MILLER COUNTY? Growing area?

[joshzz]

There are radio stations available in this general region but is it a growing area. Your thoughts are appreciated.

 

[Poledo]

Colquitt is too far east to connect with Dothan and too far north to connect with Tallahassee. It's a tiny place that's pretty much a suburb of Bainbridge being just a short drive up US 27. Agriculture all the way. Any radio business in Colquitt would depend on listeners and add sales in Bainbridge and there are already two local radio owners rebuilding the Bainbridge market. If a station in Colquitt was viable the Bainbridge money would be buying it.

It's a great place if you want a small farm but I wouldn't expect much growth over the next decade.

 

[radioboy]

I was near Bainbridge a couple of weeks ago. Farm territory, which I like, but not much
exciting in the way of radio. Not much money in Colquitt.

 

[joshzz]

I'm sort of a suburb city guy. Would opening shop in this region be comparable to moving to Hooterville (green acres)?
Also, is there any opposition to northerners there or is that long gone?

 

[Poledo]

Don't like Yankees in that area. They tend to come into town saying they love it and immediately start trying to change things. Jews are ok, they have a long history in that part of the state. It's a weird vibe. I grew up in Florida so I am a redneck with a Yankee accent. I get all sorts of strange looks in SW Georgia. Most money is old so trying to win over the locals without connections will be tough. Also, the definition of "local" includes everything from Dothan to Albany to Thomasville to Tallahassee. It's pretty much impossible to live in Miller county without doing business in adjacent counties on a regular basis. "I'll be right over." could mean "I'll be there in two weeks." Everyone will know about you. It is very much "Mayberry, USA". I'd imagine a city guy, even if your a suburban Atlantan, would experience a significant case of culture shock.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

JOSH: Let's look at a few "givens". Am I reading this right? A town of less than 2,000 in a county of about 6,000?

Small town retailer advertising works ONLY when the merchants sense that their town is viable, and growing. They run their businesses with optimism and a growth-oriented-mentality. That means they MIGHT buy advertising.

When a small town is in an agriculture-only economy and they have watched "dry rot' nibble away at their community for the last 60 years or so, too many merchants take on a bunker mentality: "If I can keep this business alive until I die or retire, I will be o.k." That means they DON'T buy advertising.

Just down the road in Bainbridge, the FM was in bankruptcy 10 years ago.

The people in rural South Georgia do not tend to be terribly receptive to people from Atlanta and North Georgia. (I realize that is a strong generalization that is probably a bit overstated.) If they don't accept those of us from the part of Georgia where the hills begin and turn in mountains.... you can use your own imagination to guess how they might be to "take a liking" to someone from New Jersey or New York or other such foreign lands. ;D

To me, the ideal owner for a station in a community like this is a family that is rooted there, or has established business or employment in the community and has a spouse who can devote some time to a radio station, but doesn't have to have a "living wage" for their efforts.

And if you are thinking about religious programming.... that would be another whole discussion, which compared to this one, might be down-right pessimistic!

Oh, I forgot about the "Growing area?" part of the thread title. I've already shut down the census bureau website but I believe I saw DECREASING population for the area.

 

[ngriffin]

Poledo is right on. I lived in Bainbridge for 10 years. Colquitt is a pleasant town, but too small to support a commercial radio station. A lot of Colquitt folks work and shop in Bainbridge, since it is about 25 minutes away.

There is a non-commercial station, WCOQ 90.5. They signed on after I moved away, so I've only heard them twice, and not sure if they are still on the air. I believe the format was classic country. Supposedly they carried Auburn sports, but I'm not sure how they'd do that as a non-comm.

 

[trusty]

"We love people from the North; it's the ones from New York we can't stand."
;D

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I'm sort of a suburb city guy. Would opening shop in this region be comparable to moving to Hooterville (green acres)?
Also, is there any opposition to northerners there or is that long gone?

We have offered you some straight answers, some fun answers and some maybe sarcastic answers.

I'm going to give you another answer... that may be on the money.... may be a bit over the top.

We have entered... all around the nation... a whole new day where partisan politics has become bigger than "where ya' from", "who are your people" and "what is your religion".

There are communities, some counties, where they may starve you to death because it turns out you are a Liberal or you are a Conservative. I've got a lot of years on this old chassis. Yeah, elections used to be a bit partisan... sometimes brutal... but when the election was over people reached across the political divide and when to have a drink together, or go to church together, or go work together. But today... right now... people get all hot-and-bothered over your politics no matter what year it is, what month it is or what day it is.

In Metro areas you can find a church, a country club, a charity, a service club to link up with people you enjoy being with. Now you may say: "I can go operate a radio station anywhere. I won't wear MY political views on my shoulder. I'll just blend in." We used to do that 30 and 40 years ago. But when you get to Hooterville and you find out that 7% of the people think like you do, and 93% would disinherit you if they only knew.... life is too short to live that way! You can only hold your breath for so many months.

We went to a family genealogy outing several years ago. 8 or 10 people sitting around a table enjoying a meal, reviewing what our research for the day, and just swapping "small talk". And suddenly someone turned to my wife and commented: The two of you don't share the politics of the rest of us, do you. You don't smile at the right time, you don't laugh at the right time, you don't contribute as much humore and folklore as you usually do when we are discussing something other than politics.

You can only hold year breath for so many MINUTES it turns out.

P.S. Our host paid for our dinner anyway! ;D

You need to get the election results for Miller County for several election cycles and study them. If you go there, find a local paper and read the "Letters to the Editor" page for a number of issues.

See if you can smile at the right time.... laugh at the right time... and tell the right shaggy dog stories at the right time if you lived there. (Or when you visit if you have an absentee interest in the enterprise.)

 

[Poledo]

Your asking about moving into Plantation country. This is THE area where the leaders of the Confederacy met after the war to brainstorm and say their goodbys before fleeing to Cuba. The folks with political power and money here are still fighting The War Between The States. The women are members of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the men are members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, everyone's a member of the NRA. Don't worry about the KKK, these folks are too smart for that type of foolishness.

Going 1 hour to the west you have Dothan/Enterprise/Ozark. That area is 40% military and 40% Redneck, a much easier place to blend in. If you go down to Tallahassee you've got state politicians and college students, a very different environment all together. If you go north you wind up in Albany, a casualty of the Civil Rights movement... the minorities demanded far too much and the people with money just moved away and let them have the town, leaving poverty and unemployment behind.

I love Decatur, Seminole, and Miller Counties. Some significant money was invested in Colquitt back in the 1990's to preserve the historic buildings. I'd move there in a heartbeat, but I have the mindset and connections to be successful in the area. It is possible for a Yankee to move in and survive but it's such a rarity that I can't recommend it?

Why the heck did you pick out Colquitt anyway? The answer to that question could change everything.

I'm not sure what answers GRC thinks might be "sarcastic", everything in this thread seems right on the money to me.

The South shall rise again!

 

[kenglish]

Many of the stations in the Salt Lake City market are licensed to a small town of about 400 people, in the mountains of eastern Utah. The "Main Stations" are located on one developed site, which was selected to provide a minimal service level to the metro areas of SLC, Ogden and Provo. This allows the stations to operate from studios in the big city, but squeeze in numerous booster stations in those cities.
As I understand it, the main transmitters are rarely even operating over in "Hooterville", or wherever. But the translators and boosters are well maintained, and run 24/7/

Any chance somebody would build a Supertower in Miller County, and make it squeak some signal in to the surrounding-but-distant cities?

 

[Poledo]

There's already a "supertower" in Miller county for Clear Channel's class C WGEX 97.3. I can't figure out what radio station would be based out of Miller county except for that little class A non-comm Neil mentioned earlier in this thread... which is why my last post asked the question, "Why Colquitt?"

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I'm not sure what answers GRC thinks might be "sarcastic", everything in this thread seems right on the money to me.

The South shall rise again!

I put that phrase in there as a safety-valve, a pressure release valve. I was giving people permission to chuckle over some of my own contributions to the conversation that they might find irritating.

A few years ago we spent several days over at Brunswick and St. Simons Island. On the way back we got off the super-slab at the Vidalia exit... just to see what "onion country" looked like. Not the land. We could see that from the highway. The culture. As Shelby Foote might have phrased it when he was heard on Ken Burns series on the Civil War, we ended up in a rural-area "un-reconstructed" truck stop. Ampong the trinkets and flotsam for sale were little plates for the front of your vehicle where a license plate would be attached in some states. One of them had a caption line: "I Have a Dream". The graphic in the center of the plate was an image of the U.S. Capitol. And when you looked closely, you could see atop the dome of the capital, a Confederate flag was flying. The thrust of some of my comments is: If you are uncomfortable living in an area where such humor(?) is part of life, you may be uncomfortable in certain communities all across the South.

We went with a tour group to Milledgeville which was the capitol of Georgia before relocating to Atlanta. The docents and the shuttle bus drivers were well versed in keeping the "area culture" alive. I got the idea there were going any minute now... to set up a recruiting booth to enlist volunteers to go over into South Carolina just to make sure the Sherman guy was not still marching around burning plantation houses over there. My "B.S. detector" told me that some of them had been groomed by the Chamber of Commerce to do that as part of the show for tourists.... but that some of them were "serious as a heart attack" about the topic.

I walked away from one possible station purchase because I couldn't read what the mood of the community was on such issues, and I couldn't afford to find out the hard way what they would tolerate and not tolerate from their radio station.

Come on down, JOSH. You could acquire or build a station, and supplement your income with a tour-bus business as a side-line. ;D

 

[Poledo]

This is the South. We're known to be friendly. If Yankees want to come visit and spend money they are welcome. Folks from Atlanta should come down and camp out at Lake Seminole for a nice family fishing trip. There's nothing to be afraid of... this isn't "Deliverance" territory, it's the nice Plantation/Forest/Farmland region adjacent to Tallahassee, the capital of Florida.

Anyone could come into the SW Georgia area and light up the most popular radio station on the dial, even Cumulus or Clear Channel. The only problem is relocating here and developing new businessman to businessman relationships. I've encountered many Yankees that just pissed me off when they told me how I should be doing my job or how they wanted me to perform work for them (while on my turf!). It just wouldn't be smart for an individual from up north to try to take on the project of building a sucessful new business down here unless they could afford to loose everything they invested. See the "Steven Blood - Thomasville, GA" stories posted on this Georgia radio board for a good example of what could happen.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

This is the South. We're known to be friendly. If Yankees want to come visit and spend money they are welcome.

// ***** //

The only problem is relocating here and developing new businessman to businessman relationships. I've encountered many Yankees that just pissed me off when they told me how I should be doing my job or how they wanted me to perform work for them (while on my turf!). It just wouldn't be smart for an individual from up north to try to take on the project of building a sucessful new business down here unless they could afford to loose everything they invested.

Thank you for the laugh! "We are friendly people.... as long as you come here and do things OUR way. But if you don't bow down to our tradition... WE WILL BREAK YOU." Did it ever dawn on you that maybe that is not the definition of "being known as friendly"?

I come from MUCH further south than you... I guess it is called the Southwest. I've lived in NINE states... about half and half on the north and south scale. I found friendly people everywhere I have lived. I went there expecting to find friendly people and I found them. And everywhere I went I knew I would find some people who were not so friendly and I should expect to have to make adjustments if I wanted to do business with those folks.

One of my children spent her first seven working years in New York City. Guess what she found. Some friendly people. Of course, she also found some grumpy people. And when we went to visit her and we needed a place to stash the camper trailer we were towing, I found some friendly people. And we met some people who were mentoring and guiding and protecting our little Southern Belle while she was in Gotham.

So Josh.... what you need to know... or what the person you may be consulting with and advising needs to know is... the South is an interesting place. They think they are friendly. They really want to be friendly. And if you will encourage them a bit, they actually will be friendly. And they will do business with you. And they might let your children marry their children. But it can be like having an exotic animal for a back-yard pet. Do walk carefully.

By the way.... the first two things I look for when considering or comparing markets for radio: (1) population. (2) retail sales figures. Miller County does have a pretty slim purse when you look at retail sales. And because of the way car sales are taxed, I always assume the reported retail sales for a county always include automobiles purchased by all the residents of the county.... even when there are no dealers in the county and all that money (and the advertising that can come out of it) was actually spent in another county.

 

[secondchoice]

See the "Steven Blood - Thomasville, GA" stories posted on this Georgia radio board for a good example of what could happen.

The "Steven Blood" postings also have links to a possible "scam" in another state. This guy had more troubles than just being an "outsider".

Politics aside, if an area can not support at least 3 new car dealerships, look somewhere else!

 

[taylorengineer]

Goat has some very good thoughts and advice regarding the purchase of small town radio stations as businesses. I especially like his idea (found in another state thread) that the best thing you could do if you do buy a station in a small town is buy plots for you and the family at the local cemetery.....let's folks know you're planning to stay.
Poledo lives in the area and I think his advice is timely, too.
Walmart has essentially destroyed local business in many, if most of small town America. It is slim pickins' even if you're established! I will repeat the question - why Colquitt/Miller County.
People are people. People who are different in any way are suspect in practically any locality or setting.
South Georgia is not particularly well known for it's "inclusiveness" so unless you plan on a chameleon existence I would reconsider. There are plenty of small towns more receptive to diversity.....and you don't have to swat gnats all summer!
Steven Blood is not a good example. From all accounts, WSBX was never on the air the entire time Mr. Blood's mother has owned it.
For a real education on the difficulty of small town radio ask Mr. Art Sutton, president of Georgia Carolina Broadcasting. Art has successfully operated radio stations in small markets for years. He has crawled through the trenches....and has had to throw in the towel a time or two. The best advice you can get before making such a big step is talk to those who are successfully doing what you want to do.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Walmart has essentially destroyed local business in many, if most of small town America. It is slim pickins' even if you're established!

When it comes to discussing Walmart, I have this love/hate relationship with the whole concept. For a number of years I sold radio advertising to small town merchants. What is the old joke about termites? Man says to the sales rep from the bug exterminator company: "No I can afford to have you treat my house." Why, we're the most economical exterminator around. "Because the termites are the only thing holding my house together. If you spray for bugs and kill the termites, my house will fall down."

Retailing in small-town America as we knew it back in the 50s and 60s was like that house with the termites. It was, in spite of changes in the economy and changes in society, just hanging in there. What we seldom read in discussions like this are stories about folks who folded their no-longer-viable retail outlet and went to work for the new Walmart store. Now for the first time they had health insurance. Now for the first time they had a retirement plan. Now for the first time they could go on vacation and collect vacation pay.

Somebody was going to do it to them. If Sam Walton hadn't "done the dirty deed"... then Dollar General or K-Mart or some other company was going to do it. Walmart just did it faster and more effectively than other consolidators. The car dealership business has gone through a lot of consolidation. The retail hardware industry has gone through a lot of consolidation. Look at the pharmacy business.... what Walmart hasn't grabbed in prescriptions, Walgreen and Rite-aid and others have.

(Note of disclosure: Here in my lush little corner of the world where modern big city meets rural Appalachia, we today get our prescriptions at a home-town drug store run by a proprietor. Over in one corner is the old soda fountain "console" which raises the hair on the back of my neck every time I walk past it. It's just like the one where my wife was "jerking sodas" the day I met her years and years and years ago. But when Jimmy is gone... will the old fashioned store survive? Will his son be able to keep the decades old concept alive, or will he take a job at one of the chains or maybe down at the hospital?)

Whether you want to do radio in Miller County Georgia or maybe Sevier County Arkansas or Dubois County Indiana probably requires skills we never even identified as being associated with radio stations in the period from 1960s through the 1980s. It's not just Walmart that has changed the small town. Agriculture has changed. Education has changed. Industry has changed. And the glue that holds small town together, particularly in the South..... the church has changed! There just is no going back.... no matter how me we pine for "the good ol' days".

 

[taylorengineer]

I agree, Goat, that the world has changed. I also agree that had Walmart never come into existence someone else would have come along and done the same. I did not intend to judge Walmart as "immoral"....just noting it's affect on small town business.
30 years ago there were many businesses in small towns which were very profitable. Very often these were family businesses and there are lot's who have survived for generations. After NAFTA, American manufacturers could no longer compete with China - how could they when the average Chinese worker makes $4/week and the average American factory worker makes $15/hour. Much, if not most of Walmart's product comes from China or Asian countries. So these small, hometown businesses did not fail due to bad management - they failed because they could not buy, and sell on the same scale as Walmart. Consumers were the winners in small towns just like the cities. Business in small town American could no longer compete and died.
Walmart pays very few of it's employees a living wage. $8-12/hour is not a living wage and the benefits are better than nothing but far from a package that helps insure an employee's financial security. (Many of the small town stores couldn't, or didn't offer benefits either.) I'm not sure Walmart really improved life in small town America although in many towns it's the largest employer and pays the lion's share of taxes.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

30 years ago there were many businesses in small towns which were very profitable. Very often these were family businesses and there are lot's who have survived for generations.

I'm kind of "down the middle" on some of these issue and these claims. Back then, it was the best we knew. I don't get back to our hometown very often. Many of the buildings were business "thrived" 50 years ago still stand, many unchanged, some boarded up and empty. I think in many of these discussions we wear "rose colored glasses". We looked up to the merchants in our town and admired their "affluent life style". In the years since then, we've gone to class reunions and visited with the children of some of the "well to do merchants". They made a living. Some were able to send their kids to college. But for the most part, to say they were "very profitable" may be a rose colored glasses moment. In trying to sell them advertising, some of them told me exactly what their financial situation was. I was a nosy rascal and sometimes I would read stuff upside down on the desk while they turned to get something from a file cabinet or a table behind their chair. Their children today will tell you just how tough times were for Mom and Dad during those years.

One of my friends from high school days went on to a very interesting career. In his final phase of corporate life, his employer made him something of a Mitt Romeny Junior. Handed him the keys to a stack of venture capital and told him to go acquire companies. And his did! Some are names you would know. I had just sat through a lecture on China. (Our local University has an exchange program with TWO universities in China, including the ONLY ROTC exchange program in our country. I told him about the lecture. I expected him to explode because he sat through the entire weekend class reunion mumbling about Free Enterprise as though he was leading a pep rally. I didn't an argument from him... he confirmed what the lecture had said. During his "acquisition crusade" he want to China looking for investment opportunities and he laid out for me how you do business in China. As Pogo would say: We have met the enemy, and he is us. It may be that "China ain't our problem! China is just a garden plot for American investors who may be our problem."

My home town is down near Walmarts origins. For years when we would go home so the childlren could visit with their grandparents, we would drive past this store about four o'clock in the morning. (We would drive through the night so we would have an extra day there.) What the heck is a Walmart? It was THE original Walmart store. Store #1.

People who lost their local retail stores and other jobs in that part of the world as Walmart took off joined the Walmart crew before we ever saw a Walmart here in the Southeast, and we saw them in small towns before they ever hit our suburbs and their cities. I don't go back home very often any more. Not much for us to go visit other than the graveyard. But when I do go back for a class reunion or funeral, I hear the stories of truck drivers in particular as well as other employees who have retired as MILLIONAIRES because they took advantage of the 401k and other benefits Walmart was offering and they stayed with the program. And they bought STOCK in the company. My brother never worked for Walmart, but he watched all this and he started investing in the company because he could see where they were headed. He told me recently that besides whatever else he has in pensions, retirements and what have you, he owns over 1,000 shares of Walmart. Look up the current selling price for the stock. Do the math.

I am not a champion for Walmart. But I'll have to say that "they are not quite the dirty bastards" that folklore in our country makes them out to be.