. But had you asked me that question 10 days ago, I would be bouncing up and down on the Tigers you can see behind me my Detroit Tigers Jersey hanging on the wall, but the Tigers have pooped the bed and have lost, I think, 10 of 11 and have given up a 15 game lead, and it's down to one with a week to go. So lot of stress, lot of sweat, and thank goodness for sports, because it keeps my mind off of all this other noise.

Matt Cundill  34:37  
Well, that collapse, by the way, reminds me I think the Toronto Blue Jays had a massive collapse like that against the Tigers. Many, many years

Paul Jacobs  34:43  
ago. Yeah, it was a 6760 No. 8787 Yes. And yeah, that was great. Well, this

Matt Cundill  34:51  
is the part of the show where I have to disclose I'm not a Toronto Blue Jays fan. I'm still a Montreal Expos fan. Oh, you okay, by the way. Keep your eyes open for the Netflix special who killed the Montreal exposes coming October 21

Unknown Speaker  35:04  
that ought to be great.

Matt Cundill  35:07  
When you talk to people about how radio is doing, what do you tell them?

Paul Jacobs  35:11  
I go back and forth if we're in the best of times or the worst of times with radio, and I keep defaulting to the best of times, and it goes to the question you asked me about free and that is, despite all of the amazing competition we have for people's attention, the basic tenants of our industry are still incredibly strong, and the fact that many stations have remained local at a time when so much competition has moved away. You know, the death of local newspapers. You look at local television and how it's really coming out of corporate in so many ways, and if radio can double down on what has made it great, and local is clearly part of it, personality, communal, listening, experience all of these things and oh, by the way, we are still free. We have a good future. We just have got to stop whining, but we also have to get really clear eyed that we can no longer do what we've done to be successful. The landscape has shifted. But is there an industry that can pivot better and faster than radio? So I remain bullish even at this stage of my career where I've seen a heck of a lot, and I know times when it was a lot better and radio sounded better and everything else, but the fact is, there are some green shoots, and I think there are good opportunities out there if people just slow down and realize what makes us great, and clear out all the noise and bullshit and just start doing great local radio. It is not a complicated business. Yes, we are C students, but we're damn proud of it,

Matt Cundill  37:00  
Paul, that is such a great way to summarize it, because it is. It's all within reach. It definitely is. Yeah, I don't know how we're going to work out our next thing together, but it hopefully it involves the lions and the Buffalo Bills playing each other in the Super Bowl. It's the one America wants

Paul Jacobs  37:16  
that would be absolutely awesome. And, you know, people may or may not know this, but the founder, owner of the Buffalo Bills, Ralph Wilson, is from Detroit, and is a big philanthropist here. He's passed away a few years ago. But you know, and when the buffalo stadium got snowed out two years ago, the bills needed a place to play. Where did they come? They came to Detroit.

Matt Cundill  37:41  
Thanks, Paul. Really appreciate your time today. Can't

Paul Jacobs  37:44  
Wait, man, good to see you. And go buffalo. I hope the lions beat the crap out of you in the Super Bowl.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  37:49  
The sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan Surminski, edited by Taylor MacLean, social media by Aidan Glassey, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com