Can Podcasting Become “The Ultimate Form of Radio Delivery?”
This is the thinking and the goal of Norm Pattiz, the guy who used to run the Westwood One Radio Network for years. Here’s an excerpt from a site called Radio Survivor.
A week after that, “I’m producing a 24-hour special called the ‘Sound of Motown,’ playing all of the music from 1957 to the present at that time,” Pattiz told me in a phone interview. “Motown is supplying us with exclusive interviews and unreleased tracks, and I went out and sold it to a bunch of advertisers I knew.”
Coming from the television industry Pattiz understood syndication, which was a big business supplying stations with much of their daily program schedule. But at the time Pattiz said “radio syndication was a mom and pop business, selling 1 or 2 shows, mostly for cash. It was a real business, but at an early stage.” He realized that “nobody was exploiting the national market,” and saw his opportunity. Thus, in 1976 Westwood One was born, and it would grow to become the nation’s largest radio syndicator.
Continue reading. (Thanks to Roger for the link.)