Though not real estate related, Dick Jenkins is a long time friend from the radio business in Portland, Oregon. He has come up through a path of small stations, financial hardship, and is now the CEO of the largest Christian broadcasting network in the world.
What a great story! We can all learn from Dick’s experiences, especially the message that even a CEO of a Christian network has to know how to sell and when to sell. Enjoy.
The November 16th issue of Radio and Records.
Originally published on November 16, 2007
Dick Jenkins
EMF Broadcasting CEO is a man on a Christian mission
As founder/CEO of EMF Broadcasting, Dick Jenkins oversees what began as a single radio station in Santa Rosa, Calif. Twenty-one years later, it is a national network of 239 FM stations and 335 FM translators in 45 states. And it’s still growing.
Beginning your career: In high school, I was accepted to an announcer program operated for Portland Public high schools. In the ’50s, NBC had a program on weekends with a female announcer called the Monitor Girl. In the late ’60s, she headed the broadcasting program at Portland State, where I went. I told her about my dream to become a successful radio announcer and shared my worry that my voice had not changed. She said, “In three months, I can lower your voice an octave.” She took me on as a project and put a bunch of sewing spools in my checks and had me enunciate. She’d put marbles in my mouth and have me read copy. I spent 15 minutes every day making guttural noises, and in three months, my voice was an octave lower.
Liner Notes
Profile:
Dick Jenkins
Title:
EMF Broadcasting CEO
Favorite radio format: “Everything. I love country, classical, rock, oldies, NPR, CHR. I love all music.”
Favorite TV show:
“This Old House”
Favorite song:
“I have too many.”
Favorite book:
“Good to Great”
by Jim Collins
Favorite movie:
“Patton” and “What About Bob?”
Favorite restaurant:
“Frank Fat’s, a Chinese restaurant here in Sacramento.”
Beverage of choice:
“A five-shot venti breve white chocolate mocha that I sip all day long.”
Hobbies:
“I have a Harley Davidson and love to ride. I live on the edge of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, so I am able to drive up toward Tahoe on back country roads. It is a real release for me.”
email address:
djenkins@ emfbroadcasting.com
Moving on in your career: I got a job in Portland [Ore.] at KGAR. From there, I went to a small station east of Portland, KRDR. They played country during the day and rock at night. When the morning man and news director went on vacation, I did their jobs, and when one of the two salesmen went on vacation, I would go out on sales calls. Over a one-year period, I got a lifetime of experience. My next jobs were at [Oregon stations] KPAM, KQIV, KISN and then on to KTAC/Tacoma. I got married, changed my lifestyle and went to work doing marketing and lobbying for the pleasure boating industry.
Founding of EMF Broadcasting: I started my own trade show company, which crashed and burned after a couple years. That led me for two years to this tiny noncommercial radio station, KCLB in Santa Rosa, Calif. As a friend, I was sitting with the engineer of a small noncommercial station in Monterey that was losing money, and he’s telling me how he was up 4,250 feet on a mountain working at the transmitter site and could hear KCLB, which is 150 miles away. He says, “Aren’t you guys on a 4,000-foot mountain? We could just rebroadcast you.” And that’s where the idea of the first affiliate station came from. We changed our call letters to KLVM and KLVR, which was the beginning of the K-LOVE Network. From there, our first acquisition was an AM station in Medford, Ore. Then another station became available, and another, and eventually, as the deals got bigger, our investors took us to the next level.
Mission of company: To be positive and encouraging, and to take the gospel message to people on a spiritual journey. This is different from your typical Christian radio station, which may have a message that you’re going to hell and we can sell you a fire insurance policy. Hopefully, they’ll spend enough time with us to adopt values we consider important. We primarily get our message out through contemporary Christian music and announcers who share what their faith means on a personal basis. We get about 22,000 prayer requests a month. We meet four times a day to pray as a staff and also get assistance from William Jessup University students studying to be pastors.
Structure of the company: Our headquarters has about 300 employees, and we have ambassadors, regional managers and senior regional managers in markets throughout the U.S. who do ascertainments, stay involved with the community and make public appearances. Three weeks ago, the board promoted me to CEO and allowed me to pick my choice of president, Mike Novak.
Long-term plans: Our signals fall on about 60 million of the 300 million in America. I want to see our signals reach over 250 million, so we still have a ways to go. We are a major buyer of radio stations.
Biggest challenge: I wonder about 2012, when I hop into my car that has a TV screen, I can get my e-mail and listen to 5,000 radio stations from the Internet and satellite. It’s going to boil down to who provides the best, most creative programming. I want EMF to become the premier Christian music provider, in hopes we can survive unlimited competition in a digitally distributed world.
State of Christian radio: The music quality has gotten better; look at the five-year growth of the music genre at Arbitron. SoundScan has helped because it tracks actual sales rather than shipments. Christian talk and preaching is on a five-year slide. They are still selling program time, but the programming is not culturally effective. Our society is shying away from anything with a Christian name on it. Christian radio has to be easily understood by average people and has to encourage them.
Something about your company that would surprise our readers: We have people throughout this organization who left jobs at twice the money to work at a place where people really care about the product and believe in the mission.
Most influential individual: My first boss when I got out of radio, Louie Larson, was instrumental in shaping my people skills. Barry Traub, a wealthy investment capital person, taught me about big picture. Jim McDaniel and David Callaham, my investor angels during those early years. And the core team here.
Career highlight: The good we have been able to do. As I look back, I am excited to see K-LOVE and AIR 1 go from one radio station in ’86 to this network of 550 signals. And the many nonprofit ministries we have helped. We don’t take money from them like other noncommercial broadcasters do. We help them because it is the right thing to do.
Advice for broadcasters: Get back to providing the best possible product a listener can find on the radio, and the money will come. The first question we should be asking is, “Did we improve programming dramatically this month? Is what we do the best of what is on the radio?” Also, if you’re not having fun, get another job. Life is too short. If you do what really excites you, you will be personally fulfilled and successful.
“This is different from your typical Christian radio station, which may have a message that you’re going to hell and we can sell you a fire insurance policy.” — Dick Jenkins
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On Dec 21, 2007, pchef said:
I like inspirational stories like this. Mr. Jenkins had a dream and went for it, truely inspirational story to share with kids who have dreams. Thank you for putting that article here.