Is Digital Content The Key To Local Media's Future?

In the premiere episode of In The Vicinity, Vertere Group founder and Proximity columnist Tim Hanlon sits down with Madhive CEO Jim Wilson for a wide-ranging conversation about the future of local media.

From his early days visiting local TV stations with his father to launching TEGNA’s Premion and now leading Madhive, Wilson has had a front-row seat to the industry’s evolution. His message is clear: Local broadcasters need to reinvest today’s linear profits into building digital and streaming capabilities—or risk being left behind as audiences and advertisers move elsewhere.

Listen to the full podcast below or get it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Tim Hanlon: Hello there. Welcome. You are In The Vicinity. My name is Tim Hanlon. I am the founder and CEO of the Vertere Group, a consulting firm here in the great city of Chicago, former agency guy and longtime media industry consultant. Welcome to the proceedings. This is gonna be our weekly sojourn into all things local media, and I will be joined each and every week with Jim Wilson, who you may know is CEO of Madhive, the pioneering firm that is very active in the CTV space, especially for local TV stations and other media properties out there. Former Premion president and founder during his days in the TEGNA.

Wilson is also on the board of directors of GSTV, Gas Station TV, formerly known as, as well as Odyssey one of the biggest radio companies in the country. So between all that experience and my [00:01:00] button pushing we're gonna have some hopefully interesting conversations. A little bit of debate once in a while, a couple of sparks but also trying to discern what the heck is going on.

In not only local media, but media generally from both the bigger picture perspective, whether it's mergers and acquisitions or trends or things that are happening, displacement consumer behaviors and that kinda stuff. But also the reality check on the ground, right? There's sales to be had and there are production.

Meetings to go through and news and content production and ratings and and listeners and new forms of of listening and watching and just consuming media, all these kinds of things. The reality checks of all of those will be a. All part and parcel of the weekly chat that we have here on this show.

And, we'll evolve it over time. I think we're gonna keep it to just Jim and myself for the for the initial foray into this. But hopefully we'll be able to include perhaps your thoughts, your questions your commentary God forbid, we'll do some live broadcasts if we get successful with this.

And hopefully you'll tell two friends and they'll tell two friends and so on. So make sure that you add us to your podcast feeds. And hopefully tune in each and every week and hopefully we'll provide you with a little bit of things to think about to conjecture about, and maybe a few little lessons and solves for what's ailing us in the media landscape on the local front.

And, we just thank you tremendously for giving us a try and let's get right to the conversation, shall we? Jim and I are gonna expound on a bunch of different topics each and every week, but we're gonna do some more introductory stuff this week just to get to know each other and have, you know each other or know us a little bit better as well.

So here's our first chat. Please sit back and welcome to the proceedings.

Ostensibly we're both here to chat through hopefully some helpful commentary and observations and maybe even some quips and suggestions and stuff about what's going on in and around the realms, plural of local media. I think television for sure, but, local media is a big sort of fat pot of brew that encompasses many different touch points before we get into some of our early conversations.

Why don't we get a little bit more background about you. I think certain people know you from certain places, but I'm not sure everybody recognizes your sort of full story. Maybe a little bit about what you have your hands in now, and then we can maybe backwardly go into how you got there.

Jim Wilson: Day-to-day, i'm the CEO of Madhive. And Madhive is a leader in local media solutions. We have a DSP platform built for local and workflow tools and other tools for sellers on the ground with our broadcast partners and tools for agencies as well to plan out local.

I've been involved with Madhive I ever since I started Premion at TEGNA back in 2016, 2017. And was the first investor in Madhive. And even though I stepped away to run talent for a couple years, 'cause I have a fascination with out of home, which is the most local of media and then when Goldman came in with an investment, they asked me to join the board and, the world happens and next thing you know, you're running the company. So the company that I invested in years ago, I'm now running.

Tim Hanlon: But you also have your hand in a few other things. So you wanna describe your board roles in the, in a couple of other relevant places, this conversation? Sure,

Jim Wilson: Sure.

I love local. I've loved local ever since I started. I was running Touch Tunes 10 or more years ago. And I'm also on the board of Audacy and I'm also chair of the board of GSTV, which is one of the leading digital out home or I would say out-of-home media companies.

It's a really exciting business.

Tim Hanlon: So how do you get involved in local, in the first place? Because what you've just described, there is a little malan of out-of-home place-based. Radio, television and arguably through the prism of both pri and now Madhive is streaming as well. So you touched the bases on a lot of the different sort of local media outlets.

What's your origination story into all that?

Jim Wilson: My origination story is I used to go down to the local TV stations and radio stations with my dad when I was a kid when he was running some automotive businesses in Maryland and WBAL and WBFF and W-P-O-C-A radio station and. I even got to meet some of the news anchors and some celebrities and my dad was a, a TV and radio advertiser and I thought that was exciting.

And I used to work in my dad's business when I was a kid. When you have a family business, everybody in the family works in it. And then, when I graduated college, I went to work for an accounting from public accounting firm. And, sinclair Broadcast Group became one of my first clients and they owned WBFF, so it was like, wow, I have arrived.

But then, I went to business school and spent many years in the entertainment business and the video games business, but moved to New York and landed a Touch Tunes and it was touch tunes where I was thinking that I was actually marrying my. Game and platform development skills.

But actually in that role ended up falling in love with the concept of local and with 60,000 locations in an advertising business, you're in the local media business and e

Tim Hanlon: Explain Touch Tunes for those who don't know. 'cause I think it's a little amorphous and people's mind.

Some people.

Jim Wilson: Touch Tunes is in venue music business in short, it's a jukebox business, which. Seems like a legacy business, but not it's a booming business. It's it's remo, mobile controlled music. And when I got there, it was, it needed a new growth story and it hadn't really fully gone.

Remote and digital, and we didn't know who our customers were. And launched a mobile app and next thing people are controlling the jukebox from their phones. And it just was a fantastic story. And we exited and that's when I stepped into a role at TEGNA to start A-A-C-T-V platform.

The management team at TEGNA at the time had the foresight to realize that if linear is on a decline and CTV and streaming is on the rise, we needed a product to take to market. And, local broadcasters, take products to market to promote local businesses. And so there was a lot of.

Foresight there, I have to give Dave Luge a huge shout out for that because, he really got behind that and gave me the opportunity to build that.

Tim Hanlon: Alright, let's, I'm gonna slide into the streaming thing in a second, but I, let's ground this first sort of set of discussion between you and me and I'm just Mr.

Agency Guy, right? So I spent a ton of time in the agency space helping clients navigate all kinds of media choices. The last decade or so of my career at Publicis and IPG was founding and Running ventures practices. Working with a lot of entrepreneurs in and around media and technology and stuff, half of which now run the show, so to speak.

Versus classic television and radio kind of stuff. And in the context of this conversation it is, it's reinvented not all forms of advertising, but certainly local. Forms of advertising and marketing and messaging. And I guess I'll tee this our ongoing set of conversations up with this sort of dynamic.

I think, when you look at local television and obviously from the TEGNA slash Premion experiences and now what you're doing in Madi in particular it, I think an argument can be made that, that television, especially local TV in many respects is on the back foot. Streaming has taken over and the local television advertising, all classically in quotes model if you will of reaching audiences is very much.

If not under duress, certainly under significant structural change. The question I think in there, just generally, and we can go forever on this, but I we'll go into deeper layers of this as we go on in our, in the weeks to come, but really, what is the form factor of local quote unquote television advertising these days?

Because I would strongly make the argument that. Local is in the eye of the beholder, and many of those Beholders are watching quote unquote television via a stream and not a linear TV channel.

Jim Wilson: There's definitely a str a structural change happening in the market. I always say that, broadcasters, which, I don't know if we're gonna call 'em broadcasters in the future, we're calling 'em media companies.

They're local media companies, and, they're in the business of delivering news and information entertainment into local markets. And that's exciting. I think that's really exciting. And they have this wonderful competitive advantage of having these sellers on the ground. And those sellers, help local businesses, with their advertising essentially, the, it's a consultative sell.

Local advertisers. In many respects require consultative sell. And if you step back and just say, broadcasters are in, in the business of delivering, local news information, entertainment and, build relationships in their community through their on-air personalities and through their sellers, I think it's really exciting.

It's all about, it's all about community engagement and If we've learned anything about this country. This country is really a UA, a united set of zip codes, more than anything. And so I think local media companies have an in incredible opportunity if they can make this transformation

Tim Hanlon: well.

Okay, so the word transformation is a little old itself, right? And it's, I think what you've described and rightly is, I quaint a classic definition of sort of local media, especially when it comes to see television stations or radio stations but those form factors are so challenged, different and compromised.

And arguably the younger audiences necessarily aren't even engaging. Those. I don't know. It feels to me like it very much is a defensive set of conversations when you talk to local TV people, local radio people, local, what used to be newspaper people, frankly. Those traditional containers right, are truly no more maybe on the wane and are being either supplemented or replaced by.

Either on purpose or by outside forces. Other things, other more direct or immediate or digital or whatever kinds of touch points. I guess I wonder how do you sitting, where you sit right now across all these different places, how do you keep people from jumping off the ledge, right? Given all these changes and stuff, how do you remind them possibly that.

There is still incumbent benefits to what these local media properties historically bring to the table, and that they can in indeed with change in mind, survive and perhaps thrive. If they can evolve with where things are going.

Jim Wilson: Yeah. I have an interesting seat because what can you, that's

Tim Hanlon: another

Jim Wilson: question.

Can you? Yeah. I sit an interesting seat because, Madhive's, primary go-to market strategy has been through. The majority of the broadcasters. And our role has been to be a a monetization platform for their owned and operated inventory. And then to bring in other inventory for them to package and sell to local advertisers.

And and that just hails from the Premion days. But, having been at TEGNA, which I thought. Was a fairly best practices company and then being able to look out at all of these different broadcasters and how they're thinking about, we, from where we sit as a technology infrastructure partner or enterprise partner, we get to understand the strategies of all the various parties.

And so we see some and we see, various approaches to this go to market. And. And how they're shifting. I think, just to step back look, we're we are, we're in the attention economy, right? And so the attention economy is, most of us walk around with our mobile phones these days.

And, our televisions, are about which input you have turned on. Do you have your. Do you still have linear broadcasting? Some people don't. And do you or, and or do you have streaming? So we have this attention economy. YouTube is one of the biggest platforms for viewing in the country.

People spend a lot of time on their mobile phones and that, I think if you look generation by generation, you can see where people are primarily watching video. And so the. Again, do you call 'em broadcasters anymore or do you call 'em local media companies? Do you call 'em publishers? And I believe that, or at least my recommendation for these companies is to spend it, where are you putting your cash?

Where are you spending your money and you're spending your money in? Either building content for various platforms. Now it can go out on a linear feed or it can go out on a digital feed. It can go out on another platform. And you really should be building content and you should still, I believe, invest in communities through the people that you have on the ground.

'cause I think that's a competitive advantage in the market. And the big recommendation for me is and the thing is most broadcasters should be getting every single. Broadcast dollar, linear dollar that they can get because there's a lot of cash. It's a high profitable business.

It may be declining by point, single digit points every year, maybe something like that. It's declining, but it's a high cash flow, high margin business, and that money should be channeled into building out digital content and making a transformation over to digital. That's where, yeah. That's where they should be going.

Tim Hanlon: And I think that's, I think that's at the crux of the question. And I dunno if there's an answer to it just yet, but I think maybe to what you were hinting at, right? You've got different broadcasters as classically defined in varying forms of transition into the realities of.

Where the marketplace and the value propositions are going, and I think it's hard, right? I know it's hard, right? When you have a ostensibly linear business model that has been historically profitable, that is flattening or declining in its. Growth or its profitability, but it's still relatively well off.

Especially if you can achieve cost cutting and efficiencies and those kinds of things, right? You can still maintain some of those nice profit margins at least for a period of time. But I think really the distinction is it's also harder to make those changes or evolve or go beyond just experimentation or a smaller amount of resources relative to the mothership.

When. The newer business models are a lot more uncertain and or certainly not nearly as voluminous as the traditional ones have been. So intestinal fortitude, how do you get it and how do you bring it to bear when the margins are still pretty good and the linear business is still not dead yet and maybe.

On paper move a little earlier than maybe the spreadsheets predict into these places that we all know inherently are where people are viewing, watching, consuming, et cetera, that are not based in those linear pathways at It's a conundrum. I don't know if it's an answerable question, but one we can keep in the back of our minds as we, we chat over the weeks.

But how do you feel about that? Is that fair Assessment?

Jim Wilson: Yeah, it the, first of all, just the business of maintaining and running their linear businesses is, and especially if it's in somewhat of a decline is, and all that goes along with it.

From newsrooms to every, everything that goes along with it is certainly something to, preoccupy, every leader in the market to make sure that they're maximizing those businesses. And if they're public, they really should be. And talking about that. And they do a good job of that.

But at the same time, the content that they're building needs to be either reformatted or there should be content that is really built for digital distribution because they must be on. Other platforms and other distribution platforms. And and I think, when you see TikTok now with local feeds, it makes sense.

It's a national platform, but really any algorithm can turn it into a local platform. And if, you can't sit out of this, you have to move and you got, you have to. Really think about it. And so again, there are some broadcasters who are doing an amazing job of building and distributing their content through linear and through local.

There are some broadcasters that. Are buying, assets, Scripps buys Ion or nexstar buys CW or something like that. There are plays in the market where they can pick up brands. And that branded content is very interesting because it already has a market or there are some broadcasters that think they're local TV or local radio.

Is a brand right? Kroc in la where I've spent a good part of my career is, a radio station that I will still listen to sometimes on my Amazon Alexa. And that is a brand to me. And so there are, there are some, there are ways to think about, it may have been an over the air brand before, but now it could be a digital brand.

And so I think. There's a lot of work and a lot of tests and learn that has to be done here, but it has to be done and it has to be done now.

Tim Hanlon: Yeah. I think it also though, speaks to content production, right? I think the easy stuff has been done, right? It's relatively easy to take a linear, local newscast and simulcast it on a stream and then rebroadcast it on a stream, the problem with that is. You can only rebroadcast it so many times, maybe once before it gets stale. And two, there are probably elements to that newscast that could more easily be peeled from that to create and or originate maybe even stories on other platforms. So I guess my point is that the easy thing is to repurpose what's been done for linear.

But that's the easy part. And that's I think people are still skating. Away with sort of that as being the work. And that's not har, it's not easy to do per se, but it's also not speaking to people where they are. That doesn't speak uniquely to the YouTube audience or uniquely to the TikTok audience, right?

They know they can smell from a mile away. That is a rebroadcast of a show that was not originally intended for this platform. So I, to me, that's like the essence, right? If there's ever going to be evidence that a quote unquote station or station group. Is really far further along in this journey.

It's, to your point, maybe being less a TV station to me, more of a, shall we call it local platform or a local content? Brand that is multifunctional or exudes itself or presents itself in multiple touchpoints. And by the way, maybe originating a show on TikTok and having that be collated as a TV show after the fact, right?

Complete opposite of what's being basically done today. I, to me, where I sit I see. I think what I just described is much more the exception than it is the rule, and I think it has to dramatically change to become the rule. This idea of we are going to multiply, create, multiply, distribute, multiply, monetize beyond just 85% of our resources against the linear TV model, which is still doing okay, but we're gonna, and we still have cut fat to cut from it.

That doesn't, it just feels like there's still not that urgency that, I dunno, maybe is lacking.

Jim Wilson: Yeah, there's again, I think there's a lot of preoccupation with maintaining the linear business. When I was when I was running Premion at TEGNA, I felt like some days I had a great deal of support and building out that brand and building out that TV business.

Not a CTV business. But at the same time, the incentives for the sellers at the, was really focused on the linear side to make sure that they were maintaining that linear side, which made sense. Now it's evened out over the years from what I understand and again I always looked at them as best practices in that area, but there definitely is the need.

For a sense of urgency. I believe that the broadcasters are local media companies and have every opportunity in the world to find and create content that can appeal to the local markets and beyond the local markets. There's no reason that it can't. When you think about. Content creators today that build large audiences out of, not out of nowhere, but we live in a world where someone, an individual can build out an audience of millions of people. Podcasts can come out of nowhere and all of a sudden. They come out of a local community. Everything is really, is essentially coming out of a local community, right? Someone's sitting somewhere creating content or a group of people somewhere creating content.

And I think if local media companies can think of themselves as entertainment or media companies in general, and they're looking at different opportunities, whether it is video or audio or something, or some other format. They have just as much a right to win in the market as some of the other big players.

And I think, again, some of the consolidation that's going on, I think will actually give them the opportunity because it gives them a bigger platform. From which to grow. And these content bets or these investments in content have a greater greater sort of distribution platform.

And one thing I will say is, in the short, not in the short term, but in the short to medium term, I think linear TV and terrestrial radio are great megaphones to to. To promote digital content and, like especially radio being on the board of Audacy. Audacy is doing a fantastic job of transformation and focusing on their brands and focusing on the sports segment and, using their personalities and they're on air time to be a megaphone, which I think is really interesting.

Tim Hanlon: We're gonna have plenty of weeks of conversations about a number of these things that we've touched upon. Consolidation certainly being one of them. I think the notion of. Of how sales teams are aligned or not aligned. The the belief of linear first and everything else, digitally addition to that.

Is that the primary way? I think what's TV stations, for example, in their relationships with networks, there are affiliations and, or sports and or what if syndicated fair and if those things go away, localism. We'll talk about localism where, in some respects, you know Brendan Carr for all his bluster, right?

He is correct in saying that TV stations and local media should be about local and localism. And that's the irony, right? If we talk about consolidation, which we'll, in future conversations for sure. 'cause it's very much timeless. Today's headlines.

Jim Wilson: We all, I agree with that. We, look, we all live in our communities and, and I really believe in communities and I live in New York City and I live in a community in New York City, and some people would think that is, doesn't make any sense.

But I actually live in a community in the part of New York City that I live in. And and people live in communities and, con content, that is generated to, better inform me about my community better enable me to navigate my community. I think it's critically important.

I really believe in the power of community and I think local media can leverage that and has always leveraged that and keep continued to do that.

Tim Hanlon: Let me set that up as our teaser for future conversation, certainly next week and stuff, because I think what we're landing here is. I think we're in the midst of a battle for the big fat middle between these two extremes, right?

You've got the linear, traditional media companies and structures maybe consolidating further that, are trying to figure out how to make themselves more relevant in a more community oriented or sub DMA level or more. Just to re truly relevant kind of way to cons consume to consumers as they live their lives, not in necessarily in the big megalopolis, but in their neighborhoods, or in their towns, or in their regions, but also the reverse, right?

It's all these independent journalists or independent content creators who are not necessarily looking for. Approval or license, so to speak, don't have one barrier to entry is low. And they can create small to growing communities in and around. Maybe not just location, but that's certainly one of them.

But also other passions, interests belief sets. And in the middle is the. Creative destruction, right? There's the big entities that could survive if they change dramatically and move forward towards those new models. And a, an army, literally and figuratively of people who are creating from the ground up and may indeed get their own little traction and stuff.

And the irony is, I think in that middle, they both need each other and arguably could succeed. With better understanding and or interoperating with them. And that's the sort of thought I'll leave us with. What are your as we leave what are your thoughts as we record this week of Paramount, effectively maybe, probably winning Warner Brothers discovery.

Do you see that in particular, having any effect now or down the road on local media?

Jim Wilson: I think it, they did a masterful job of turning that situation around. I've been watching it for weeks and watching every move that the Paramount team has made. And I think it's, they did a masterful job of turning that whole situation around and.

Look the businesses coming together I just think makes sense. In terms of, streaming and and just the future of entertainment, that they're very much paramount and Warner Brothers are very much aligned because they come from older operating models. So there's a big, there's a significant amount of alignment there.

But look, I think, you've got this consolidation that's happening on the national stage. You equally need the consolidation happening on the local stage. And I do believe that both of those national entities and those local entities will find really interesting ways to do business together and for content distribution.

And so I think there's so much more to come.

Tim Hanlon: This is why I'm gonna enjoy these sets of conversations 'cause I'm gonna challenge some of those notions because if I'm a CBS owned and operated station right now, if I'm a CBS affiliated station right now, if I'm a CW related or affiliated station right now, or have any arms around the CW network, which is its own linguini of intrigue by now, multiple masters.

It's gonna be a confusing short period of time and maybe even long period of time. Yes, look, I look forward to doing more of these conversations. Hopefully we've wedded some whistles here, some appetites. Thanks for making time and let's

Jim Wilson: yeah, Tim absolutely.

Tim Hanlon: Try to make, absolutely try to make some hay out of all this, huh?

Jim Wilson: Let's keep it going. Absolutely.

Tim Hanlon: All right. There it is. Our first step. Episode in the books, and hopefully you will join us each and every week in the months to come in our little journey into our exploration, into all things local media. My thanks to not only Jim for joining us this week as he will each and every week, but also the team at TVRev, Mike Gasbara and Jason Damata.

Thank you kind sirs. As well as the crack staff at Madhive, Nicole Lewis and Stephanie Nerby. In particular. And of course, our button pusher and production person extraordinaire. Jerry Payne down there in Metro Atlanta. Thank you for your knob twiddling of this episode this week.

Alright, stay tuned to your feed. Make sure you do and subscribe to us. Tell your friends and we'll see you next week here on In The Vicinity.