We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jake Wood a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jake thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry?

Radio stations have had tough competition for decades now. First it was television, and eventually, the Internet with podcasts. Not to mention radio competing with itself — the FM dial is basically full across most of urbanized America today from a handful of companies. Increased competition means less revenue, and corporate broadcasters have generally responded to this through consolidation.

It makes sense. You can have the same salespeople and air staff running 3 or 4 stations, and make more money!

Scale this up, though, and consolidation is what causes a morning show to be on the air in both Phoenix, Arizona and Fort Collins, Colorado at the same time. It’s what causes the same playlist to be playing in Denver and Asheville, in almost the same order.

Corporate radio needs to do this, though, because they have shareholders to answer to. It’s a flawed system for producing great, local radio.

Noncommercial radio, fortunately, doesn’t have profit-driven shareholders to report to. Things are driven by donors, grants, and underwriting. Air shifts are picked up by passionate volunteers who love the music or topics they are presenting to the audience. It has all the right ingredients to make great, local radio.

I don’t blame corporate radio for getting it wrong. It’s just the way things go when you’re seeking a bottom line. I’ve always viewed radio as a service to the public, and non-commercials, in my opinion, are better suited to serve this mission than corporate radio.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We are 88.7 FM Ridgeline Radio, located in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. We might be one of the smallest radio stations in the United States, by revenue and by broadcast area. We operate from a mountain top cell phone tower with an output of only 5 watts. By comparison, major stations in our market broadcast at 100,000 watts! We only cover a small mountain village, with a population of 500 or so in the winter, and 2,000 in the summer.

I’ve been interested in radio for a large part of my life. When I was a kid, my parents bought me this toy by Wild Planet called “Radio DJ.” It had a tape player and some sound effects, and it transmitted on 1670 AM. Later, my grandfather and I built an FM transmitter from a kit. Moving into middle school, I started a mobile DJ business, which was fun for a bit. In high school, though, I started a non-profit Internet radio station for my school district, after they declined to assist with the founding of a true FM station. Unfortunately, the desire to broadcast never truly went away. I volunteered with a station in Fort Collins for awhile, but in 2020, the FCC opened another filing window for non-commercial broadcasters, and I seized the opportunity to get Ridgeline Radio started.

I’m incredibly proud of the fact that, in this day and age, we’ve found a format that resonates with our listeners, and is responsive to the interests of the community. We’re completely volunteer and donation powered, so we’re always looking for donations of time or money — being a DJ is just as helpful as helping with the rent payment.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Like I mentioned in the previous questions, I started an Internet radio station for high schoolers. That wasn’t before *trying* to apply for an FM station, though. Fortunately, I made a few mistakes in the application, and someone else was interested in the same frequency we were interested in. We reached a settlement agreement to withdraw our application, and we were able to use the money to fund an entire year of operations in Internet radio — even with a studio!

For context, this was in the year 2007. The next opportunity for non-commercial FM radio stations to come on the air was in 2020. In other words, I participated in two back-to-back filing windows, 13 years apart, to get an FM radio staton on the air.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I always wanted to be a true entrepreneur — someone who could take any business problem and make it successful. For whatever reason, though, I just don’t have quite the right skillset. In college, I switched from being a business major to a dual major with computer science and business. Thank goodness I did, I’m a much better software engineer than businessperson.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ridgelineradio.org/

Image Credits

Paige Wood, Ilya Smirnov