Pat Paxton has deep roots in radio that span all of four decades. As a radio purist his instincts have guided him well during his career culminating in a major position for one of the industry’s top players, Entercom. Not one to look in the rear view mirror, Paxton continues to sharpen his game skills and guide an eager group of programmers in confronting the forward thinking issues of the day.
Pat Paxton
Pat Paxton is charged with leading the programming troops of the enterprising Entercom radio group. Pat is no stranger to his gig as he’s held the SVP of Programming position for the past twelve years. Never one to forget the traditional radio values of the past that still hold relevance today and eagerly moving forward in this ever-shifting era, his energy and enthusiasm for radio is as intense as it’s ever been as he continues to challenge himself and his programmers to evolve during these ultra competitive, tech-heavy times.
You’ve occupied your current position for a dozen years, what has been the most notable change you’ve seen in the radio industry over that period of time?
In general, we’re not the radio industry anymore. We’re a multi-platform entertainment industry. We have become adept at making sure we’re available where the consumers are, whether it’s apps, streaming or any of the other new technology areas that are out there now. Although we have a long ways to go, we’ve become pretty good at creating video content, video blogging and other techniques. I’ve always believed this, but it’s truer now than ever before, we’re in the entertainment and information business, not the radio business.
How has the new environment affected your role within Entercom?
My job is to make sure we are evolving at the same speed that the consumers are evolving, and to make sure we have the right people in place to take advantage of that evolution. I have to make sure we don’t get left behind, which is really easy to do these days. You blink your eyes and three or four important advances in programming techniques take place, whether it’s diary to PPM, streaming to apps or creating different kinds of content for digital. You really need to be on top of all of these areas and more.
In light of all the new tech platforms and digital distribution portals, what shouldn’t radio lose sight of in a traditional sense?
Great radio today still gets great ratings just like it did 10-15-30 years ago. If we continue to meet the expectations of the consumer and continue to touch their lives in some emotional way, we will have created a bond. If we continue to build on that bond in a sincere way, we’ll create relationships which will turn into great ratings.
What is the optimal way to create that bond?
You need to know what the listeners expect you to be. If you’re known as being a Type A station and you deliver a really good Type B product, then you’re in trouble because it’s not what people expect from you. If you give them what they expect and you make a personal connection with them, you become a brand they feel they need to be engaged with everyday, and that’s pretty special.
Is that easier to achieve doing live and local radio versus imported personalities and programming?
I don’t think either one is easy. It takes a lot of skill and talent to be able to touch the listeners because you have to be inside their heads and know what they want. You need to know how they feel, think, and live their lives. You have to basically know the lifestyle really well and share in that lifestyle so you can relate on that level.
Ryan Seacrest offers celebrity interviews and has a Dick Clark-type presence that very few local personalities can offer. Ryan does really well, as do other syndicated personalities. On the other hand, while our local personalities have access to some national celebrities, we also have access to local people and local celebrities, plus we’re relating to our listeners on the air every day. We offer a different type of show. Each way can be successful depending on what you provide and how well you provide it.
Given the emphasis on multi-platform listener engagement, is it the pervasiveness of the brand that connects with the audience or are personalities still the key connectors?
All of the above…There are brands that are more music centric that create an experience using music and imaging with less personality that fill a void in peoples’ lives. There are also brands like WEEI in Boston, our huge Sports station, which easily connects on a personal level, talks to sports fans the way sports fans want to be spoken to, and talks about things sports fans want to hear about and participate in. So while the brand is valuable, the personalities are critically important. In some situations many of our music brands have big morning shows or big afternoon shows where the personalities are vitally important, but without the music to be the glue that ties it all together they may not be as successful as they are in creating that bond.
What areas do you feel radio has taken a leadership role in over the past decade?
Companionship is certainly a leadership trait that radio has provided and continues to provide at a level that no other medium has been able to ever duplicate. Mobility has been a leadership quality of the medium as well where you can bring your favorite brand, personality and music with you anywhere you want to go. I’m not just talking about today on your Smart Phones. It’s been that way from many, many years ago when you carried portable radios anywhere you went.
On a personality basis, there’s no other medium that provides personality and entertainment in the variety of ways that radio does. You can argue that you have 110 channels on your cable TV system, but you get the same 110 channels in Dubuque as you get in Boston. Whereas you might get 20, 30, 40 totally unique local radio brands per market. When you add that up nationwide, you literally have thousands and thousands of different brands targeting a specific audience in a specific market, and no other medium has done (or currently does) that.
What areas of advancement do you feel radio could have embarked on sooner than later?
I don’t know that we missed the boat anywhere, but I do know we were late to the party in a couple places. We should have hopped on the digital wagon a little earlier and started establishing footprints online with our streaming, along with establishing our products, brands, music and our people. With all the digital and new tech areas we’re utilizing now, we could’ve been doing that sooner too. That said, it’s been a huge investment that the radio industry has undertaken in all of these areas and one can argue that we needed to see where it was going before we spent (literally) tens of millions of dollars getting there.
When does radio start realizing significant ROI on this huge investment in the form of revenue?
You have to define ROI on two levels. I believe the ROI on connecting with our listeners is happening in a huge way every day. It’s in our ability to be more digitally focused on engagement, and in our ability to have dialogue, not monologue, via texting and social media. Also, in our ability for a listener to be able to start up their Smart Phone and our radio brand is one button click away wherever they happen to be. I believe all of that adds up to a very huge ROI, not just for today but also for the future of our ability to engage and build relationships with our listeners.
On the financial side, there is an ROI that is beginning to take place. We’re at the bottom of that curve, which is a good thing because the future holds much promise if we climb this hill correctly. Most radio companies in the past few years have been in the “Let’s build the infrastructure” portion of the program. I think now we’re starting to say, “Okay now let’s get into profiting from that infrastructure.”
How are you instructing your programming departments in dealing with the multi-lateral responsibilities in multi-lateral clusters?
Everyone in programming including PDs, OMs, talent, production people and marketing people are wearing several hats, and are doing more things in their careers than any of us ever imagined. That’s a good thing. We’re taking our best people and getting the most out of them, and our people are satisfied because they’re being used more often and challenged in different areas.
My job is to help them stay focused on the bottom line. I have to communicate to our programmers the importance of all of our digital initiatives. We have to do them right and we have to continue to keep learning how to do them right. That said, the majority of your performance review will be based on the ratings you deliver because that’s still where the bulk of our revenue comes from. It’s still where the vast majority of our listeners engage with us. So while it’s critically important that we do all of the digital platforms right, if we don’t get ratings, what does it matter? I just need to make sure all of these important initiatives don’t become distractions to what their primary job is.
How does Entercom foster a programmer community among your personnel, prompting internal networking and the like?
We had a programmer meeting last year and gathered all of our PDs for the first time since the economy went south. We felt better about where we were going and made that investment, and it turned out great. In addition to everything we discussed and learned, it gave the PDs, myself and our corporate team the opportunity to get together and hang out at the bar and connect, and not just about radio, about our lives. It was an important relationship building experience. Beyond that, we have format captains who lead biweekly conference calls with their formats and discuss general and specific priorities. We want that communication to be happening, as well as the bonding which is not happening to the degree that I would like it to, but hopefully we can increase those experiences as well.
As radio formulates a future structural plan going forward, how do you see the PD job and programming departments evolving or reducing?
I know there are concerns about the future of all traditional roles within the industry. People are concerned about what’s next. Is it all going to be computerized? Is it all going to be imported voices from somewhere outside the market? Are PDs going to be useless because of national playlists? I do hear that and I can understand why people have these concerns. I can only speak for myself and our company in saying that our PDs are critically important to us. We would be a shell of what we are if we didn’t have the programmers we have. I’m not just talking about programming positions, I’m talking about the Program Directors that we have. I believe we have the best in the business and they prove it every day in the majority of our markets by being on top of the ratings pile. They’re the ones who can go out and explain strategies and goals. They’re creating the plans that include all the tactics that will help them implement the strategy. They’re the one’s that can communicate to their staffs and make sure that everybody has a single vision in mind when they open the mic or they put a promotion together or they go on the streets to talk to people. Without that leadership in each of our markets we don’t cut it. As long as I’m in the business, that role will remain critically important.
I would argue that today, our PD’s are better and smarter than they’ve ever been because they’ve been asked to do so much more. They’ve proven they can deliver at a high level in so many different areas, and in doing so they are the ones in high demand today. I believe all the changes have been really good for the very, very best people.
|As radio becomes more multi-purpose in digital platforms and delivery systems, do you envision an influx of more tech personnel, and will this be at the expense of traditional roles?
We’re already seeing it. We have a ton of people working on the digital side. They are either content providers or operations people who make sure all the engines keep running. We have sales people who focus solely on digital. We have invested a lot of money in that area so yes, that money had to come from somewhere. Companies are not going to write checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars in addition to what we’re already spending. Any business goes through cycles like this where evolution happens and you need to react to whatever that evolution is, and we found ways to be smarter in how we invest our money in areas where that investment needs to be.
Is radio conceding local leverage with the audience by deploying syndicated programming tactics, or is this becoming more and more of a non-issue?
At the end of the day it’s about producing compelling entertainment and compelling information. Again, are we giving listeners what they expect from us? If we are and they’re thrilled with what they’re hearing every day, we’re doing our jobs. In many cases, like our News/Talk stations, we can’t pipe them in from New York or LA. We have to have local people on the streets talking about what’s going on locally and what’s important to the people in those markets.
There are syndicated personalities like Seacrest, Rush Limbaugh, and back in the day, the Howard Stern’s of the world, who can entertain on a much bigger level and their engagement with the listeners is no less than most local shows. They’re able to create their communities and create fans and do extraordinary well. What it really comes down to is creating great content. Sometimes that great content can be national in scope, other times it’s local.
Entercom has some powerful radio brands throughout the country, stations with strong longevity. What are the keys to protecting that longevity and success?
The key is evolution and making sure we don’t get caught up in our own hype. We can’t sit there and tell ourselves how great we are. We don’t pat ourselves on the back, pop the champagne and casually watch the world go by. It’s a matter of staying engaged with our listeners and in what’s happening in Pop culture and in the world around us. We need to reflect that on a level that connects with the listeners, so they feel there’s a common bond between them and the brand and the personalities behind the brand. As long as we maintain that as our mission and never sit back and get too proud of ourselves, we will do well with those brands.
Has the prevailing cluster marketplace mentality contributed to the phenomenon of enduring brands as well, where flanker stations are created to mitigate direct competitors, essentially protecting a powerhouse brand?
I don’t believe in creating flanker stations for the purpose of protecting the powerhouse. I believe in creating flanker stations to produce synergy for the cluster. We expect all of our individual brands to succeed and for the most part they do. In markets where we have a Top 40, Hot AC and a mainstream AC, or where we have an Active Rocker, Alternative station and a Classic Rock station, each one of those brands are expected to excel. The fact that they act as a buffer for their sister station to occupy space that a competitor might take up is a bonus. But to use one of our multi-million dollar signals for the sole purpose of playing defense is not what we’re all about.
What has been the most valuable lesson you’ve learned about yourself over the course of your career that continues to guide you today?
The biggest thing I’ve learned about myself is that the only way I can succeed in my job is to have great people around me doing what they do. I use my experience to give them advice and guide them, and at times ask tough questions to make sure they think outside of the box and look at different perspectives. But at the end of the day, if the execution in the front lines isn’t there and the people aren’t executing with near perfection given all the available entertainment choices, we won’t succeed. As long as we have the right people in place, continue to challenge each other, stay focused on the goal and not get distracted, we will continue to succeed.
[eQB Content by Fred Deane]
