The Romance of Radio: Kory Hartman - Part 2

Part 2 of my interview with Kory Hartman.  See Part 1 notes for info about this episode's background.

Kory Hartman started storm chasing in 1997 and created SevereStudios in 2006.  SevereStudios.com has become the leading storm chaser live streaming platform and online source for extreme weather news.  Kory coordinates, dispatches, and represents a team of over 60 professional storm chasers who cover severe weather for local television stations and national networks such as The Weather Channel and CNN. Kory and his team chase and cover tornados, floods, blizzards, fires, and every kind of storm, but tornado chasing and forecasting is definitely their specialty. They do this year-round and there is never a dull day on the job.
 
 Kory worked directly for The Weather Channel for almost 2 years before going back to his original love, radio, in 2017 when he purchased Baraboo Broadcasting Corp.  BBC includes an AM/FM radio station ("99.7 MAX FM"), an online certificate store ("MAX FM Big Deals"), a low-power television station ("TV43"), two cable channels, a bi-monthly newspaper ("The Express"), and a digital marketing division.  Baraboo Broadcasting promotes Wisconsin's vacationland of Wisconsin Dells, Baraboo, Reedsburg, Portage, and Sauk City.  They bring awareness to the area's attractions, both natural and man-made, and support local businesses, non-profit organizations, and schools.

Thanks for listening. Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about. In these times of intense polarization we all need to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.

Transcript

Announcer: 0:04

Welcome to frame of reference informed intelligent conversations about the issues and challenges facing everyone in today's world, in depth interviews with salt counties, leaders and professionals to help you expand and inform your frame of reference, brought to you by the max FM digital network. Now, here's your host Rauel LaBreche.

Rauel LaBreche: 0:26

Welcome to week two, episode two part 2222 of 2222 of our conversation with Mr. Corey Hartman, who is the owner of the Grand Poobah of severe studio and WR PQ 99, seven Max FM, he's wearing an 87 Max Fm hat and I'm thinking to myself, did you get one of these? I don't have one of those I was gonna pick up on with you over that.

Kory Hartman: 0:53

Go get it right now.

Rauel LaBreche: 0:54

Well, you know, No, I'll wait until we're done. Okay, and then you can get it to me and you can, you know, tell me how sorry you are the brim. I got it. I wearing that hat all the time. So I actually think about having ones made with frame of reference, too. So I'll give you one

Kory Hartman: 1:09

of those. I was just gonna stitch Max FM to my forehead. So it was just like there all the time would look wonderful.

Rauel LaBreche: 1:15

I think I think so. Make a statement. Cory make a statement. Anyways, so Corinne, I talked during our first episode, both about his favorite things, which each favorite thing became like six other favorite things, or at least there was like 16 different components to his favorite thing. So go back and listen to that episode if you didn't hear it. And plus, we got talking about one of his great passions, which is if you can guess from severe storms, severe studios. I got just shoot me now.

Kory Hartman: 1:42

Okay, everybody does everybody does it.

Rauel LaBreche: 1:45

It's like when I had the poor woman from Hope Hassan and I could not get Jamie's last name for the last spots to see. Like, oh, I'm just a moron. I'm going to get off this right now. Anyways, so here we are. Week two, talking about turning. Well, no, no, not because I know where that will go. That's a whirlwind of disasters. Right? We did an hour Oh my god. Yeah, it's just like you get sucked up into that funnel and you don't know where you're gonna end up. So oh my god, I started in Kansas near I am in Oklahoma. So tell me about that. Your experience here. So you go from starting a weather? You know, a specialty weather? I almost think of it weather media company. Yeah, I mean, in your you're not carried on what weather channel or where you have stuff show up.

Kory Hartman: 2:33

Everywhere. I mean, BBC, you know, Nine News Australia to every three letter network in the United States.

Rauel LaBreche: 2:41

So when we see like, I have weather channel and I look at the videos that are on there. How would we know it was severe studio,

Kory Hartman: 2:46

it'll say severe studios slash whatever the chasers name was up in the corner, okay. 99% of the time, okay. Unless they screw it up, which, you know, that happens to them where he put the wrong name, they put the you know, it's very hard and then it's your fault, right? Then the chasers think it's my fault.

Rauel LaBreche: 3:03

Of course, we have to have somebody to you know, burn in effigy. So so that experience and now the experience here at WR PQ, because this I was actually with the station before you even took on Absolutely. Smith for a while. Yes. Mr. Lewis has been a sponsor for a million years. And it was interesting because you know, we have this thing morning set Macfarlanes. And I remember one of my first questions is Jeff, what he sold it's like, am I gonna lose my room? What's gonna happen? Oh, and I, you know, I get paid nothing for that. Right? It says Macfarlanes is gracious enough to let me do it. But here I'm thinking about my career. took so long to get started.

Kory Hartman: 3:38

Well, here's, here's the thing once when somebody when a radio station changes hands, right? The first question is, what are you gonna do with it? What are you gonna do with it? Are you gonna fire everybody? Are you gonna write you're gonna, but sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes it needs to happen, which I have tried to explain to a few of my other radio friends. Just Just wipe. Just wipe it clean. You have no listeners now, it's not gonna hurt, you know, go on, I can only go up from here. And and so but every you know, everybody's everybody's concerned. And the one thing that I wanted to do, and I've said this in multitude of interviews, is that I wanted to to pick up the ball and run further. You know, this was a very strong station, a very local station. But I'll be honest, I would have people that would come up to me at at the bakery and say, Well, what do you do for a living? I said, Well, I just just bought the radio station in Baraboo. Oh, you mean WL X? And I'd be like, No, the Baraboo radio station. We have Eric who has a radio station. And that was like a knife here in the heart of just, you know, a radio fan. I mean, it was a fan of have radio long before I was a DJ or an owner,

Rauel LaBreche: 5:03

but doesn't have to always be a little bit of a oh my god, what have they been doing with this station that you don't know about this mean? Was it? Or did you not have? I mean, that's my I get asked that Macfarlanes I'm in charge of market. Sure, right. So I get asked all the time How does somebody not know about McFarlane or somebody will come in us, I have no idea you guys were well in owner will come whenever that happens, they'll come somebody came in the store to be and they said they had no idea that first time in the store? How does this happen? And

Kory Hartman: 5:30

I'll tell you what happens. I can't reach

Rauel LaBreche: 5:32

everybody and you want to give me a six bazillion dollar budget from our hands, then they might hear about it, especially now.

Kory Hartman: 5:39

And I think that that that's probably the the difference between the previous owner and myself is that we, we promote the hell out of ourselves in as many places as we can. You know, billboards are prohibitively expensive, but that was always kind of the thing, right? You'd get T shirts and hats and that kind of stuff when you'd see people out and about right. But a lot of stations around this area, including this one for 15 years, never left the studio. Or if they did that it was only for an hour here a car lot deal there. Get a hot dog in a balloon, bring the kids and run by a car. Well,

Rauel LaBreche: 6:14

that's a young man's job to write it, it comes down to it it

Kory Hartman: 6:17

is we haven't we have an aging talent pool. You know?

Rauel LaBreche: 6:23

Are you calling me aging?

Kory Hartman: 6:25

Calling All of us are doing alright, good. Um, and, and so there's not a lot of talent pipeline. You know, there's not a lot of young people that wake up one day and go, I'm gonna be a radio DJ, no, YouTube, they want to be a YouTube star, which their own podcast or whatever we go. Um, but so we but we promote, you know, more, we try to get out and be a part of things more. We try to, you know, help help just a ton of nonprofits with things and the only thing usually that we ask for, besides maybe a couple bucks, is to hang our banner, you know, say our name. You know, that's why I give you you know, stuff all the time about the WR PQ versus Max FM, right. Ready word WR PQ, we still are technically SJ, WR PQ, right? But we're Max FM, you know, and, and barebow. Broadcasting. And, you know, so so we, we have a, we have a brand, we have a positioning statement, maximum hits of the 80s and 90s. And we have a commitment to local information. And then we go out and promote the fact that we do that we use streaming, and we use social media and run on Alexa, you can tell Alexa to play Max FM bear boo, boom, it comes out the speaker, right? So my Google Yeah, Google works, Siri and all of those can play Max FM bear boo, boom comes out of tune in. And so some of those things were were what was were opportunities for us to take what was was already built, and was very successful for years and years and years. And turned into to where we're at now. And then five years in, everybody said, about five years in, you'll finally feel better about your purchase. And, and it's true, you know, I mean, we I'm with COVID Take even COVID out of it, right? I mean, we had a couple years where, you know, January, February, we didn't know if we'd make payroll, right? Like any other business, you know, oh, it's glamorous. You're a radio guy. Well, it's, it's still a small business, I only own one and a half stations, you know, I own an am station with an FM translator. And now to FM translator, so, we're up to a full maybe two stations. You mean combine everything together?

Rauel LaBreche: 8:54

So those those link off of one another? Yeah.

Kory Hartman: 8:56

Yeah, so we got 7:40am I've got 99 Seven Max FM. Right now we have 1037 Max FM and Reedsburg. So we have multiple ways to get us on FM now because only about 10% of radio listening even happens on the am dial anymore. Am sadly has gone mostly talk radio opinion, sports, right? That kind of thing. For guys right now. Women don't like static, you know, in their car, and they like to push a button and they like, you know, whatever. Mariah Carey and Madonna and Michael Jackson, whoever to come out of those stats come out of the speakers. Right, you know, and so that's that's kind of where the demographic has transitioned to, um, 14% of radio listening, actual radio stations, comes from streaming now. So my internet stream of Max FM is now more important than my am transmitter. Yeah. And this was an am only radio station since 1967, or whatever. And that's been part of the challenge, isn't it to adapt and get people to come along with the program, right?

Rauel LaBreche: 10:03

And add more along the way. And when we talk about streaming, you're trying to pick up more stuff as you go down the stream, right? So which I have to say to having been a part of it, I was amazed that there was a stream before you ever took ownership. And

Kory Hartman: 10:16

that was only a couple years before we took over now, we started streaming in 2015, or 2016, which is actually pretty late. You know, that's okay. You know, if you listened to our previous podcast, you know, I was streaming live audio in 1997. Yeah, and there was a whole thing with REITs, and streaming and digital and all that stuff that had to be like fixed. But that was all fixed in about 2004 2005. So to not have an internet stream of your radio station until 2015 16, and there was like a lost decade there. So there was a lot of, again, I didn't have to rebuild the arc, right. But there was definitely some new sales and some, you know, shoring up that needed to want to prove

Rauel LaBreche: 11:03

that you're relevant, prove that it's worth spending those advertising dollars, I'd say here instead of at W all x, which has one of the broadest network coverage areas of any station, yeah, but they're grandfathered in,

Kory Hartman: 11:14

they cover 19 counties, I cover two counties, Columbia and Sokka. And, you know, little tiny pieces of Juno and whatever else but, but but really, we're a sock county radio station, you know, especially now with the new translator and Reedsburg we are in Baraboo Reedsburg Dells, sock city station,

Rauel LaBreche: 11:34

and with streaming the way it is, you are now everywhere beyond everyone just like frame of reference,

Kory Hartman: 11:40

if you've heard of that, I'm gonna I'm gonna walk over here you narrate what I'm about. Okay.

Rauel LaBreche: 11:44

So he's walking over to a table that has a whole bunch of stuff with screens. And he is showing me right now a network stream of where the show is being listened to right at this moment. And we have Louisville, high Louisville, Kentucky. So by the time you listen to this podcast, you probably you're sleeping, I don't know. So we've got people all over Wisconsin and Minnesota, which is a fantastic thing to see. Isn't that great? I mean, I look at the frame of reference stats, and I don't see it live, but I see what's happened this weekend. Right. You know, it's Chechnya, and we've had some Russian listen this I don't know if they're listening right now. So I don't want to say anything, everything shut down. Yeah, exactly. Well, Germany, France, UK, you know, you look at that stuff and think, Wow, 10% of our listenership is not even in the US. So

Kory Hartman: 12:30

25% of our listenership isn't even in Sauk. County, and it's a sock county podcast. zactly

Rauel LaBreche: 12:35

so you think wow, that's is that's really cool. Yeah. So Alright, so now we've opened up our vision where we're really talking about let's, let's look, can we together? That's something that concerns me probably more than a lot of stuff these days. And that would be how media is being perceived. weaponized, and I mean, let's not kid ourselves has been going on for a while, but one of the things I thought of as COVID was hitting his, you know, where were the Huntley Brinkley is where were the Walter Cronkite

Kory Hartman: 13:05

or what could we use those guys?

Rauel LaBreche: 13:06

Yeah, you know, those those people that everyone listened to it Walter said it it was awesome. It was good. You know, you didn't it didn't you don't care if he was Republican didn't care who he voted for. I you know, I don't know, Walters political events, because he didn't make them a big deal. Right. You know, he was there to report the news. And he was reporting actual news. Yeah. Which I don't even get how we came to a world now where it's alternative news or alternative facts, because when I was, you know, those are called lies.

Kory Hartman: 13:38

People are, are reaching out to channels that amplify what they already believe. Right? So it's bias. They're not there to get their minds changed. Right. I think when we watched Huntley Brinkley, and, and Walter back in the day, we were actually tuning in because we wanted to be informed. And and news is his news, right? It's not opinion. It's supposed to be the facts. And yes, things can get colored one way or another. But, uh, but when you start to to undermine the effectiveness of an actual news product, um, I think that's when it reaches kind of dangerous territory because you're not, you're not accepting anything new into your, your frame of reference,

Rauel LaBreche: 14:31

right? When we talk about biases, you know, we see what we want to see, we hear what we want to hear. And I we have research that talks about how, how difficult if not impossible, it is to change someone's opinion about something to persuade them to see something from a different point of view is one of the most difficult things you can try to do in any kind of interaction. And perhaps what was good about the, the old days or that people were in fact not coming to be reinforced for what they believe. But just to find out what was going on. I

Kory Hartman: 15:04

mean, what was new? Right? Right? What was new, it's always changed. What was it? I didn't

Rauel LaBreche: 15:08

have to worry about political bent. I didn't have to worry about it being propagandize. Yeah. And I do blame, here's

Kory Hartman: 15:15

the, here's the thing, here's the thing that people need to realize, is that, you know, a lot of a lot of people blame CNN, and, and the network's because they've got, you know, 24 hours to fill. And so that you have to have pundits, and you have to have opinion shows, and you have to have this, that and the other thing. In the last 20 years, we've gone from, like a 75% news to 25% opinion, mix on television, to where I would say the only real hard news on television across the board right now is the first five minutes of the network evening newscast. And the entire rest of existence of humanity of media is opinion based, right?

Rauel LaBreche: 16:09

When you think about the back when the FCC was first assigned, and now I read this, I don't know 100%. But my understanding is, if you're okay, good, you You're my expert. That's why you're on the show. You're my expert, for God's sakes. Okay, so when when we're first handing out licenses, particularly for the news networks, that in the the television networks, one of the stipulations was that they could have the license, but there had to be one hour of non sponsored news, that would be not subject to the whims of a sponsor, right, that we had

Kory Hartman: 16:43

to you had to serve the public interest. Right. And there's been there's been all sorts of rules, you know, starting way back in the 40s 50s, all the way up to today. And they change depending on you know, who's in Congress and whatever. But you've there's, there's been two tenants that have always had to be abided by equal time and serving the public interest. Okay, those are the two things that you've always had to do. So the if you

Rauel LaBreche: 17:17

have opposing views, if you have a political Yeah, position, you have to also have the person that from the opposite spectrum,

Kory Hartman: 17:23

correct. And those rules are still in effect in radio and television to this day. So if I, if I brought in Donald Trump today, right, sat him down in front of the microphone, and let him talk for a half hour, I would have to call Joe Biden and offer them a half hour on Macs FM, right? Okay, Radio TV doesn't matter. The Internet does not have that. There is no oversight of what is on the internet. There's also no oversight on what's on cable, because you are paying for that service. So you are spending your money with charter whoever to get the news, you want to get the news that you want. That's why you can swear on cable. That's why you can show nudity on cable. That's why you can have any news, any opinion any programming pretty much that's out there is available on cable, because you're paying for it that is a direct pipe between you and the cable system. And the television provider. Radio and television over the air is a whole different thing because those airwaves belong to all of us. And so you have to have equal time. And you have to serve the public. Now, what serving the public means has gotten a very gray, murky, while we're public, that that will serve all the public, right? If there's a tornado warning, you get on and you give the information. If downtown Baraboo is about to float away in a flood, you're supposed to get on the air, if there's a nuclear accident, you're supposed to get on the air and serve the public. You're supposed to do what are called issues reports that you have given airtime to certain issues. And that's what we do. So there's there's all sorts of issues that we talk about on a regular basis. Everything from dog adoption to homelessness, right? And those are the things that we cover with longer form interviews, or news coverage or whatever. And so that's how we serve the public interest. Now, what I consider serving the public interest is not necessarily what my competitors, or Joe down the block thinks is serving the public interest. But that's why it's America and that's why you have lawyers. And that's why you can you can change laws. But you know for the good part of The last 80 years, those two things equal time and serving the public interest maintain have been maintained or they are purported to have been maintained.

Rauel LaBreche: 20:13

So where the breakdown in my mind occurs is in two fundamentals. One is when is the fact of fact? And how do we determine who to trust with those facts that they are in fact delivering true facts? Because that and that's the other boy that philosophical I remember my philosophy classes in college. And I had a wonderful philosophy professor who was always no matter what you said, you believed he would challenge you with equally important things to consider before you determine what a debater Right, yeah, he was, he was wonderful about just making you expand your frame of reference, right? This isn't just about this, this is also about this, and, you know, have you considered blah, blah, blah, and, and that really, you know, when I was 1819 years old, that was so formative to me to understand that while before I say, boom, I really better understand by the by the boom, you know, because by the Vita and boom, are different, but they're still part of the same, right? So that that's what I can't get my head around. I don't know how we ever had a back, I

Kory Hartman: 21:15

don't have those answers at all. Because, you know, just like anything else, it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle. Right? And, you know, it, it's sometimes pains me to think that, you know, we don't have the, we don't have shared experiences anymore, right? Everybody is doing their own thing. They're, they're watching what they want. They're reading what they want. I'm not saying I want to control all media in the world, right? Um, but it'd be Vladimir Putin. But back when there was three channels, you had a 130 and a 33.33% chance that you're watching the same thing as Joe down the block. Right, right. Right now we have 7000 shows at our fingertips. At any given moment, you have every possible means of content in the world on on the internet. And there's entertainment, there's information, there's knowledge, and and how do you how do you parse out what's real? What's really real? What are facts, facts, and not alternative facts? Um, you know, that used to be determined by the person's experience used to be determined by that person's knowledge. You just see it

Rauel LaBreche: 22:40

happening at all, yeah, that book just fell off of that table,

Kory Hartman: 22:43

their reputation. And you used to be able to trust your own eyes and ears, which is another thing in the last few years that you know, with, with artificial intelligence and deep fake videos, where it looks like somebody's talking and saying something, and they're not a word, right? I mean, like I could take, I could, I could take all of your frame of references. And I could cut out syllables and words that you have said, your voice, your actual voice. And I could make you say, pretty much anything I wanted you to say. And the only way that you could prove otherwise, would be to get somebody like me to do a forensic look at that file, and see that the background noise didn't line up, or there was a little bit more EQ, there's a little more treble, a little less bass. So obviously, this was from two different recording sessions. And you know what I mean, right? So it's, it's very hard for the average person to discern that the information source they are listening to or watching is real. And it's even harder on the internet, because you can hide behind. You can hide behind everything.

Rauel LaBreche: 24:09

Why don't you leave the alluded to it earlier that you are an expert used to be an expert. I mean, it was someone that was trained that studied, did research, whatever, in a particular field, and you could, they had a much deeper understanding of really what was going on. So you would listen to them now. Yeah, nowadays? You know, we will say well, okay, so we talked to Dr. So and so but then we also asked Carl, Carl, what do you think about and,

Kory Hartman: 24:37

and I can help people that can't discern between Dr. 50 year guy, right. And Carl in his basement, right. But then

Rauel LaBreche: 24:47

there's the other side of that coin, though, too, is we've had a lot of 50 year old doctors that the internet has revealed to us really don't know anything, you know, unfortunately your opinion Well, that just had proven you know, you look at like the resume and you look at all the other people that are around them. And it's like, Well, this guy came out and said that this was just fine. And but then you look at the other 100 people in that sphere, and they here's the thing,

Kory Hartman: 25:09

though, I mean, I mean, Science, Science also changes, it doesn't change as fast as some people would like to lead you to believe. But, you know, science is, is and always has been a somewhat moving target, because as you learn more about a particular subject, right, you will change your theories and your, you know, you'll have to go do the the, the tests and the euro, various and prove tested over and

Rauel LaBreche: 25:37

over and over and over.

Kory Hartman: 25:39

And that's, that's a pretty slow process, though. I mean, look, it's taken us two years to even scratch the surface, on what COVID can actually do, and what things are actually caused, and it's going to be 50 more years before you can figure out what a 50 year effect of COVID was, because it takes 50 years to learn that knowledge. So science usually moves pretty slow. But, you know, you look at medical science, and they say that you can basically throw your medical book out the window every What is it three years or so or something, because the advancements are so exponential, and the knowledge that is being learned, every day goes up exponentially. You know, getting back to whether which again, should be like a middle of the road type of thing. It's either raining or it's not. Um, we I think I've learned probably more in the last decade than we've for the for the last 100 years. The technology is better, the resolution of RADARS is better. We have more sensors, we have more chasers, we have more people out in the field, we have more scientists than ever before, you know, we have better access to information sharing of information, sharing of knowledge, the internet, you know, Zoom calls, everything that has come out in the last, you know, 10 years has propelled the state of that particular science subject. Sure. Forward more than 70 years of research prior to, you know, we have we have radars now that are on the backs of trucks, that you can back up to 50 feet away from a tornado and get the most high resolution data you have ever seen of a tornado see right into the inside, see, see individual vertices, you know, going around the main vortex just just granular data, right, that we didn't even think was possible 10 years ago. So now just just take that and apply it to everything else that we don't know nothing about. Right? And right. It's, it's the same thing. But you know, I guess I would rather this is me, personally, I would rather have the 50 year old suspenders where a 50 year old veteran is probably 70 years old, wearing a white shirt and suspenders and his coats off, and he's in front of the radar map, and he is calling out barbecue joints that are in the path of this tornado. I would rather have that over my Weather Channel app on my phone. Sure. That's just me. Some people think that whatever's on their phone, good enough for them. Um, I would rather have experienced scientists tell me their theories and opinions and the research that is mostly settled. Right things that have not being stirred up all the time, right? You know that polio was eradicated you know, things like that. Right? And then when but when you're on the bleeding edge of something like COVID or anything else?

Rauel LaBreche: 29:05

Well, it's so difficult to because I think find the guy you trust in the news cycle, I think forces us into a situation where well, what was it somebody was telling me the one of the things that has really become apparent with the American psyche or national psyche is we do not like enigmas we don't like in you know, in precise things that we can and lay ambiguity, we hate ambiguity. So what what our media is doing to us is forcing us to come down with something you know, so when you think about COVID and initially we're seeing we think it's spread by droplets. And then as time went on wiping surfaces

Kory Hartman: 29:41

like crazy washing our hands eight times a day right sanitizing our bathing and sanitize right

Rauel LaBreche: 29:47

only to find out that will normally is aerosol based and you know the masks do some good but not as much as we hoped they would but we are we would have liked to so all of that. All of that storm of information. is around us constantly. And in some ways you have to go well, yeah, duh, of course, people are going to pick up the parts that make the most sense to them. And but

Kory Hartman: 30:08

it breeds mistrust. Yeah. Right? Because we've got so much information coming at us where our brains can only filter out can only accept so much.

Rauel LaBreche: 30:17

Well, it's the perfect storm for Miss trust in their living in the perfect storm. So where are the storm, you know, chasers for this storm that will say, Guys, this is what's going on. Well, are the real news and again,

Kory Hartman: 30:28

those are those are the social scientists that are working hard to try to figure out why we are the way we are, you know, why do we Why do we operate this way? You know, and you know, what can be done? Well, there's there's nothing to be done you all you can do is your own personal thing. Well, and small stations like this one and listen to small radio stations that are more concerned about what's happening at the city council meeting than about what's happening wherever else. Yeah,

Rauel LaBreche: 30:58

folks, my guest today is Cory. Cory. Cory, What's your last name? Yeah, Hartman isn't something I'm not sure what your real last Yeah, sorry. Hartman is a mystery. The owner, the Grand Poobah and of both the storm

Kory Hartman: 31:14

severe studios their studios.

Rauel LaBreche: 31:17

It has to start with can you go back and rename it so it starts with storm did not rename it storm studios and their studios, okay. Severe studios and the one that I really am near and dear to my heart is 99 Seven Max FM. I said it right good. 99 Seven Max FM, here in Little Baraboo Wisconsin but this is frame of reference Sauk County and beyond. We're going to take a quick break to hear word from our sponsors. We'll be right back to wrap up this episode. And all episodes that Corey and I are doing at this point in time. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. He didn't it but don't need to own it. Rent it at Macfarlanes in Sauk city everything to help make your party or project a success tables, tents, tablecloths, treat machines and more rug cleaners for Sanders, tile cutters and chain saws. Macfarlanes is your one stop Project Center for dy II home renovators. It's all here under one roof Macfarlanes your complete and replete I repeat rental center one block south of highway 12 at 72. Carolina Street We're service is a family tradition. We're back here at frame of reference 99 Seven Max FM's digital network and just about any place you could get a podcast from these days Facebook, iTunes, Spotify move that was one of the things you warned me about when I started this whole deal was there's about 16,000 platform and

Kory Hartman: 32:37

everywhere.

Rauel LaBreche: 32:38

Everywhere you possibly see okay there it is into gay baby. Yeah, that's I have to be part of a some new world radio or something. New World podcast. So this is the big thing segment of the show. This is the question that I asked that most people go out but and you're fairly young in your career as things go, it might feel like you're an aging old man like I am. But you're not 62 I mid career, your mid career, they're young. And at an exciting point in it, no doubt. So if you look at your career up until now, and what you hope to accomplish, because I know you well enough to know you have dreams and things you always want to be doing. And the next thing the next thing you're like a next thing junkie when it comes down to hire Yeah. So but is there something you know, as you get closer to the end of your career? Is there a legacy you want to leave behind? Is there something that you want your kids, your family members, your community members here in Sauk County and maybe beyond? Who knows what a huge network of stations you might own? By the time you're my grand old age? You know, cuz there is I think part of what is maybe going wrong with us is that we we aren't all of us are not thinking enough about what legacy we want to leave behind. I don't want to have a legacy of dividing people. I don't want to have a legacy that says I worked as hard as I could to make other people think that they were wrong. And I was right. Which seems to me to be a lot of what's going on today is get everyone to agree with what I agree. I'd like it really good when I invest in somebody in an episode and they teach me something that I wouldn't have agreed with initially but now I understand it, you know, so anyways, that's my legacy, what's yours

Kory Hartman: 34:18

to to entertain and inform you know that that's all I've wanted to do. Again, since four years old. You know, there's there's a person on the other end of the of the microphone, right and right, there's always somebody listening, you know, um, you know, wise wise people told me, you know, every every talk break is important, and there are no throwaway talk breaks or shouldn't because somebody is listening, and you could be pulling that person through a really tough day. You could be telling them something that they didn't know before they tuned in. You can giving them information that saves their life. You know, that's pretty important. Yeah, I think yeah. Um, and, and to do it with a sense of humility, which is the, you know, the hardest part, right? Yeah. I don't like to brag this this whole last two and a half hours has been painful to talk about myself and to talk about the the things that we've we've accomplished here. And of course, it's not me, it's right. It's my staff. It's everybody that helps me in my journey that brought you to this point in your career. And everybody, you know, from my, my first boss that, you know, he walked in one day, and I had the whole ceiling tile torn down, because I was replacing one cable. And he just looked at me and he said, make sure it's ready to go for telephone time in the morning. And he walked out and he just left me to my devices. Had I not had that and had I not had good people around me for 30 years, right? There's no way that that I could do you know what, what we're doing here? So, um, so I guess, you know, there's the old leave the world in a better place than you found it. And so, you know, I'd love I'd love a TV show, like, like radio station rescue, you know, like, like, Gordon Ramsay goes around, and, you know, is this is this restaurant gonna make it or are they gonna fold? Right? Is this radio station? Yeah. And I think I think we could do I think we could do that would be final radio station rescue and come in and be like, Why are you playing Pavarotti at two in the afternoon, you know, or whatever. I'm home improvement radio, and apologies to all my Pavarotti fans out there. But I'm radio Mako them, but Right. Yeah, radio makeover. So I guess, I guess leave the state of the craft better than it was when I started and, and on the media on the weather side of things. You know, I think I did that, you know, we were one of the first people to bring wide access to live storm chasing

Rauel LaBreche: 37:08

in meaningful ways feeds Yeah.

Kory Hartman: 37:11

to the to the general public. So that is that is we were the we were the pioneers of doing that. And so, you know, for Radio, I'm just trying to spend the hits. You know, I'm trying to tell people what's going on in their community, and try to get people involved in their local government. Mm hmm. Those types of things. Sure.

Rauel LaBreche: 37:31

Widows, I mean, there's a lot of significance in that when you think about what's the I think it's I think it's Eleanor Roosevelt. No, no, no, it's I can't remember the name now. But the quote goes, never underestimate the power of a small, committed passionate group of people to change the world. Yeah. Because in fact, it's the only thing that ever has. So and that Margaret Mead, I think is so I'm not probably not exact quote, but I know that the essence of that is so true. Maybe it is the small radio stations of the world, the small podcast, so overall, that may, in fact, yeah, wouldn't you like to think, would you like to, hey, I listened to WR PQ all through my life. And it's just it's the station I went back to. I went back to 99, seven, after you became 9970, you became so meaningful to me, right? Yeah. whatever

Kory Hartman: 38:21

inspires somebody to take over the next generation, because you're not going to be here forever. As the torch and I had, I had plenty of people that inspired me. The ability to to work with and become peers with people that were your inspiration. I've been able to do that a little bit cool. I mean, if that's not exciting, you know, put put people's shows on the air that I used to listen to 30 years ago. Sure. That that's cool. So I would love somebody to be like, you know, I like that station. I think I want to be a DJ, and then flash forward 30 years and they own a radio station, right? And they're covering news, weather and sports.

Rauel LaBreche: 39:06

Books. My guest has been for the past two episodes. Mr. Corey Hartman, Cory is the owner. Both severe. Severe

Kory Hartman: 39:17

studios studios.

Rauel LaBreche: 39:19

I storm it's just severe. Severe studio severe studio severe so he is the owner and initiator and whatever. kooba of severe studios and 99 Seven Max FM, here in Little Obear boo Wisconsin. It's been my pleasure, Cory thanks so much for sharing so openly so you passionately

Kory Hartman: 39:38

and thank you for passionately doing this podcast and the interviews and the setup. It is not easy to coordinate people and get people all moving in the right area in the same direction. So

Rauel LaBreche: 39:50

it's a lot of fun. I share your inspiration because it just it is it's just been a wild ride to this point. So just as yours has been. So we're gonna take Another quick break to hear a word from our sponsor. We'll be right back with closing thoughts for this episode. Don't go anywhere because you don't want to miss the end frame of reference on 99 Seven Max FM's digital network

Commercial: 40:15

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Rauel LaBreche: 40:45

whether you understand or have experienced the awesome destructiveness of something like a tornado or hurricane, up close and personally, well, we've all had to weather a few storms in our lives, in fact, life itself in a different manner. Weather is a way our appearance and the very texture of our skin. If we don't take care to not spend too much time in the sun, or the wind, or the rain, and radio Well, we can underestimate the impact of that technology on our lives. Even as we move towards a world filled with podcast platforms and streaming services that allow us to cater exclusively to our tastes. Radio continues to play on. It still connects us to the world and communities in which we live. It connects us to local life and events and allows us to be aware and involved in our immediate environments. It is people like Cory that make it possible his frame of reference and ours is one that includes pride in the community that he serves and dedication to serve it. Well. Let us not take that for granted. Whether we live in Sauk County or Munich, Germany. Remember, a streaming service or podcast won't get you out of the way of a tornado. I hope you'll join us next week when I begin a conversation with Kurt Miney who understands weather and our world in a whole nother way. Tell them stay well.