Howard Kalmenson, 80, is the CEO of Lotus Communications. He started in 1962 with one radio station and has seen it grow into a company with revenues of $21 million per year.
Kalmenson will be featured on the cover of the March 12 issue of ”Radio Ink” magazine.
He told the prestigious publication that if radio doesn’t make changes now it will not survive.
“It’s terrible. It’s changed terribly. And they are going to have to change again or they’re going to get wiped out by the Internet now,” Kalmenson says.
“I know what to do. We are starting to do it at our corporation now, to keep us from getting eaten up by Internet when it’s in the car and everywhere.”
The outspoken former Marine does not mince words over how radio has changed over the years.
“It has changed for the worse. The minute that the money got big and people started concentrating on the ratings, because that’s where the money went, all of the great things we used to do with public affairs, community involvement went away,” he says.
Kalmenson thinks that radio has evolved simply into a money game today with little focus on community.
“I used to give away 500,000 toys at Christmas. We gave away 25,000 turkeys at Thanksgiving. We had programs for the poor. We had news that really meant something,” he says. “Now none of it happens because everybody made so much money just by doing the ratings dance. The ratings dance was wonderful for listenership or TSL, but it did nothing for your involvement in the community. In fact, it was the opposite”
He says radio must focus on the local level if it is to survive.
“I will tell you this much: You have to achieve interest in your company from a local level,” notes Kalmenson. “…We have the one thing that nobody else can do. If there is a traffic accident outside my window at 5:00, at 5:01 can have it on the air. Nobody else can do that. We can do that.
“We have to be very local. We have to be very much involved in the community. We have to be needed.”