“People think radio is an entertainment business,” says Terry Volkwyn. “That’s wrong. Radio is the business of selling space to advertisers.”
The remark is dropped casually, as if it’s a self-evident truth that doesn’t warrant repeating. But it’s a remark that speaks volumes about the CEO of Primedia Broadcasting.
On one level, it’s an inherent confession of her background and career path. Volkwyn has been selling media space for almost twenty years. She started out in print as a sales rep for the Rand Daily Mail and in 1987, after a short stint at a modest publication called Successful Salesmanship, she joined the 702 sales team under Stan Katz. By the age of 25 she had become 702’s sales manager.
“Sales and media were my game,” says Volkwyn of those early years. “I grew up at 702 and I learned radio from Stan [Katz]. He was excellent at getting you to understand the role you played.”
Back then (the late ’80s) Volkwyn’s role involved constant revision of targets and commissioning schemes. It meant close contact with the likes of Issie Kirsh and Keith Gimrie, an incessant effort to convert the uniqueness of the 702 brand into revenue. It implied taking the ‘rebelliousness’ of the station the fact that they were broadcasting from a homeland, that they cheekily penned their own anthem (‘land of 702’) to advertisers who were more than a little nervous.
And it also was back then, in the high intensity environment before Primedia had ‘gone corporate,’ when 702 had more listeners regionally than 5fm had nationally, that Volkwyn formulated the question she would faithfully ask herself and her staff in the ensuing years: “Are we delivering value to the advertisers?”
The question points to another inherent confession in the casual remark that radio isn’t all about entertainment. Here’s where we get some context to Volkwyn’s notorious reputation for toughness: if she learned about selling space and making the numbers when John Berks and Stan Katz were sticking it to the Nats, she isn’t about to go soft now that she sits in the big office.
So what about the strategy being written from that office? How does the CEO of Primedia Broadcasting plan to develop the three stations (702 Talk Radio, 94.7 Highveld Stereo and 567 Cape Talk) in her portfolio?
It seems 702 needs the most work. A big obstacle to growth is that the station still broadcasts on the AM band.
“The IBA [Independent Broadcasting Authority] had to adopt 702 just like South Africa had to adopt Bophuthatswana,” explains Volkwyn. “702 were only brought in line with the IBA Act stipulations three years ago. The station was kept AM because all FM frequencies were given away. In the upcoming review process we are bringing up the fact that the AM band is not best for a commercial station.”
Fine, but something bigger than the broadcasting band is broken at 702. The station has dropped to a current listenership of 270,000 from it’s all-time high of around 500,000. Volkwyn says the problem is that listeners are confused.
“The station has not given the available audience what they want. Research is saying 702 has lost its way. People want information and credible content.”
So the CEO has gone on a hiring spree and changed the line-up. Her biggest coup was fetching Tim Modise from SAFM. Knowing his style was everything she needed at the station, she simply approached him and asked. Then she gave him a while to mull it over before calling back.
“I thought the SABC must be a lonely place,” she says, “and when I called again he wasn’t ‘so fine.’ I offered him a human environment. Money never came up in that discussion.
“When Tim was secured, the place erupted. I could hear them screaming from the fourth floor.”
Volkwyn is now instituting a new sales strategy to go with the “new vibe.” She refers to her conflict with the 702 sales team when she took over. “Why did revenue go up?” she asks rhetorically. “Because the reps got so desperate they sold anything that moved. They sold advertorial to ‘nuts and bolts’ factories.”I’ve stripped that,” she says. “In the sales area, I know what I’m doing. It’s not up for debate. I don’t just take the money. I will not sell something that is bad for the client.”
In Volkwyn’s favour, nobody can complain about the sales strategy at 94.7 Highveld Stereo, a strategy she was instrumental in drawing up during her
previous position as managing director of the station.
“We have a forward book of nine months at 94.7,” she says. “We go into each month with 80 percent of the target achieved. Gross turnover per annum is R150 million and 78 percent of our shareholder loans have been repaid.”
Clearly, the place where the station gets bashed isn’t on the balance sheet. Highveld takes a more subtle heat on the racism charge.
“It annoys me that the station is used as an example of racism,” Volkwyn counters. “We are highly regulated for transformation, empowerment and employment equity. Primedia is the only company to have fulfilled Icasa’s mandate regarding empowerment. Also, black listenership on Highveld has grown from 122,000 in 1996 to 304,000 in the latest RAMS.” (Over listenership in 1996 was 489,000 and is now at 1,1 million).
And what about the accusation that the typical media buyer, due to his or her own ‘white’ middle-class background and attendant listening preferences, will consistently choose a Highveld over, let’s say, a Kaya?
“The acid test is not the stereotyped media buyer. If that were true, our clients wouldn’t continue with us. Highveld is not cheap, but it delivers. If an advertiser chooses not to go with Kaya, that’s a business decision.”
Against Highveld’s racism saga, and the listenership collapse at 702, stands the relatively tame story of 567 Cape Talk. “Cape Talk was not on its knees like 702 when I took over,” says Volkwyn. But, as at 702, she has made a few notable line-up changes. She’s brought back Chris Gibbons to fill the 12 to 1pm slot, and Tim Modise is simulcast from the 702 studio between 9am and 12. The controversial Nigel Pierce has the morning drive time slot from 6am to 9am.
Not everyone supported the changes at Cape Talk and 702. The corridor grumblings filtered out into the industry: a common occurrence about which the CEO harbours no illusions.
“I have this reputation that I’m as hard as nails,” she says. “There are people saying there’s blood on the walls in here.”
Her own account of that reputation is simple: “When I’m on a path, I can’t get moved from it. I get the right people in the right place.”
So Terry Volkwyn is tough. Disputing it is a useless battle with a fait accompli. Like, when did a shrinking wallflower ever make a successful chief executive of a media conglomerate’s broadcasting division?