Radio Station Innovation and Risk Taking:A Survey of Programmers and General Managers John W. Owens University of Cincinnati, USA Francesca Dillman Carpentier Arizona State University, USA J. W. Owens and F. D. Carpentier Radio Station Innovation and Risk Taking We conducted a survey of radio station program directors and general managers to explore the perception and role of innovation within radio programming and the key factors that influence this perception. In the study, we found that, in general, programmers and general managers perceive little innovation in pro- gramming except at their own stations. Results also indicate perceptions that more risk taking is needed in radio programming, that risk taking is essential for the financial health of a station, that increased artist diversity and an innovative music rotation influence the perception of innovation at the station level, and that too many commercials are being placed within an average hour of programming. We are getting to the point where many radio companies are beginning to create a company template for each for- mat. The big loser is the listener, who more and more these days receives generic programming with little inno- vation. (Guy Zapoleon, Houston-based media consultant [McCoy, 2002, p. E–1]) In 1996, the radio industry began a period of incredible change. The passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Leeper, 2000), which eliminated national ownership caps and allowed a single company to own up to eight ra- dio stations in a market, led to a flurry of station buying. In 1996 alone, 2,066 radio station transactions were com- pleted, and by the end of 1998, the number of radio sta- tion owners had dropped by 11.7% (McConnell, 1998). The effects of this legislation have been far reaching. From an economic perspective, the industry has flour- ished. In 1990, the largest radio group (CapCities/ABC) billed about $190 million, but in 2000, the largest group (Clear Channel) brought in over $3.7 billion in advertising revenue (Duncan’s American Radio, 2001). In addition, U.S. advertising spending on radio increased from $13.5 billion in 1997 to $19.2 billion in 2000, a 43% increase in just 4 years (Coen, 2001). A poor performing U.S. economy contributed to a weak advertising market in 2001, as total radio sales dropped 7.4% to $17.9 billion (Coen, 2002). However, radio appears to have weathered this economic storm nicely. Advertising sales have grown each month through September of 2002, placing the industry year-to-date growth rate at 4% (McClellan, 2002). In addi- tion, analysts have predicted that radio will see a 10% growth in advertising sales over the next 4 years (“U.S. Ad- vertising Market Predicted,” 2002). Similar to other consolidated industries, radio groups have benefited from their economies of scale to become more efficient in their organizational structure. Stations under the same corporate banner often share music li- braries, consolidate sales efforts for local “clusters,” link contesting between markets, and even share general man- agement to positively impact the bottom line (Petrozzello, 1996a, 1996b). However, radio listenership has not followed this same upward trend. According to industry analyst Duncan (1999), total radio listening has declined by 12% since 1990. Arbitron’s Summer 2002 measure of weekly time spent listening for persons 12 and over was just over 20 hr (Arbitron, 2002a; Bachman, 2002). This represents a 13% decrease since 1994 when the average person spent about 23 hr per week with radio (Bachman, 2002). Although the proliferation of media choices for the consumer has cer- tainly contributed to this decline, some have argued that The International Journal on Media Management, 6(3&4), 226–234 226 Address correspondence to John W. Owens, Electronic Media Divi- sion–CCM, University of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 210003, Cincinnati, OH 45221–0003. E-mail: owensjw@uc.edu