OCTOBER 3, 2024

It was our pleasure to host each of you who attended KBA's Annual Membership Conference, this week in Lexington. We laughed a lot, shed a few tears, embraced new ideas, welcomed first timers and celebrated the careers and impactful work of Kentucky's talented broadcasters. The conference is a unique and special opportunity to get together as a broadcast family, despite competitive differences and over lapping coverage areas. It's about camaraderie, life-long friendships and mutual respect. Sure, we all do broadcasting differently, but collectively we came together to celebrate where we've been in order to improve on where we are going. I would like to personally thank you for investing a little of your time this week to be part of something bigger than any of us individually.

In Service to you,

Chris Winkle

KBA President & CEO

chris@kba.org

KBA2024 IN PICTURES:

Click HERE to view archived pictures from this year's conference.

EXCELLENCE IN BROADCASTING AWARDS:

Click HERE to see the list of award winners and judges comments.

DUPLICATE EXCELLENCE AWARDS:

Duplicate Excellence in Broadcasting Awards are available for purchase. The cost is $130 each, which includes tax and shipping. KBA does not benefit in any way from this cost. Click HERE to order your duplicate award.

Bill Bryant started at WKYT in 1984 as an intern and never left. Over the past four decades, he’s been a guiding editorial voice as a reporter, anchor, and leader. To mark Bryant’s anniversary, Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton declared Sunday, September 29, as “Bill Bryant Day” in the city of Lexington.

“Over the past 40 years, Bill has covered it all, from the police beat to natural disasters to inaugurations,” Gorton said in her proclamation. “Bill’s commitment to the community and passion for trusted journalism are directly tied to WKYT’s long-lasting success.”

On Monday, the Kentucky Broadcasters Association honored Bryant with the Kentucky Mic Hall of Fame award. The award honors individuals who have made significant personal contributions to the broadcasting profession in Kentucky, representing the highest accolade bestowed by the KBA.

“He’s a great reporter, a great anchor, and a great broadcast journalist,” said former WKYT anchor Barbara Bailey who shared the anchor desk with Bryant. “We had a great time. Bill and I worked a lot of serious, very serious stories together, and I was always glad that he was at my side when we were doing those stories because I knew that I could count on him.”

Because of his work at WKYT as a reporter, anchor, and host of the state’s longest-running weekly public affairs program, “Kentucky Newsmakers,” he was named host of Kentucky Educational Television’s “Comment on Kentucky” in 2015.

Beyond the walls of the station, Bryant set the example of being a vital, trusted, and admired member of the community. In 2000, his alma mater, Eastern Kentucky University, named Bryant a “distinguished Alumni.”

“Bill has stayed close to home since he interned at WKYT. It’s hard to find someone like Bill that does something like that where they find a home at a station and stay there, pursue his craft, and do it so well for so many years.,” said Sam Dick, who anchored WKYT evening newscasts for 31 years before retirement in 2021. “He’s a treasure in the state of Kentucky. He really is.”

Courtesy of WKYT

EAS Participants are subject to the annual requirement to file ETRS Form One. This year's deadline has been extended to October 18th because of Hurricane Helene and the resulting extensive damage throughout the southeast.

ETRS is an online filing system by which EAS Participants submit their Form One information, which includes identifying and background information such as EAS designation, EAS monitoring assignments, facility location, equipment type, contact information, and other relevant data.

All EAS Participants—including Low Power FM stations (LPFM), Class D non-commercial educational FM stations, and EAS Participants that are silent pursuant to a grant of Special Temporary Authority—are required to register and file in ETRS.

Analog and digital low power television (LPTV) stations that operate as television broadcast translator stations, FM broadcast booster stations and FM translator stations that entirely rebroadcast the programming of other local FM broadcast stations, and analog and digital broadcast stations that operate as satellites or repeaters of a hub station (or common studio or control point if there is no hub station) and rebroadcast 100 percent of the programming of the hub station (or common studio or control point) are not required to register and file in ETRS. However, the hub station (or common studio or control point) is required to register and file in ETRS.

Filers can access ETRS by visiting the ETRS page of the Commission’s website at by clicking HERE.

As the social media frontier continues to change, gaining a deeper understanding of the new developments is critical to stay one step ahead. Even if your station does not offer social media solutions, your LOCAL competition does and keeping up with the options available to your clients and prospects is vital to your short- and long-term success. In other words, you can’t afford NOT to be caught up on social! In this session, we will discuss four major social media shifts: (1) Content distribution has completely changed; (2) The massive follower counts some brands obsessed over “getting” no longer matter as much; (3) Keywords are greater than hashtags; 4) And if you don’t like video, it’s going to get a little rough. Tune in with your entire team for this practical and informative session!

Click HERE to sign up today! Available as a complimentary member service of the Kentucky Broadcasters Association.

The next Quarterly Issues/Programs List must be placed in your stations Public Inspection File by October 10, 2024, reflecting information for the months of July, August, and September 2024.

Click HERE to learn more.

WYMT's Armando Barry hanging out with Kentucky Basketball legend, Jack "Goose" Givens, during KBA's Kickoff Pep Rally at Rupp Arena on Sunday night.

We want to promote YOU! Send us your staff additions, promotions and special events. Email Chris at chris@kba.org

THE DIRTY DOZEN

As we get closer to year’s end and begin our planning for next year, here’s some questions you may have:

1. What worked well?
2. What didn’t work according to plan?
3. What changes or course corrections should we consider?
4. What resources do we need?

These are not just leadership questions but questions for all of us in all departments as we evaluate our effectiveness. We can all agree that the changes in our industry continue at a mind-numbing pace. This leads us to an additional key question:

Do I or my team need training?

The Brooks Group’s Michelle Richardson, VP of sales performance research, identified twelve Top Warning Signs Your Team Needs Sales Training. We’ll provide six key points here. You can read the full article for more information.

1. Declining Performance Metrics: Decreased win rates, longer sales cycles, smaller deals all could point to underlying issues.
2. Inconsistent Results Across the Team: Are only the top performers winning?
3. Difficulty Adapting to Market Changes: Market changes, technology changes, product and service expansion. These can all be challenging for a team to keep up with.
4. Lack Of Product Knowledge: As companies expand their platforms and offerings, is your team keeping up?
5. Stagnant Accounts: Is your team finding it challenging to upsell or cross-sell existing customers?
6. Low Use of Sales Tools and Resources: Assuming you have access to resources available to you through RAB membership, a CRM tool and collateral materials about your offerings, are they fully using them? Are they aware of them?

If any of these six key points feel familiar or uncomfortable for you to ponder, then your team could likely use some upskilling. RAB has a wealth of information on RAB.com. It’s the largest media-focused websites for broadcast companies. Because of the size and complexity, it can be challenging or intimidating for teams to fully utilize the resources. Brooke Williams and Dolores Nolan on our membership team are ready, anxious and more than capable of providing an RAB Member Benefits presentation for your team. They are included as part of your membership, and we recommend you have one at least every six months.  

Managers, have you viewed the new “Managers Dashboard” section on RAB.com?  Here, you can take a global look at your team and learn how and when they are using the resources of RAB.com, such as their last login, number of logins, and specific resources utilized and searched. All are available for you to see in your manager dashboard. It’s a great way to identify training gaps and help your teams by providing the necessary tools and resources.

It's cliché, but Albert Einstein first noted: “Doing the same things over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.”

Jeff Schmidt is the SVP of Professional Development at the Radio Advertising Bureau. You can also connect with him by email JSchmidt@rab.com or on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Your active KBA membership entitles you to complimentary access to RAB's online certifications.

NOVEMBER 21, 2024

9:00am - KBA Board of Directors Meeting - Bowling Green, KY

*All times shown are Eastern

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