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SMRN
People: Bob Doll
 Bob is the founder of Small Market Radio
Newsletter and today holds the title of Editor Emeritus. He started as a gofer for a
station in his home town of Cincinnati; moved to a part-time announcing job at WNOP in
Newport, KY; to his first full-time job at WDLB in Marshfield, WI; then back to Ohio at
WCSI in Columbus.
From Columbus Bob went to WKY in Richmond, KY,
first as program director and later as manager of their branch studio 14 miles away, doing
everything from broadcasting the news and sports to selling and writing the ads. That led
to his first real management job at WCYN in Cynthiana, KY.
In 1960, after four years in Cynthiana, Bob joined
with a couple of non-broadcasters and built The Cardinal Group with stations in Frankfort
and Mt. Sterling, KY; Greensburg, IN; and Delaware, OH. After 14 years, his partners
wanted to retire from the business; a profitable sale enabled Bob to buy his own stations, WAOP AM and FM in Otsego, MI.
Bob spent the next ten years building and running
his Otsego stations, but he also began thinking about starting a newsletter just for small
market broadcasters. "Most trade magazines and associations cater to the
larger-market broadcasters who provide most of their support," Bob feels. "The
small market guys are forgotten."
So after Bob sold his Otsego stations, he and wife
Barb took off and spent two months driving around the country, taking mostly back roads.
Whenever he saw a tower he stopped in to visit the station, talking up his newsletter
venture.
After reading everything he could find on the
subject, Bob and Barb launched the Small Market Radio Newsletter in 1983. "If I'd
been born before radio, I'd have been a small town newspaper editor like Edgar Allen White
in Emporia, KS," Bob says. "The newsletter is that kind of business; you get to
know people on a one-to-one basis."
Since selling SMRN to
Jay Mitchell in its
tenth year, Bob continues to consult and do programs and seminars. He's also written a
book about small market radio, Sparks Out of the Plowed Ground. A second book is in
the works.
A self-described "free spirit," Bob
says, "I've done what I wanted to do, and I've done better than I thought I would do.
Nobody every said it would be super easy, but the pay's pretty good for something that is
so much fun."
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