It’s remarkable the way collisions between the past and the future occur.  Tiger Woods’ future will never be like his past again.  Who would have thought that possible a few weeks ago?  I often wish radios’ collision between its past and future would be just as quick, transparent, and permanent, but it’s not.  This week might be as close as we come in the radio business to hearing “Taps” and “Revelry” played at the same time.

Taps:  The third-largest broadcaster in America, Citadel Broadcasting, has  filed for bankruptcy.  One of the poster children for over-leveraged public-traded radio groups, the once mighty ABC Radio group now has a market capitalization value of less than $10 million.  For painful comparison, in 1999 Citadel paid $65 million dollars for a radio cluster in Oklahoma City where Paragon’s John Stevens was a co-owner of five radio stations.  The Citadel bankruptcy filing is likely to be the first of several more prominent (and large) groups to follow.  How telling is it that these flailing companies aren’t going down swinging…trying new formats, creating new revenue streams, morphing services as their audiences themselves evolve?  If you were drowning wouldn’t you at least try to find higher ground?  No.  They are going down with the old radio model locked forever in a handshake grip with their stockholders.  Until they no longer exist, these media sloths will play the same old song and do the same old dance because it’s all they know. 

Revelry:  CBS Radio and Cox Radio both made announcements this week that will reverberate through their groups and others for a long time.  CBS says it will aggregate the websites of its radio and TV properties in 14 markets.  On the heels of creating a new “Local Media” division, this latest news proves that CBS is serious about hyper-localism and multiplatform media.  Cox, which actually made the first move months ago with its own progressive re-org of its corporate structure, announced it’s moving its TV, radio and newspaper operations in Dayton into one building.  Both of these moves seem fairly innocuous, but they signal fundamental changes in how business is conducted moving forward.  CBS and Cox are proof that even the biggest and oldest radio companies can adopt a New Radio Model based on hyper-local content and a multiplatform business model.  Hopefully other radio groups will follow. 

Just imagine the level of changes that the new breed of radio owners will create when they enter the business.  They won’t have the old radio model to hold them back.  All they will see is upside potential and a radio model that works fluidly within the new media ecosystem. 

It’s amazing to see one sun set while watching another sun rise, and hearing “Taps” and “Revelry” at the same time.