26 minute read
COVER STORY
MOTIVATOR INNOVATOR WARRIOR
Radio Ink: How and why did you get into radio?
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Santrella: I was blessed that my high school in Illinois has a radio station, 88.5 FM at the time. There was Main East, West, South, and North; it was a network of radio stations, all at 88.5 FM. I joined the club in high school and the minute I walked in the door of that little radio station, it got in my blood. At 14, I knew this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Like high school sports, radio or media clubs at school can replace a lot of bad choices you might otherwise make. You end up spending that time at the station with other people who have common interests. I think radio at the high school and college level is a fantastic opportunity.
Sadly, you’re seeing college stations disappear for two reasons. One, there’s a basic misunderstanding of the value of radio as a medium, and two, there’s this love and fascination with everything that’s digital. The reality is, radio is the original social media. It’s where the original influencers were born and are today! We hear about all these influencers on digital platforms, but every time your air personality cracks the mic, they’re influencers, and they have been for decades. Radio remains the original social media, with great value.
Radio is still the easiest thing to consume. I don’t have to pray my WiFi is OK or go to a web address or hope I have a good hotspot. I hit a button and it’s there, whether that’s in your home or car. Radio is all the things that TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are. Radio has always been those things.
Radio Ink: What happened after high school?
Santrella: Columbia College had a radio station, WCRX. Originally it was only a closed-circuit radio station broadcasting to the student lounge. While I was there it became a noncommercial college station with an over-the-air signal. Late in my junior year in college, I got a job at WMAQ in Chicago. My first job was as the White Sox Fan Van driver. My job was to go pick up White Sox sponsors and take them to the ball game.
NBC was wonderful and paid me $8.65 an hour. They gave me a golden box ticket to the game. I just had to get the clients there safely and make sure the clients were comfortable, and was told not to accept any tips. I noticed that these clients lived in nice houses. I met the sales reps because they were always with them. They seemed to be enjoying their jobs, and I figured I should pursue that.
The next summer I became what was called a VR, or vacation relief, engineer at WMAQ. I did that for a summer, but the whole time I kept haunting the sales manager, Jimmy Kezios, with the idea to let me be a salesperson. My VR engineer job ended in September, and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Jimmy asked me to meet him at the M&M Club at the Merchandise Mart for lunch. I met him, and he created a sales job for me. I was an account executive while still going to college. He gave me $500 a month in salary and a $100-a-month expense account. I joked all the time that I was the only college kid who had an expense account. Columbia College gave me seven credit hours for life experience.
I took a few classes a week and worked full-time selling, and that’s what launched my career. I was there a total of 12 years. My old boss, Jeff Chardell, who was the GSM at WMAQ for many years, went to WBBM. He was there for a year and a half
before reaching out to me about joining WBBM. I left WMAQ, which had changed over the time I was there, and moved to WBBM Newsradio 78. I started as a senior account executive, then to LSM, then GSM. I was there a total of eight years and then joined Salem as general manager of their Chicago stations.
Radio Ink: Why did you leave CBS and join Salem?
Santrella: I could see where CBS was going with the GM roles. It seemed like CBS was contracting those roles. Instead of having a GM for each station, stations were being scooped up by market managers. The role I wanted was becoming less attainable.
I started praying about that. Prayer has always been a big part of my life, and I got this call from Salem to join them. They had just launched their Fish station, which was their CCM format, in Chicago. Oddly enough, I’d been a listener to their Teach and Talk radio station for many years. A lot of pastors I’d learned from were on WYLL. I was familiar with Salem.
Right around that time, you put out an article on Salem, with CEO Ed Atsinger on the cover of Radio Ink. I was in the middle of interviewing with them at the time. I ended up resigning from CBS, much to their amazement as to why I would leave a place with such a massive budget to go be the GM of these two radio stations Salem owned in Chicago. For me, it was a real opportunity to use the skills God gave me and combine that with the passion I have for Jesus Christ and the Gospel. I saw it as a great opportunity.
Radio Ink: How different is it working for a company that’s involved in the type of programming Salem has?
Santrella: It works to the favor of our audience and shareholders. The way we look at it is that money isn’t the mission, it’s the fuel that accomplishes the mission. When you have a mission that’s greater than money, but money is required to make it happen, you go after the money that much harder. If you had a sick child and needed $100,000 for that child’s health care, you would do anything you could to get it. Because your mission is to save that child.
When you look at it that way, then the drive and determination to get the money required to keep it going is that much more intense. The mission of Salem is to
Dave and I worked together pre-consolidation on an all-star sales team that he was the star of. No one was better at concept selling and servicing accounts than Dave. His customers loved and trusted him. When competitors were pushing numbers and efficiencies, Dave added value by delivering solutions and underpromising and overdelivering. Hard-working, values-based, and systematic were the support beams of his creativity and solutionsbased selling approach. It is no surprise to see that he has succeeded both personally and professionally.
Weezie Kramer Former Audacy COO
Dave is a dynamic, energetic, and entrepreneurial leader who delivers results by bringing out the best of those around him with his passion, creativity, and integrity.
David Evans President, Digital Media & Book Publishing Salem Media Group
Dave Santrella and his wife, Barbara, in Santorini, Greece, during a Salem Listener Trip
promote the Gospel and provide a familysafe vehicle for entertainment. It is to endorse political ideals that complement a Biblical world view. That makes going after the revenue success that much more important.
Radio Ink: Does that mission come in conflict with conservative talk?
Santrella: On both sides you can go to an extreme. The difference with Salem is that we aren’t extreme. We aren’t tinfoil-hat conspiracy-theorist Talk radio. We form opinions that are educated, based on facts and research. It’s never radical.
Bill Bennett, who was a talk show host for us, said Salem has the best faculty in the industry, and we do. Our hosts are all highly educated, well-informed, rightthinking people who are balanced in their opinion. I’m proud of the talk we do. The extremes lose credibility. I think Salem provides hosts that understand the facts and form an opinion based on those facts. They treat the listener, no matter what side of the aisle they’re on, with dignity.
Radio Ink: What’s your philosophy for managing people? Is there a companywide philosophy all the managers follow? Why do people want to work for you?
Santrella: For all of us, people need to know you care about them. There’s the old adage “People don’t care how much you know unless they know how much you care.” It’s a cliché, but it’s true. You’re not just “Employee Number Blah, Blah, Blah.” You’re a person. I recognize that when an employee goes home at night, they are going home to the most important thing in their life. As much as this job is important, it’s not the most important thing in their life.
I know that probably sounds strange, but I think a basic understanding of that actually helps you lead more effectively, because you have a clear understanding of the role you play in that employee’s life and can better lead them with that perspective.
After that, it comes down to trusting your people and empowering them. I
As Salem has grown over the years, I have witnessed Dave growing too, and am amazed at his ability to process all of the details it takes to run the company simultaneously. He remembers things I have long since forgotten, and it goes beyond work-related items. He gets the personal side of the business, and his deep compassion for the front-line workers makes him uniquely qualified to manage this company and keep us focused on constant growth opportunities. We are blessed and fortunate to have him in this chair. Phil Boyce
Senior VP/Spoken Word Format Salem Podcast Network Salem Media Group and Salem Radio Network Operations VP, New York Region
Dave is always the consummate professional, who leads with a good measure of both grace and wit. We have worked together at Salem now for over 20 years and I could not be prouder of this well-deserved recognition.
Christopher Henderson EVP/General Counsel Salem Media Group
Renaissance Communications President/CEO Joe Battaglia, Salem CCM VP/Programming Mike Blakemore, Salem SVP Allen Power, Dave Santrella, Salem Nashville and Today’s Christian Music Network GM Kevin Anderson, consultant John Frost, and Keep the Faith Network President/CEO David Sams enjoy a friendly game of billiards at the Santrella home.
don’t have to be an expert in everything. I have to have people who are experts at those things. To me it’s a sign of weakness if you have a leader that needs to control every part of the organization. It’s a bit of an insecurity, from my perspective.
I have to know what’s going on, but I have to trust the people I’ve put in place to let them make the right decisions and control the outcomes. And then I need to hold them accountable to achieve that.
A great example in our company is Jamie Cohen, who is the senior VP of broadcast digital. He’s built the digital sales machines for a number of other organizations. He joined Salem, and I gave him this little digital machine we’d started to build and asked him to turn it into something much bigger. I let him run. I ask a lot of questions and then support the decisions he makes.
When you let your people make the decision, then they own the success. They don’t have to look back and say the great thing they did was because of a decision made by someone else. Good or bad, they own the outcome.
Radio Ink: What is your day like?
Santrella: I’m responsible for everything that happens on the broadcast side. This includes about 100 radio stations, a News/ Talk network, a music network, a news network, and a satellite distribution entity, as well as all of the things we’re doing digitally on the broadcast side of our business. This includes Salem Surround, which is the local digital advertising agency we have in every market; the Salem Podcast Network, which is a new initiative we launched at the beginning of this year; SalemNOW, which is our transactional video-ondemand platform launched in April of 2020; and more recently, the Salem News Channel.
I work in conjunction with David Evans, the other president inside our company, on this initiative because we both bring different skills to the table that are helping to build it.
Radio Ink: A lot of what we’re hearing from public companies this quarter is how huge digital is. What’s your take on the role digital is playing now?
Santrella: Digital is super important, and no doubt it’s the growth engine for all of our companies. I hear a lot of “Digital First” or “Audio First” positioning statements, and I respect that greatly. However, I believe Salem is a “Customer First” company.
Our first concern is, what does the customer need? From there, we have a full array of marketing assets to provide for that. If the customer is a listener, we have a full array of distribution vehicles and content choices for them to choose from. If the customer is a ministry, we have a massive assortment of distribution vehicles to offer their content. To me, it’s customer first.
The reality is, customers don’t only need audio or only need digital. They need a variety of all of that. When we hear that ad on the radio over and over, it has great impact. Eventually you need that service or product, and your brain remembers the clients in that category that have been drilled into your brain on the radio. Then the listener moves to the next part of the consumer buying journey, which is investigating, and that’s when digital takes over. Then it shows up in your Facebook feed and so on. It starts with radio/audio, then moves to digital, then to a sale. Radio/audio will always be
I’ve been fortunate to have several mentors in my life. Dave is one of those mentors. Dave epitomizes servant leadership. His door is open to every Salem team member and client. His obsession is helping each Salem team member meet our clients’ objectives while also helping our team members grow professionally and personally. He truly cares about everyone. I’ve seen him time and time again demonstrate “seek first to understand, then be understood.” While I learn from his words, I learn much more from his actions.
Mike Reed Senior Vice President Salem Media Group
Dave is one of the finest leaders I’ve had the privilege to work for. He challenges us, celebrates the wins with us, supports us, and gives us the resources we need to get the job done. He expects excellence from himself as well as the team, and his style of leadership makes you want to deliver.
important. It’s not that one is first or second, it’s the customer first, and then build the right strategy.
Radio Ink: Does radio stick our chest out enough to say how good we are? It appears we’re chasing the digital dollars.
Santrella: Sadly, radio has unfairly become second fiddle to digital. I think that’s not a good thing. It all still starts with radio. I sell digital, so I’m not being disparaging. There are a lot of products that get advertised to me digitally, and the first thing that goes through my mind is, “Can I trust this?” But when I hear Dennis Prager say, “I use this, and you should think about using it too,” when I hear someone I trust talk about something, now it has credibility.
These influencers you see on TikTok and the like are wonderful, but I don’t know them from a bucket of chicken. My influencers, people like Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Larry Elder, Sebastian Gorka, and Charlie Kirk, Eric Metaxas, plus all of our local hosts, carry a credibility that can’t be matched by someone I have never heard of that shows up in a social media feed.
Radio Ink: What’s your take on how the advertisers feel about radio?
Santrella: I still go out on client appointments, so I’m talking to them often. Most of our clients are using a combination of radio and digital. They understand the two go hand-in-hand. Radio creates awareness; digital will be where they take action.
Advertisers see great value in what we’re doing for them on the radio. Through AnalyticOwl we have the ability to show, when they run a radio ad, what happens to their website traffic. It goes up because we’ve made somebody aware of their product or service. We now have tangible evidence of the impact radio has. And that’s just the immediate impact radio has, it doesn’t point to the aftershock.
The fact is, there are a number of people who will hear that ad over time and not take action right away, but six months down the line they will investigate that client. They are now a familiar name to them. We don’t get as much credit as we should for that.
Radio Ink: When you look back over the last year and half, with COVID, what are your thoughts?
Santrella: Boy, was I stupid. Mid-March of 2020, when it started, I thought by midAugust, we will be back to normal. I had no idea that in February of 2021 I’d still be wearing a mask to go into Starbucks — or for that matter, in November of 2021. The lingering impact is astounding. I would say it’s a new normal.
There’s part of the population that still has apprehension about doing certain things. People are more selective when choosing to be involved in something with a lot of people. However, I do see great signs in our economy of recovery. I see restaurants full again, and people are anxious to be living life. The greatest indicator is traffic, and traffic is back. No more getting to LAX in 30 minutes.
Radio Ink: What’s the company’s stance on the vaccine?
Santrella: Salem is not a big proponent of a vaccine mandate. Salem will follow the law but reasonably resist the mandate where we can.
Radio Ink: You’ve been involved in the NAB. Can you tell us why?
Santrella: NAB is a phenomenal organization that is fighting every day for both the radio and TV industries to make sure our stations have the ability to grow and thrive while serving our communities and audiences. NAB is incredibly effective in preventing burdensome regulation and legislation that would hamper our ability to be successful.
When I moved from being a GM to the president’s role, I became more involved in the company’s financials. You start to look at how much we are paying for licensing across the company. You get involved in FCC issues and how those regulations impact the company overall. If the FCC makes one change that requires additional resources at our stations, take that times the number of stations we own, and all of a sudden the company is diverting from our core mission just for compliance purposes. While some of that is necessary and fair, we want to make sure there’s not government overreach.
NAB does a fantastic job of watching out for us and advocating for broadcast-
Dave is a leader who hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be in the trenches, and that motivates those he leads. Good leaders hold people accountable for results, but the great ones hold people accountable in a way that makes them want to run through walls for that leader. Dave’s balance of heart and head, empathy and accountability, creativity and pragmatism has served him well as both a visionary and a problemsolver.
Santrella with retiring NAB chief Gordon Smith (l) and incoming NAB President/ CEO Curtis LeGeyt
ers, while also keeping their eye on policy opportunities that are coming around the corner. That motivated me to get involved.
Radio Ink: Does the performance tax issue worry you?
Santrella: Yes, it does worry me and should concern every radio broadcaster, no matter the size. This is another area where NAB has been incredibly effective for radio. The Local Radio Freedom Act — a resolution opposing a performance tax — continues to be an important tool in preventing Congress from imposing a performance fee. It consistently has received support from more than 200 House members and senators.
It’s a fight we have to keep fighting. As the music licensing space becomes increasingly complicated, our support on that issue strengthens our hand to advocate in Congress and in the administration for other necessary reforms.
Radio Ink: Take us inside the decision to cancel the 2021 NAB Show, after first pushing it back toward the end of the year.
Santrella: It was obviously incredibly disappointing to have to cancel the show for 2021, but it was the right call. This is a global event with a large number of important exhibitors that everyone wants to see, and they are coming from other countries. Their ability to get into the U.S. at the time was extremely tenuous, and the delta variant was peaking. It just became increasingly difficult for those exhibitors, and NAB wisely decided that we could no longer host a show that delivered anything less than the excellence it is known for.
With that decision made, the team immediately began to focus on delivering an incredible event for radio and TV and our broader media ecosystem in April 2022. I can’t wait to be there.
Radio Ink: Do you know if there will be a vaccine mandate for the April show?
Santrella: NAB had a vaccine mandate in place for the show that was canceled in October and was following all federal and state health and safety guidelines. We will do whatever is necessary for the 2022 show to move forward successfully in April.
Radio Ink: Who were some influential people for you in the broadcast industry?
Santrella: It starts with Jimmy Kezios, who was my first boss at WMAQ in Chicago. He gave me my first sales job. He took a chance on me, and I’m grateful to him. Ed Atsinger has been incredibly influential. I’ve been blessed to work next to Ed for 12 years now in the role I’m in. To see how he thinks and what motivates him has taught me a ton. Ed is a guy who’s always motivated by what’s the right thing to do,
Salem talk host Hugh Hewitt, Dave Santrella, and Salem East SVP Allen Power at a Salem Network all-day broadcast from the White House lawn.
regardless of the money. That’s the first motivation for Ed, always.
Weezie Kramer was the GSM when WMAQ was purchased by Westinghouse. She’s smart as a whip. She really forced you to be a smart person. The whole idea of “Customer First” is something she helped me to understand. She was big on “understand what your clients need, and the presentation will come easy.”
Steve Carver was the GM at WBBM who convinced me to take the pay cut and move from sales to management. He said, “Trust me. The money will follow.” He was right, and I enjoy leading people and watching them grow. There are so many others. I know I am forgetting a bunch, so please forgive me.
Radio Ink: What do you want to see the radio industry do better moving forward?
Santrella: I would like it to be proud of who and what we are. We have a distinct advantage over so many other media vehicles. Radio is selling digital, offering a variety of digital alternatives and assets to buy in addition to radio. Digital doesn’t have that.
Facebook doesn’t have a network of radio stations. They don’t have a stable of network and local hosts that are influencers for your products and services. I would love to see radio make sure that the advertising community understands we all offer a full array of marketing vehicles for them. We aren’t one-dimensional. We are the three- or four-dimensional marketing company that digital is not.
Radio Ink: What do you want to accomplish moving forward in your career?
Santrella: I’m honored to be with Salem. I think God has called me here. Right now my goal is to be where I am. That first job at WMAQ radio as a sales rep — that was the last time I actively looked for a job. The other positions I’ve had pursued me. I believe I’ll be where God wants me to be.
Radio Ink: What is your advice to the managers out there who see companies cutting back? What’s your advice to them to succeed, or one day own or run a radio station themselves?
Santrella: Do good work, and good things will follow. The most successful companies in the world are the ones who are fantastic at what they offer the consumer. Pretty good is pretty bad, so never settle for “pretty good.” Be excellent at it, whatever “it” may be.
Dave is a purposeful leader. He leads by example and with his heart. Unlike many leaders, Dave can also walk the walk. I know when he asks something of me, it is something he would be prepared to do himself. Salem is very fortunate to have someone with Dave’s character at the helm.
Jamie Cohen SVP/Broadcast Digital Salem Media Group
Dave Santrella is a man of many talents. A disciplined hard charger with great creativity, high integrity, and loyalty to a fault. The impact of his 20-year leadership at Salem is as consequential for our success as any other factor that I could identify or quantify.
Ed Atsinger Founder/CEO Salem Media Group
