Richard Helppie's Common Bridge
The problems we have in the country are solvable, but not solvable the way we’re approaching them today, because of partisan politics. Richard Helppie, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist seeks to find a place in the middle where common sense discussions can bridge the current great divide.
Richard Helppie's Common Bridge
Episode 258- The Evolving Landscape of Talk Radio, with Chris Renwick
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Curious about how a fascination with radio as a child can shape a career? Join us as Chris Renwick of WJR Radio in Detroit shares his captivating journey from growing up in Pennsylvania and Michigan to becoming a respected voice on the airwaves. Chris walks us through his educational background and early career, highlighting key moments that fueled his passion for broadcasting. Through his story, we gain insight into the evolving media landscape and the shifting ways people consume news and information today.
WJR Radio is taking bold steps to redefine its identity by moving away from the typical syndicated conservative talk shows and embracing a format that truly resonates with Michigan's diverse audience. We explore how the station's focus on local content and balanced viewpoints sets it apart in the industry, offering us a fresh perspective on local politics, economic issues, and community stories. Chris explains WJR's mission to engage with the audience in meaningful dialogues and the station's dedication to presenting varied political voices. This approach not only strengthens community ties but also provides listeners with the tools to form their own informed opinions.
In our conversation, we tackle the future of talk radio in the rapidly evolving digital age, considering the unique role of platforms like WJR and the Common Bridge in maintaining connection and relevance. As radio navigates editorial independence while balancing financial sustainability, we discuss the significance of varied voices and the potential for political discourse to unite rather than divide. Despite the challenges, the growth of our audience and the increasing number of downloads reflect the enduring power of engaging content and the vital role of talk radio as a community connector.
Engage the conversation on Substack at The Common Bridge!
Welcome to this episode of Season 6 of the Common Bridge, where policy and current events are discussed in a fiercely nonpartisan manner. The host, richard Helpe, is a philanthropist, entrepreneur and political analyst who has reached over 5 million listeners, viewers and readers around the world. With our surging growth in audience and subscriptions, the Common Bridge continues to expand its reach. The show is available on the Substack website and the Substack app Simply search for the Common Bridge continues to expand its reach. The show is available on the Substack website and the Substack app Simply search for the Common Bridge. You can also find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. The Common Bridge draws guests and audiences from around the political spectrum and we invite you to become a free or paid subscriber on your favorite medium.
Speaker 2Hello, welcome to the Common Bridge. I'm your host. Rich Helpe Got a great guest with us today from WJR Radio, the great voice of the Great Lakes in the city of Detroit Chris Renwick.
Speaker 3Hello, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2Very happy to have you here, chris. We've been talking a lot about the media environment and how complicated it has become. There was a day that people would get a daily newspaper. They'd read the paper and they'd say, hey, I'm done with the paper, I've got my news for the day. There'd be a little evening news on, perhaps, and when we listened to the radio it was very unifying. Hey, did you hear what JP McCarthy said today? Did you hear this new song that came out Today? Things are a lot different and you've been at this game for a while. You're a rising personality. Our audience likes to know a little bit about the background, so maybe a quick bio when did you grow up and what were some of your early experiences and what brought you to the point of hosting your own program on WJR?
Speaker 3Yeah, well, first you'll have to excuse me. I'm Italian so I talk with my hands a lot. I'm glad we've got this on video, so there'll be a lot of flailing. No, so I was born in Pennsylvania, in West Pennsylvania, and I moved to Michigan. I moved to Novi, michigan, about 97. It was a good year sports-wise, as a sports fan growing up, michigan winning a national title, the Red Wings finally getting it right. But I moved here, and you know, going into the summer before fourth grade. So I view myself as a true Michigander and one of the things that I always gravitated towards, the radio. I never really had any aspirations in being on the radio, but I always liked this person in my mom's car as we're driving around, going to the store, going to the mall or wherever, this person talking to me or playing music for me, and it was something I always kind of gravitated towards.
Speaker 3Did you break into the business?
Speaker 3I always kind of gravitated towards Break into the business. Well, so in high school I went to Novi and in high school we had a tremendous TV radio class. So that's kind of where I first figured out that oh, like this is an actual thing, like people actually do this. So I went to that class and took the class and you know, we did everything. I was on camera, I was behind the scenes, I was running the cry on, I was doing everything, and then I'd go on the radio and talk to my friends who had a radio show and and so that's kind of where it first started.
Speaker 3Once I graduated I went to Western Michigan University, thinking that I was going to be a psychologist. For some reason I took Psych 101 and realized this is not for me, not for me. So I left Western actually, and I thought that radio thing was pretty cool in high school. So I went to Specs Howard School of Media Arts, which is now rolled into Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, michigan, and did this very focused kind of year-long program. And then my thought was well, I'm going to go to Michigan State or I'm going to go to Central Michigan two really good broadcast schools in the state and I'm going to get my degree in journalism or communications or something. It just kind of happened that I just started working Generally in radio, kind of the lowest. Your entry level is like a promotions team, right. So whenever you're at an event, somebody's got a table set up and a tent and they're giving away swag or t-shirts or pens or whatever.
Speaker 2To empty the wastebaskets. That's right. You're tearing down the tents and all that stuff.
Speaker 3So I started doing that and then I'm like, oh, I'm in the business, I'm getting paid, this is great. But I always wanted to be on mic, I always wanted to be on the air. And so I started doing more things and I applied for a job at a radio station in Howell, michigan, and I sent my really awful demo reel from Specs Howard to this station for a sports reporter job. And my whole role was call in at each quarter on the phone and they record it on a mini disc and then they play it during the sports show, each update that I chime in with. And so I sent him my reel the program director and he called me a couple days later and he goes you're hired. And I'm like I'm hired. And he's like yeah, sounds good. And I'm like do you want to meet me? You want to. What are we doing here? He's like no, everything's fine, just come in. Uh, you know, monday, yes, radio what do they care?
Speaker 2right, yeah, it's like.
Speaker 3We heard you, we're good, we're pretty sure you're ugly, but you just come on in, I'll be fine.
Speaker 3So that's was my first on-air job was calling in and doing these sports reports for high school football. And then my real kind of on-air job in a studio was they asked me if I wanted to do one shift, one on-air shift from midnight to 6am on Sunday mornings. And I was, you know, in my early 20s, just became of age, so I wasn't really interested in taking a nap on a Saturday. So on my way into the station, you know, 11 o'clock, I would stop at the gas station, I'd buy two Red Bulls, I'd buy a five-hour energy drink and then in the span of six hours I would drink both of those energy drinks, the energy shot, and then I'd brew a pot of coffee. So I was just wired and then we'd get the bar crowd calling play Toto Africa. So I'd play Toto Africa. So I'm living this thing all of a sudden. Up until I've been at WJR, I kind of hadn't been at a radio station for longer than a year and a half.
Speaker 2Because I'd kind of just been taking. Yeah, that's how you were getting your preparation. How long have you been with WJR?
Speaker 3I've been with WJR for It'll be nine years around Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2Fantastic. What I love about the way you describe your career arc high school opened up this world to you, and it was a public high school and people need to understand the men and women that are teaching, administering, in those dealing with kids with undeveloped brains, exposing them to things. I had that same experience that I wish I would have been a better student, but I got exposed to computer programming, sure. Then you went to a trade school, max Howard. That led to this career. So now we're kind of coming back around that if you know what you want to do, or discover what you want to do, discover what you want to do, that might be a good path.
Speaker 3It was a seed. It was a seed that was planted, and it was ultimately my decision on which way I wanted to go. And then you were willing to do the hard work of hey, 12 to 6.
Speaker 2Yeah, all right, I'm going to find a way to do that. And see, that to me is still the American dream. And at my career. It may not have always been the smartest or most talented, but nobody's going to outwork me and there's no substitute. When I talk to young men and women about what they want to do, I said look, here's your formula for a chance of success. Sure, it's your talent. Yes, everybody's got some. You got to figure out what it is, multiplied by your effort plus luck. And the only variable you can control is effort, because you can be the most talented person with the hardest work and have a bad break. Oh, no doubt. And it can go the opposite way.
Speaker 3Well, and for me it was the opposite way. Being hired at this little station in Howell without an interview was a break, yeah. Later on I took this job at a little radio station down in Adrian, Michigan, and I was the news director. So this was my first full-time radio job in this little tiny radio station. The station was in an old bowling alley that they had converted.
Speaker 3I kind of went in and I was like yeah, it's small, I want something bigger and I didn't realize it at the time. And this is something that I tell a lot of kids that I talk to that want to go into this business. You got to hustle. It's a hustle business, not like necessarily ununique from anything else, but it's very competitive, it's hyper competitive and there just aren't that many jobs. Right, it's kind of like being an actor or a musician. You got to really hustle.
Speaker 2Adrian down in Lenawee County is a good distance from Novi Now did you move to?
Speaker 3Adrian. Yeah, so I rented an apartment. It was a great little apartment in downtown Adrian. I could walk to the station, which was great, and so I made the decision to move down there because, as the news director, I kind of needed to be there, I needed to be available and I needed to be around what was happening. So I did, and then when my lease was up that year this wasn't long term for me- Oftentimes, you know, I counsel younger people, where do I go in my career?
Speaker 2And they'll say, well, I only want to live in this city and I don't want to commute. It's like, yeah, but the person that wants it more is willing to go to Adrian's, a lovely little town, but probably not a thing that a young single person at that time was going to say. You know what my desire is to get to Adrian. If I can only get to Adrian, things are going to work out and where I hear some folks say, well, I want to live in Austin or I want to live in Boston or wherever. Great that comes with a set of results. But let's get in a little bit today about where AM radio is, and your station has a reach of a geography. It's got a very powerful transmitter.
Speaker 3We're about 38 states and half of Canada on a nice cloudy day.
Speaker 2On a cloudy day. That's great, and I know that I've been driving down south and being able to pull in JR from a long way off.
Speaker 3I've had emails from people in Portugal. No kidding that say that they've gotten our signal. Yes, it's the frequency. This is that technology. They're not building new AM stations, right, but this is that reach a 50,000-watt blowtorch has.
Speaker 2And then also now because of where the world's gone. There's a WJR app and people can listen. Could a person like any place in the world pick up the app and listen to it Any place in the world? And that's such a profound change. It must be difficult to understand actually who's listening. What do we know about that?
Speaker 3So you brought up JP McCarthy earlier, who to me is not just a legend in Detroit, he is one of the greatest radio hosts of all time.
Speaker 2Let me explain that for my audience that's not around Detroit or not around the state of Michigan we do have an international audience. You should see some of our numbers from Europe. I don't know how that happened, but it does.
Speaker 3Send me a croissant, if you could. Chocolate stuffed croissant.
Speaker 2Thank you, but JB McCarthy was a radio host in Detroit, had a morning program. It was the news, it was a little music, it was talk, it was a guest, and then it would be stock sports and weather and basically everybody heard him. It was certainly on in the kitchen when I got up. My mom and dad would have that on and the AM radio in the past was that unifying force? Yes, and they said we know we're talking to this region and everybody was kind of on the same page back in the day so they knew who their audience was. Yes, and today someone in Portugal is hearing you and there's an app that someone in New Zealand could be listening in. What does that mean for you folks in terms of your content, what you're putting out?
Local Radio Show on Informed Opinions
Speaker 3Yeah, so for me we are an all-service station. Still, wjr is very much. We want to make sure, if you're on the road, that you know the best way to go. If there's an obstacle in your way, we want to make sure you know that. We want to make sure that people are informed on things that matter to them.
Speaker 3God bless that person in Portugal listening, but I don't really care about what he thinks because he's not my audience.
Speaker 3Right, it's cool, but I'm worried about what Wendy and what Steve and what Jimmy and what Joanne in Southfield or Southgate or Novi or wherever what they're dealing with I see. And so our audience tends to shade a little older. If you're 35, 40, you start to care about different things in life, right. So you want to know what the stock market's at, you want to know where your 401k is, you want to know the value of your house or the equity, so, like, things start to matter a little more, so you start to pay attention to different things. So our audience is getting a a little younger, which is great. But when I'm building a show and my producer and I sit down and we argue about topics and we figure out what we need to hit on a particular day. I'm always thinking what do they need to know? What impacts them the most? We're in an election cycle, so it's a lot of politics right now, but anything that is impacting people on a day-to-day is what I focus on.
Speaker 2Now AM Radio and WJR in particular did support and they were a great platform for very conservative right-wing Rush Limbaugh, mark Levin, dan Bongino and others and it was known almost as a Fox model. If you want to hear the conservative or right-wing or in some extreme right wing point of view, you can tune in. That drew huge audiences. I'm sure it was good for business. But is that where you guys are today or you moved us to a new place?
Speaker 3I don't know that we've necessarily moved. I think what we do well is we have informed opinions on things that matter to us.
Speaker 3You know, I've had Donald Trump on a couple of times this year. I had JD Vance on a couple of weeks ago. The things that I ask them are about what people in Michigan care about Anything too grandiose or anything that deals with Mike Johnson in the House or whatever. None of that matters to us. What matters to them. So we're talking about manufacturing, we're talking about the economy, we're talking about a lot of the issues that people care about. Wjr is a full service station and I think what our management team has done, particularly with going to an all local lineup. You mentioned Rush Limbaugh. You mentioned Dan Bongino and Mark Levin. Those are all syndicated shows.
Speaker 3And look whatever people think about Rush Limbaugh, he is the godfather of this format in this kind of political talk. He did it better than anybody. He basically created it. But, with that being said, I look at things differently than those guys do, while still taking some of the same approaches to topics. For me, it doesn't matter what letter is in front of your name D, r, I doesn't matter. It's not necessarily conservative talk, it's more just. We've now crafted this lineup, all local to cater a local audience, and we're not ideologues. We don't take a certain stance based on party.
Speaker 2That's a very important differentiation the syndicated national versus local.
Speaker 3Find me another station that is local from sunup to sundown and that has actually changed in that direction, whereas a lot of stations now all over the country they're taking away that local talent because it's much cheaper to go to syndication. So this commitment that I believe our station has made, I think it serves southeast Michigan, it serves all of Michigan in a much more impactful way.
Speaker 2There is a concept called micro-reporting, right, or intensive micro-reporting. So there's little local newspapers HyperReport, excuse me, is the name of it. So there's a little paper out in Washtenaw County where they're actually putting reporters on the street and they distribute it to everybody within a certain zip code and they've got ads in there for a business model. But also you're invited, you can write them a check, which I do because I want to support that local reporting and we can't get away from having journalists on the ground. And you know you made mention of Trump and Vance being on your show and that had to be interesting. I want to dive into that a little bit, but have you made overtures to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to see if they would like to come on the show?
Speaker 3Yeah, not only them. We've made overtures to the president and the vice president. You know, from my perspective, particularly when we are relating a message to the audience, I don't lie to my audience. This is me. I don't have a radio personality separate from my daily life, and so I'm a very straightforward person. And we have continued to make efforts to try to get the vice president and her running mate on, and they haven't taken us up on those yet.
Speaker 3I'm hopeful because I think it's important to give that platform to everyone, because if I assume and I think correctly so that my audience is smart, well-informed and intelligent, then I want to make sure that they are getting that information straight from the horse's mouth. I can ask the question, but I want people to know their answer. And it's funny about this, because this is the fickleness of an audience where I've got people on the right, when I have, you know, the Secretary of Transportation I had Pete Buttigieg on just the other day I get the text oh well, you didn't push him enough, you didn't push him hard enough. And then I get people from the left when I've got JD Van Zyl or Donald Trump. They're like you didn't ask the serious question.
Speaker 3I ask a question about manufacturing, for example, how do we bring back these jobs? But then how do we have a workforce that's ready to handle those jobs when they do come back and if they come back, and whatever that answer is is their answer. You don't need me to spoil it. I don't need to be Brett Baier in a confrontational interview with Kamala Harris. It doesn't serve anybody. I'm asking a question. You want to know what she has to say? Here it is. Or you want to know what Donald Trump has to say? Here it is and it's live, and it's live and it's live, and so I think that it's important to offer that to everyone. Not everybody takes you up on it, and that's the purview of these political campaigns and those decisions that they make.
Speaker 2Those are some pretty interesting guests. When you kind of look back at the guests that you've had, any that stand out as particularly interesting, whether they were controversial or just insight, or maybe surprised you any that you'd like to really have back.
Speaker 3Well, I'll tell you. It's funny. My wife and I were just talking about this. She said you really should write down who you interview, like you're gonna forget someday.
Speaker 3And it's not just these big names, like I've interviewed Stevie Wonder and William Shatner recently and those type of people, which is great. But I've also interviewed people that are going through really hard times, like everyday people and the stories that they're dealing with. And, you know, people who are dealing with an incredible loss or somebody was taken from them and they're just trying to find answers. And it's this incredibly heartfelt conversation. I talk a lot to veterans and the struggles that they deal with coming back and living in a world post-conflict or post-war and how they've managed that post-conflict or post-war and how they've managed that. I've talked to a lot of just everyday people that are, in almost every way, more meaningful to me than talking with a former president or a potential president or a potential vice president. Those are fun and they're cool and it's a headline, but all of these interviews are very special in one way or the other.
Speaker 2That's a really tremendous insight there. And just jumping back quickly to the former President Trump, is he as uncontrolled as he's made out to be? How did you find him in your chats with him?
Speaker 3So it's funny. I've had a few different interactions with Donald Trump In my conversations with him over the last year. You know you talk to him for just a second off air. You just say hi, thank you. You know, we appreciate your time. Just a very personable guy and it's probably a little bit more what people see on, like Joe Rogan's podcast or some of these other podcasts where he's kind of he doesn't quite have his guard up. So it's a little bit of a different conversation. But it's very brief because I don't want to take too much of their time just talking behind the scenes. But then once you get them on, you know it's a lot of what you see in the media. I thought the interview with JD Vance was pretty insightful. You know he's a Buckeye so I tried to get him to say something nice about Michigan, which he didn't really bite too much.
Speaker 2I would imagine that he would have choked on that.
Speaker 3He said it was the hardest question he's gotten so far, which I appreciate. But you know a lot of that is just disarming people.
Speaker 1I'm not here to attack.
Speaker 3I'm here to inform my audience and, very briefly, I used to be the executive producer of the Frank Beckman Show. He's a legend. He was the play-by-play voice for Michigan football for 33, 32 years and when Donald Trump was in office he invited us down our show and do a show from the Eisenhower building, which is the building inside the gates at the White House, inside the property. And then they called us over and they said you want to do an interview with him. So we're like sure. So we go and do this interview with him in the Roosevelt room in the West Wing, you and Frank Beckman, me and Frank Beckman and Donald Trump. So Frank and him are sitting at this big conference table and they do the interview.
Unbiased Radio Broadcasting and Political Discourse
Speaker 3And then, after the interview, donald Trump stands up and shakes Frank's hand and says have you guys ever been to the Oval Office? And we're like no, why would we? And he says well, come on, I'll show you. So he takes us into the Oval Office and he shows us the Resolute Desk. He's talking to us about Kennedy and he shows us the little picture of the sun coming out of the desk and he's talking about you know the history and all of this stuff. And then he starts asking us some questions. And I'm standing in the Oval, we walk in like Steve Mnuchin is there? A couple of like cabinet guys are there. We're like, oh, he's about to have like a cabinet meeting and he just brought these two guys from Michigan in to hang out, like it was, and he was very kind and accommodational and he was just. It was an interesting little bit of time, but we were with him for like 45 minutes in the middle of the day. So it's just a couple of interesting stories like that that always stick out.
Speaker 2Yeah, and of course the knock on Trump will be hey, he's undisciplined, you never know what you're going to do minute to minute and frankly, that's been one of my criticisms of him. You know I don't want to get into the news coverage, but there's. There's legitimate questions they should be asking him. That is not being asked, sure, so no-transcript. Your income is coming from advertising. Is there pressure on you from a content point of view based on the advertising content, or is that just kept completely stuck?
Speaker 3My responsibility is to the audience. The realities are we got to pay the bills, we got to keep the electricity on, we got to keep things moving. You know, we're not a subscription-based model, we're not a situation where you have to buy into something. I think that comes with a little bit of the charm of radio. It hasn't really changed to restaurant radio and so people know what to expect, so there's comfort there as well.
Speaker 3But the realities are we do have to juggle that, and it's important that we make those connections with businesses in our area that have the same characteristic makeup that we do that people who are committed to the community, people who are committed to the community, people who are committed to doing good things for people and doing the right things for people. It's really important, and so I think it would be foolish to omit that and say that that's not something that we think about, because of course it is. It's how we stay in business, it's how we're able to keep people informed and keep these dialogues going. So when I walk into that building every day, I'm not thinking about sales, I'm not thinking about advertising. I am thinking about how do I best serve my audience. But it is, it certainly is something that we think about because we have to.
Speaker 2I will also endorse that, because when I'm traveling and I'm listening to Sonos or tune in radio, I want to hear local, because I want to hear that this club has got a particular act coming in, or hey, there's a special on pizza, or putting at the putt putter, whatever. You get a local flavor by listening to local thing.
Speaker 3You know what that is too. We get to peek into what other people are thinking and how they're doing things and and how they're approaching this, because you know it's human nature. You can kind of get into a lull or you can kind of end up doing the same things. It can be monotonous, and people don't necessarily see that because they're in the middle of it too. It can spur a completely different idea when you're able to kind of pick and just kind of listen to what other people are doing.
Speaker 2Absolutely. And again, radio was that unifying force in the community. When you were driving to work, people were listening to one of three things, and now they could be listening to a podcast, they could be listening to something broadcast, they could be listening to satellite radio and never hear them driving right past a business that offers great steaks or sea shirt or whatever, and just not aware. So that's really changed.
Speaker 3So, chris one of the things that we have going on.
Speaker 2I think in our country and in our world that there was prior to the technical revolution of the internet we had more controlled media, more edited media. It's been kind of characterized mainstream media and criticized today for being agenda driven. So when you think about AM radio in general or perhaps WJR in specific, are you mainstream?
Speaker 3media. No, I would say we're not, because our mission is different. Not in the sense that Fox or CNN, you know, they also rely on advertising to pay their bills, to pay their people. So it's not different necessarily from the business model. Whether you're on MSNBC or CNN or Fox, they're catering to a particular group of people. We don't, and so we cater to everyone. It's why we have conversations with everybody. It's why I've talked to everybody, from Donald Trump to much more progressive people.
Speaker 2Yeah, Pete Buttigieg. Yeah, Pete Buttigieg.
Speaker 3Who's a? You know again, people need to separate the politics from the people.
Speaker 2What people need to understand is, when you get to a certain level in politics, you're a pro and you're pretty good at what you do, which is why I always thought these negative campaigns were silly, because then the person comes out to the debate or whatever, and people look at him and go, well, he's not that bad or she's not that bad. They're people, yeah, and they're all pros at a certain level. And you know, I don't know Pete Buttigieg, but he seems like a really smart guy.
Speaker 3He is a smart guy. What I don't like and what a lot of these outlets do and again, they have a different perspective on coverage. They're catering to a specific group of people. I don't want to selfishly, I don't want to have conversations with people that I just agree with.
Speaker 3That's boring I don't want to do that and it's a disservice to my audience If they come to my show from 2 to 4 pm Eastern every weekday if they come looking for the same thing or something cookie cutter or something right out of a box. That's not interesting to me. I don't want to do that and I don't think people want that, and so it's why I diversify who I talk with. You know, I'm not an ideologue. I have feelings on both sides of the aisle that I agree with. In my view, I do my audience a disservice if I don't have those conversations with people and at least give people an opportunity, whether or not they agree or not one way or the other. Give them an opportunity to hear a different perspective, and whether that changes things for you or not is up to you, but I want to make sure that I'm giving that to you.
Speaker 2I really like that because I'm a fellow traveler and I actually had a guy scoff at me on a not so much used social media platform. He said all you guys that think you have a different take, you don't know what you're doing, I'm like, oh, a different take is we're not following the formula, you're not, you're not thinking how I'm thinking. Exactly so I haven't watched sean hannity since he had alan combs on. It was combs and hannity. It was interesting, although you know, combs going against sean hannity was never a fair fight. Right, it was the you know right combs and I've said this on another interview, but it comes was like the Washington generals, you know.
Speaker 2Yeah, he's going to he's going to get mumbling around by the Harlem, yes, yes, and people tune into that to hear that. People tune into Rachel Maddow to be lied to. I mean she's testified Right. It's an equity, exactly, and so you're coming at this from a different way, but you know my guests might want to know look, have you ever, like, criticized Donald Trump? Or criticized, of course?
Speaker 3Of course, you know, I think, even going back to what happened on January 6th, I don't believe that the things that he said spurred what happened. I do believe he waited far too long to say anything. It was a horrific day.
Speaker 3One of my biggest criticisms of Donald Trump is, even in times when I think he's right or I think he's onto something, he doesn't articulate it properly. For example and I'm not saying this is something that I agree with but after the Dobbs decision, he came out and said look, each state is going to have your own rules and the states are going to have to make those decisions and the voters in those states are going to have to make those decisions. And since then he's come out and he said things like well, if you want to change, win elections. And he kind of just leaves it at that, whereas I think he means if you want to change the laws in your state, then you need to become active, you need to go out, put yourself on the line, win elections and then, once you have that control over your state legislature, then you can take the correct whatever you think that corrective action is, or a referendum.
Speaker 2Look at Kansas. Nobody would have forecast that and so that's a very contentious issue. It's with the states. Ruth Bader Ginsburg thought that's where it belonged and I'm kind of with her because she knew more about the law than I would ever hope to imagine. I could teach her a couple things.
Talk Radio and Political Discourse Future
Speaker 2But on January 6th that was one of the things I would love to hear someone ask Donald Trump. The observable fact is, for 187 minutes you did nothing. Why? Because, had the president said, mr President, people are going into the Capitol. It would have been wait a minute, get on a bullhorn, tell them to get out Now. He said many other things that he shouldn't have said. I think he should be held accountable. I don't want to go down that tangent about how his political opposition empowered him and obfuscated the issue by their exaggeration and such. So I look at what you do with talk radio. In a time when we have interactive, multi-dimensional communication, it's not just one way. It seems to be that to your point. With future generations caring about their world and with talk radio being this ubiquitous two-way, it ought to look really bright in the future. But then I look at the market cap. What do you guys talk about as it comes to what's the future here?
Speaker 3Yeah, I think one thing that is really important in our business in 2024, going into 2025, is you got to be multiple right. You have to be active on social media, you have to be active in different ways to engage with your audience. It's a lot more than just, you know, a two-hour radio show in the middle of the afternoon.
Speaker 2I love what you talked about getting ready for the show.
Speaker 3Yeah, there are things that we can do in a podcast format, that can live on our sites, that can act as a accompaniment to what we do on the air, and so I think that, when you think about where this thing is headed, I don't know, I don't know. I mean, vinyls are back, so who knows? You know what I mean. I don't think that we're. Vinyls are back, so who knows? You know what I mean. I don't think that we're going to be a dinosaur here. I don't think that we become extinct. The business has changed. It continues to change. It's changed in the last decade since I've been there. It will evolve, it will change. It will become something different than what it is today. I don't know that anybody really has an answer, but I think that it is going to evolve in such a way that it will make the platform relevant for the future.
Speaker 2You know, chris, as we near the end of our time together. A couple of lightning round things, okay, and in the lightning round Prime rip you can always pass. So if you read what we would loosely term the mainstream media in our watch, the perception is that Americans are at each other's throat and are very angry.
Speaker 3Is your audience angry, a frustration. I think there's a frustration with what maybe some people would think like how could you possibly think like that, or how could you stand by this? And it's probably on both ways right. So I don't know that it's. I mean, I'm sure there is some anger, I'm sure there is some animosity. I don't know if they're angry. I think they're probably more frustrated because everybody injects their purview into what politics is and they all have an idea of how things should be run.
Speaker 2And when you don't match that or when you don't meet that expectation, there's frustration and I will tell you from my audience I don't think there's been an issue where I couldn't take somebody forwardly in one camp and someone equally cemented into the other and find places that they agree and even getting them to agree that, yeah, that middle ground would be better than what we have on the extreme. And I look at the divisions and I predicted this day would come when the victim Olympics would run into who's the bigger victim. And people thought that the pinnacle of that was Hamas, palestinians, israelis. But I really saw it when they couldn't figure out whether Asians were privileged or whether they were a minority. But I digress. In this climate, your sense, will either side accept the results of the presidential election? Of course?
Speaker 3That question to me is so wild. They may not like accept it, but it's going to happen one way or the other. Whoever wins is going to be president.
Speaker 2Will they say that's my president? Oh, probably not Okay.
Speaker 3Because you mean like from a people perspective or from a campaign perspective, from a people perspective.
Speaker 2What I look at it is this we have a couple of bad choices Again. Political parties are not doing a great job for us, but whether Kamala Harris is elected the president or Donald Trump is elected the president, that's my president. I want them to do a great job because we're not served and I've been asking people will you accept the results of the election and say that's my president?
Speaker 3That started under Donald Trump. That was a he's not my president line, and so then Republicans have adopted that in the Biden era. So I don't know. I think we get caught up in a lot of it because we're in the heat of the moment, but at the end of the day, you're still going to get up in the morning, you're still going to have your coffee, you're still going to read the paper or turn on whatever platform you want to hear from, you're still going to go to the grocery store. You're still going to have to plug your car in or go to the gas station. You still live.
Speaker 2Well, platforms are going to be to WJR or the Common Podcast.
Speaker 3That's right, it's really the only media.
Speaker 2It's the only place in the world that is completely binary. That's right.
Speaker 3So, yeah, I think people we get caught up because we're in the heat of it, but it's going to be fine.
Engaging Conversations in Radio Broadcasting
Speaker 2Great. Our audience has been amazing, the number of subscribers that we're adding and the downloads broke over 5 million.
Speaker 3Because you're having conversations with people. That's it. Have a conversation, talk to people. It's okay to talk to people. It really isn't.
Speaker 2We've been talking today with radio personality and talk show host, chris Renwick. Chris of WJR Radio, the great voice of the Great Lakes, 760 on your AM dial in 38 states and half of Canada, on the WJR app and at wjrcom and you can hear Chris from 2 pm to 4 pm Eastern Time most weekdays and with our guest, chris Renwick. This is your host, rich Helpy signing off on the Common Bridge.
Speaker 1Thanks for joining us on the Common Bridge. Subscribe to the Common Bridge on Substackcom or use their Substack app, where you can find more interviews, columns, videos and nonpartisan discussions of the day. Just search for the Common Bridge. You can also find the Common Bridge on Mission Control Radio on your RadioGarden app.