Joe D. Davis: Salem Official Oversees Christian Themes

Joe D. Davis is president of the Radio Division for Salem Communications, the Camarillo-based media company. Salem is the third largest operator of all the radio companies in the major markets. Davis started with Salem in 1989 when he opened the company’s station in New York City. His career has always been in radio and radio-related businesses. Davis was on the air while in college but he learned that if he wanted to make money in radio it was on the sales side. “That was the side where the rewards came financially and in every other way,” Davis said. “It was much more satisfying. Q: Where does Salem fit within the radio industry? A: Salem is a multi-media provider of content to an audience interested in family and Christian theme. We are a radio broadcaster, an Internet content provider, a magazine publisher. We serve this growing audience interested in Christian and family themed content on air, online and in print. Historically we have been a radio company. We own roughly 100 radio stations around the country and that is the business that really we are best known for. Q: There is a lot of cross promotion between the different divisions of the company? A: There is a lot of synergy. The radio listeners are referred to our websites and each station has a website plus we have a number of national web partners. We have one, Christianity.com and other sites serving the Christian marketplace. Then we have TownHall.com serving the general market conservative news talk marketplace. Q: Which stations serve the Los Angeles market? A: We have a cluster of stations. KFSH is our music station that operates out of Glendale and is licensed in Orange County. We have KRLA, the news talk station; KKLA, a Christian teaching and talk station; we have KTIE, which is a news talk station in the Inland Empire; and then we have KXMX, which is an ethnic station. Those are the stations we operate in the area. Q: And they all broadcast out of Glendale? A: Yes. Q: What is the advantage to having all the studios in one place? A: It’s called clustering and it’s something consolidation in the radio industry brought about a few years ago on the theory that you can combine and have one business office, one engineering department, one general manager and you save money. Generally it works that way because in most markets where we have stations we operate out of one building with one general manager, one engineer and one business office. There are exceptions in certain markets but for the most part that is way we operate and the way many radio companies operate. Q: The company is growing in the number of stations? A: Yes we have. We launched the Salem Radio Network in 1993 and that provided network product that non-owned stations could pick up. Salem became publicly traded through a common stock offering in 1999 and began expanding stations. In 2000 we made our largest acquisition. We bought eight stations from Clear Channel. The year after we purchased 12 more. We have continued to purchase radio stations and have them all over the United States. Q: The listener numbers are growing as well? A: Our music format has grown over the past 12 months adding listeners in terms of news listeners and time spent listening of old listeners. Our news talk format is growing significantly. We are adding both new programs and new listeners. Q: When adding new programs what is it that you look for? A: Many of the programs heard on our news talk stations are ones we syndicate ourselves. There are hosts that are our people. It starts the morning with Bill Bennett; we then syndicate Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt. We supplement our own talent with other syndicated hosts. We have Sean Hannity in a couple of our markets. We have Bill O’Reilly in a market or two. We have Laura Ingraham in many of our markets. Most recently we’ve added Dennis Miller to our stable of talent and he is syndicated in 11 of our markets. It is perhaps our fastest growing program in terms of listeners added. Q: Was that a feather in the cap for Salem to get someone so well known among a general audience? A: We think so. He is syndicated by Westwood One, which is another company, but for their major market exposure they chose Salem stations.