July 10, 2017, Issue 558
Small Town To Big Platform
“For a small market station, this gives us the ability to create impact for an artist on a scale that compares with a large market.” That’s Big River Broadcasting/Florence, AL GM Nick Martin, shortly before Alabama Public Television’s debut broadcast of Muscle Shoals To Music Row Live, a one-hour weekly version of the radio company’s long-running program. The new partnership means adding APT’s four million households to the show’s local radio and national/international streaming video audience. “Now we can give that footprint to an artist on free, over-the-air public Nick Martin television,” Martin says. “And there are five or six other states stacking up with interest, which means we could eventually have 10-20 million.” The show might even cross over into profitability, Martin notes with a chuckle. Think Different: Calling MS2MRL a labor of love multiple times, Martin points to competitive issues spurring its development. “The idea was to create something different that would give us a programming edge,” he says of the Mike McKenzie show’s 2003 launch. “At the time, Clear Channel was in the market and we couldn’t outspend them or do some of what they did with the resources they had, so we started this as a way to differentiate. We started with artists and singer-songwriters telling the story behind the song.” Big River, part of Sam Phillips Music’s Florence and Muscle Shoals operations, also wanted to differentiate its interactions with performers. “We know how the industry works and heard all the stories about artists flying into markets to wine and dine radio,” Martin says. “Next thing you know, that’s all billed back to the artist. We wanted to be looked at in a different light, so we’d send a limo or bus to Nashville, bring the artists down and nobody is out a dime. It was a multi-platform opportunity started at a time when the labels didn’t really have that kind of thing.” (continued on page 8)
Hot Diggedy: A crowd gathers as KTOM/Monterey’s Sam Segovia and bride Vanessa celebrate their nuptials. Pictured (l-r) are Red Bow’s Kendra Whitehead, BBR’s Layna Bunt, Sam and Vanessa, The Big Time’s Jackie Stevens, WAR’s Raffaella Braun and WEA’s Ray Mariner.
River House’s Reality Show
What do Hootie, Zac and Luke Combs have in common – well, besides River House’s Lynn Oliver-Cline? Heavy touring in the Southeast preceding label interest, radio airplay, hit records and sales certs. And Oliver-Cline might add one other commonality: authenticity. ”I was an intern with Hootie & the Blowfish my senior year at the University of South Carolina in Lynn Oliver-Cline Columbia,” she says. After graduand Luke Combs
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