Cumulus Media’s Columbus branch, which provide radio broadcasts for the Golden Triangle, has moved to the heart of downtown.
The longtime local media company is moving its operations to the fourth floor of the old National Bank of Commerce building at the corner of Fifth and Main streets. It’s the perfect spot for the company, said Greg Benefield, vice president and marketing manager.
“Top of the hill, downtown, top floor, overlooking everything else,” he said. “It’s really an optimal place.”
Cumulus arrived in Columbus in the late 1990s when it bought three different companies. It operated from a glass office building owned by Wil Colom on Second Avenue North for more than 15 years. In September 2010, the company downsized. The staff went from more than 30 to five full-time employees and a few part-time, and the office space became too big, Benefield said.
“That was a cavern over there,” he said of the old digs as he sat in his new office downtown.
He hopes to be completely moved into the new building by the end of July. Cumulus has the entire fourth floor where there is office space for the smaller staff in production and sales, along with a studio to broadcast prerecorded shows and commercials. There’s also a studio each for live broadcasts for Cumulus’ two stations, the classic rock station WSMS 99.9 and the urban WMXU 106.1.
Operations manager Chris Stryker is also a DJ for 99.9. He’s been in radio more than 15 years, most of those with Cumulus in Columbus, though he did take off a year to try out another company in Florida, which he now describes as a “vacation.”
Wearing a Led Zeppelin t-shirt and leaning in the door frame of Benefield’s office, he and Benefield talked about their plans for the new location.
“Our plan is to make it live and local,” Stryker said.
A local radio station is important to the community, he and Benefield said, from advertising local businesses to warning listeners about bad weather headed their direction. But that local angle is one of the many things that have changed about radio over the years.
“Used to, an on-air personality, he would carry the station, as far as their ratings and things like that, because he was the guy that people could reach out and touch and feel and talk to and was everybody’s best friend,” Benefield said. “Now, not so much. Everything is syndicated. Everything is automated, brought in via a satellite from New York and Los Angeles.”
But Cumulus has the local on-air personality.
“Chris has been here 100 years and he’s the old man,” Benefield joked. “He’s kissing babies around here. People have been named after him.”
But radios are more than just the on-air personality, and Stryker the convenience of a downtown location should help with both sales and visibility.
“We’re on the upswing,” he added.
That local aspect, along with fact that music is free for listeners, is what gives radio the staying power it has.
“Radio is the first (audible) medium,” Benefield said. “It was before TV. … When TV was invented, they said, ‘Aw, you guys are going to be through. TV’s going to be it.’ … We’re the chameleon. TV didn’t shut us down.”
Neither did eight-tracks, CDs or iTunes. Pandora has only survived by adopting radio’s business model of playing free music interspersed with ads, Stryker said. Sirius XM satellite radio makes listeners pay.
“We do change in a way, but we don’t change fundamentally,” Stryker said.
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