On Monday, July 20, 2015 we will be kicking off the 3rd annual KBA WKU Radio Talent Institute on the campus of Western Kentucky University at the School of Journalism & Broadcasting’s Mass Media & Technology Hall.
Students apply for and are accepted into the institute that comprises ten intensive days of instruction on all things radio. Taught by 38 radio professionals, whom are the best in the business in their area of specialization in the field of radio.
This year the President/CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau, Erica Farber, will be one of those professionals. Farber leads radio’s advocacy efforts by helping to drive business, grow advertising revenue and communicate radio’s digital transition.
We’re excited to have Erica join us this year, as a major component of the institute is radio sales. Each student will study the modules of the Radio Marketing Professional program taught by radio sales management professionals. Students take the RMP certification exam at the end of the first week.
The KBA WKU Radio Talent Institute has not one, but two National Radio Award recipients who teach each summer at WKU: Steve Newberry, President/CEO of Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation and Bud Walters, President/Owner of Cromwell Radio Group.
Broadcasters embrace and see the importance of bringing young talent into the industry and see the institute as a talent incubator.
Radio is the #1 REACH MEDIUM in the United States today, beating TV, online and smartphones according to Nielsen.
So this is an exciting program for both students and broadcasters.
I wrote more extensively about the program in Radio World and you can read that article here: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/newbay/rw_20150520/index.php#/18
DickTaylorBlog 
Yes, luckily radio still has availability (in cars) on it’s side. But according to what I read, there are things hovering “out there” in the fog ready to move in on us. The most obvious challenge is that the younger generation seems to have a growing perception that traditional radio is for old people or parents who can’t use technology. And if that is true then the listeners will be going (or “growing”) away.
Then there are new things entering the world of marketing that traditional radio cannot simply add to their air like the reliable reporting of actual listeners and measuring engagement; things that online has. The only reprieve that luckily developed was the ad fraud that is easy to do in digital as well. This development has slowed down the advertisers rush to everything digital. But this is a short term hiccup that gives radio a little more time to get it’s re-branding s#!t together.
There’s probably more to work on but I have my own work to do. Hope you had fun at the radio bash.
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DAY 2: Kristin Cantrell CEO/Owner of CapCity Communications, Kevin Hughes of iHeart Media & Mike Tarter President/CEO of Forcht Broadcasting teaching at the 2015 KBA WKU RADIO TALENT INSTITUTE.
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BTW, your piece in that next book mag journal is great. We could talk to the Keller people about our distance learning application. Of course it works better than anything out there. We may even have ways to help get it sponsored. SyncBP distance learning is a veritcal market offshoot, application that we developed and demo’d for Cisco that we also tried to interest certain academic entities in during the years 2005-2007. When 2008 rolled around, we finally started getting our calls returned from radio so we got busy with that BUT we still have the basic architecture and working distance learning demo. Just throwing that out there if you ever hear anything. It’s not a project that we can take time away from radio at the moment but if there was interest we can always find a way.
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