November 2, 2020, Issue 729
Career Change? Buy A Station
As the old adage goes, you don’t truly have a career in radio until you’ve been fired or hired away by the competition. Ongoing corporate cutbacks, furloughs, layoffs and restructuring have many programmers and personalities facing yet another move or even having to work in a different industry. But what if there were another option? Bennett Radio Group Owner/Operator Stan Bennett and Hill Broadcasting Owner/Operator Danny Hill tell Country Aircheck how they Stan Bennett went from working for others to working for themselves by purchasing their own stations. Sell My Vessel: Bennett, who left his post as Binnie Media VP/Programming in July after 25 years with the company (CAT 6/23), purchased a cluster in Mexico, ME – including Country WOXO – that had been silenced in March (CAT 3/25) following previous owner Dick Gleason’s death. His mid-pandemic Danny Hill acquisition included five stations and four translators for $300,000 (CAT 7/15) and drew questions from friends, including, “Are you nuts?” “Owning my own station is something I’ve wanted to do since day one, though,” says Bennett. “One of my stations, WIGY, is one I grew up listening to and where I worked when I first started my career, so I had been looking at trying to buy Gleason Media for a few years, but they weren’t ready to sell.” Following Mr. Gleason’s passing, his widow Kathy decided to shut down the stations, and a broker called Bennett with an offer to purchase immediately. Hill’s path to ownership was a bit more of a zigzag, weaving through on-air, programming and sales experiences in Kansas, California and Hawaii. Two years ago, following his mother’s passing, he set out to fulfill his final promise to her. “She had a $50,000 life insurance policy, and I (continued on page 7)
Everywhere But One: Records/Arista’s Matt Stell celebrates his second No. 1 “Everywhere But On” with his Arista promo team. Pictured (top, l-r) are David Berry, Josh Easler, Ryan Sanders and Olivia Laster; (middle, l-r) Ali O’Connell, Rusty Sherrill, Luke Jensen and Lisa Owen; (bottom, l-r) Wide Open’s Brendan Rich, Stell and Sony’s Lauren Thomas.
Instrumental: CMHoF Big Night
Since closing its doors to the public in March, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has suffered a revenue loss eclipsing $30 million. But, when one door closes, another door — or exhibit case — opens. Like most museums, the CMHoF has historically enforced a strict hands-off policy for its exhibits. Despite the devastating blow the pandemic has delivered, it also created a unique and (hopefully) once-ina-lifetime set of circumstances for treasured instruments to be safely removed from climate-controlled cases and played once again. Instruments and artists were paired according to emotional and artistic connections, and performances were filmed during the Museum’s six-month closure. The result was Big Night (At The Museum), a free digital fundraiser that has already raised more than $743,000 for the non-profit’s
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