(energetic, cheerful music) - Welcome to Forum 360.

This is Mark Welfley, your host today.

Thank you for joining us for our global outlook with a local view.

"Glory to God in the highest, "and on Earth, peace to men of good will."

These famous words were the first words ever spoken on AM radio, on December 24th, 1906, by Reginald Fessenden, and the era of radio was born.

In 1910, radio was used by ships to communicate at sea.

The first radio news program was broadcast August 31st, 1920 by station 8MK, in Detroit, Michigan, which survives today as an all-news format station.

Radio was a way to keep families informed of what was happening in the war.

The total listenership for radio in the United States now exceeds 256,000,000.

An average of 7.5 million people are listening to a radio at any given time, up slightly from last year.

In the midst of a pandemic, and social unrest, and a wave of demographic and social media changes, what role does traditional radio play in our lives today, and in the future?

Today, we will discuss the usefulness of talk radio during these changing times, with my guest, Ray Horner.

You can hear Ray Horner on WAKR Radio in Akron, where he has been the morning host for more than 20 years.

He is a two-time winner of the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters, Sportscaster of the Year, and the current play-by-play voice of Hiram College Athletics.

Welcome, Ray.

- Thanks Mark, thanks for having me.

- Sure.

So how did you get into radio?

Tell us a little bit about your backstory.

- Well it goes back to when I was about 13, 14 years old, and you mentioned the sportscasting aspect, at that time, I thought I would always be a sportscaster, but then, you know, you get fed the hook, line and sinker, and you get into it, and as you mentioned, I'm still doing play-by-play with the Hiram Terriers, football and basketball, which I just love to do, with the division three athletics, and I've done so many high school events and division one schools in the past.

As a matter of fact, when LeBron was at Saint Vincent, Saint Mary, I went coast-to-coast with him, broadcasting games from UCLA's Pauley Pavilion to Trenton, New Jersey, over there for some of those games.

So I do enjoy that, and it started at a young age, I started to hang out at my local radio station, which was in Meadville, Pennsylvania, my hometown, WMGW, and I would go down and watch the hosts, watch the, quote, disk jockeys, and watch the sportscasters and I just fell in love with the medium and ever since then, I used to go to high school games and bring a little cassette recorder with me and I would record myself doing the games and then I went on to school, down in Dayton, Ohio and got lucky enough to have the kind of the role of a lifetime with me and I've been in the radio industry for about 40 years.

- Well how has radio changed in 40 years?

- A lot.

When I first got in, as you mentioned, you go back to the beginning times and how people relied on the radio.

You go back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech, declaring war on Japan, and entering the United States into World War II, that was the only way to find that information out then.

Now, radio is just as important to many, but now, with radio stations, they have their own websites, which means they have podcasts, which means they shoot video with their personalities, and, of course, you have the social media and you have all that streaming and everything going on.

So radio, way back when, was the only medium, and now it's one of many, but radio has transitioned as well where the radio stations can also pivot and have podcasting, streaming, video, audio of their own.

Before, when you first got into radio, you turned on the mic, in an eight by eight room, you played music or you spoke about news things.

Now, you turn on the mic in your room, but, oh, by the way, you're gonna do a long-form podcast at 11:00, you're gonna do a streaming interview at 2:00 and you're gonna do a video update at about 12:30.

So it's more broad that it was before.

- Talk about the pandemic.

Rewind the clock, three years ago, give or take, and-- - Mmhmm.

- And take me through how talk radio negotiated through the pandemic.

What was important in talk radio to help listeners through the pandemic?

- It was interesting, it was like January 25th, of almost three years ago, that I saw the first outbreak of this virus in Wuhan, China, and I remember, I reached out to CBS News, our radio station is a CBS affiliate, and we had someone come on and do a four, five minute interview with me.

And then, not too much, but you could see it still festering over there.

All of a sudden, within a month, it was front and center and everywhere.

So what you have to do, at that point, and one thing you have to remember in radio or any medium, is that your audience is coming and going every 15 to 20 minutes.

You would love them to stay with you forever.

And it's the same thing on TV, if you watched the long forums, you'll say, "Oh, he was just talking about that 20 minutes ago."

That's because people come and go.

So in my area of morning host, for 3 1/2 hours, it was 3 1/2 hours every morning, talking about the pandemic.

And there are, again, side by stories, economic issues, the spread of the virus, what about a vaccine, where do you go in safe public, how do you sanitize, where can you go, where can't you go, there's all these different angles that I was covering, basically, 3 1/2 hours for two years, covering the same story.

But it was important to get the information out and I think that's been the lifeline of radio.

And you mentioned way back at the open, I mentioned FDR, radio has always been there for everyone to update them on the important matters, whether it be an NFL strike or 9/11, when I was on the air for 9 1/2 straight hours, unfortunately, doing play-by-play that morning of what transpired that morning.

People, through generations, have relied on radio and the pandemic was no different.

And I received a lot of people who thanked me for the coverage of giving the pandemic and the education and the research and what we can do and what we can't do to all of them, 3 1/2 hours in the morning.

So it was front and center.

It was on the website, it was on the podcast, it was on the video, it was everywhere.

- Sure.

We live in an era where, you know, fake news is a punchline, fake news is what everybody knows in their conscious to be, you know, they all have their own definition, but my question is about how you find the right sources.

So, the pandemic, or you mentioned 9/11, breaks out, where do you go, who do you find, how can you trust what they have to say, how do you vet the sources that, kind of help you generate the news?

- A lot of it is sifting.

You try different guests and see if they work.

The one thing, at least with my show, Mark, that I've tried to do, is I've tried to model myself, and I'm not saying I'm on that plateau, but I thought Larry King was very good at interviewing people and letting the guest tell their story.

And my job, as the host, as the moderator of the show, is to bring the guest on and ask the questions, and hopefully, this guest is supreme.

So that's what I would try to do during the pandemic or back to 9/11 or what is going forward now, with what is happening with the Russian invasion into the Ukraine.

You try to find these guests who have something to say, usually CBS has top-flight guests where we live in a region where you have so many universities who have professors, who have experts in different areas, you invite them onto the show.

You don't want the show to turn into a political arena with different people with agendas, what you really want to do is give the people the information and the research.

Now, if you have a guest that has a political agenda that is pointing the finger at a specific group or a specific person, you, as a host, owe to your listener to get another guest who has the opposite point of view and the opposite person or group to point the finger at.

You really should have both sides of the story if that happens.

But really, it's "Hey, I liked you as a guest, Mark, "I'm going to invite you back," or, "John Jones, I didn't kinda like the way that went," and you probably won't use them again.

You'll see that all the time in media coverage, whether it be WAKR Radio or CNN or FOX News, they'll have some guest that they really, really like and they'll have some guest, when the others aren't available, they'll turn to them, or you'll see a guest that's on and then you won't see them again.

- I wanna go back to, you touched on it earlier, social media and how social media has impacted, changed radio.

Tell me a little bit more about Facebook and some of the other, popular social media outlets and how radio has worked in and around and with those social media outlets to remain relevant.

- Well, the thing with social media is I'm a big proponent of social media.

I think it's a wonderful way to connect, to get information out, to relate to people, to see information.

The problem with social media, as it's become a platform for many other people and different groups, to get it through.

And then there is a group of people that rely strictly on the social media for all of their news and all their information and that becomes, and it creates a more volatile community.

And that's what I have seen from being a media host, with WAKR, where, right now, the audience is really outspoken.

They're volatile and it's almost violent sometimes with the way they react to things and we saw that in the political arena, and the United States, the last couple of years, I have no doubt that social media played a role in that.

Also you're seeing it across the world when you're talking about what is going on, as far as invasions and unrest and the European nations and Ukraine, how much of a role does social media have in that, what is the correct thing to follow, what isn't, and really, I think we should, as a society, look at social media, but really go to our standards as what we're looking at for news and information and I'm not trying, it's all radio stations that don't have an agenda on board.

I am certainly not pounding the podium to say to vote for this person or you gotta do this, I try to stay in the middle of the road, politically, but sometimes, unfortunately, in social media, you have to be very careful on what you take in, read it and look at the source of where it came from.

It's interesting, I took a class one time on getting to how research is done, how polls are done, and who said this, and it was very interesting because sometimes we'll see a poll or we'll see research and say, "Oh gosh, "did you see this, this and that, "and that's number one, two, and three," or, "He said this about this person "and there's aliens out in the Atlantic Ocean," and then when you look at where the source came from, it may say doctors.com or it might say medical coverage.

Then you look at the origin of this group and you can go all the way back 'til you find out that it was one doctor that has been retired for 35 years that's living in Vermont.

So you really have to be careful on what you read and what you take in.

As an audience, just like a host, you have to rely on those reliable sources that are tried and true.

- Sure.

If you're just joining us, thank you for joining us.

My guest today is Ray Horner.

Ray Horner is the morning show host of WAKR Radio in Akron.

And I wanted to turn to Northeast Ohio listeners, and of course, we have all different personalities and different, you know, characteristics in our different cities, but can you kind of characterize the Northeast Ohio listeners, say, compared to other listeners in other geographic regions of, say, state or even in other states?

- I haven't worked in a lot of different states.

I've actually made my home in two states.

One thing I'll say about Northeast Ohio, extremely loyal listeners.

They want to become more than your friend and they love their communities and huge hearts.

And I'm not just saying that, folks, I mean, it is the truth, from when you see someone having a tough time, or a community is flooded here, or there's violent crimes there, or the need for blood over here, this Northeast Ohio group, it's an old cliche, but they really circle the wagons and care for one another.

And I remember my first couple of months here, in the Akron area, when I came in from the Erie, Pennsylvania market, I went to a diabetes fundraiser, it was called The Sugar Land Express, way back when, I don't believe they do it anymore, and a lady by the name of Madeline Basselie brought me onboard and she brought me there, and it was just so impressive.

I got there and I'm talking to Bill Considine, from Akron Children's Hospital, who I had never met, and he was explaining to me what they do and what this fundraiser is for and I'm saying, "Oh my goodness," and there was hundreds of people at this event.

And then from that point on, it was each and every time that I went to an event to help out this cause or this group or this community or this theater, people just showed up because they have such great pride in the greater Akron area, and that's from the Hudsons to the Greens, to the Coplies to the Wadsworths to the Richfield areas.

It's amazing to me the deep heartbeat that we have in the region.

- What has talk show radio done, if anything, to attract the next generation of listeners, all the way down, say, to the you know, to the six to 10 year olds?

Is there thought given to who they are and what their interests are and how talk show radio can adapt to that listener-- - Yeah, and I'll circle back to what we were just talking about, about 10 minutes ago, and you asked me, "How has radio changed?"

That is how it has changed.

If you're not willing, as a host or a radio station, to jump into the social media arena, you're gonna lose those folks and they're not gonna be with you.

So yes, there is a generation that wakes up and listens to the Ray Horner Morning Show on WAKR, but also, if you'll notice, we're on social media with our Facebook page.

We're on social media with our YouTube channel.

You'll be able to hear my podcast each and every day at the station because that's where those younger generations are going to.

My daughter, as a matter of fact, tells me that she now listens to my podcast every day.

I said, "Well, do you get up and listen to the station?"

She says, "No, but I love your podcast "because I can get the show on the podcast."

She's 29 years old.

That's the generation that is listening to podcasts, they're streaming audio, they're on social media.

So we post videos for social media from different events.

We do audio podcasts and you have your radio stations website be as active as you possibly can.

The world of turning on the mic in a 10 by 10 room and entertaining and think that everyone is going to listen to you, those days are gone.

That is the 70s and 80s and we've turned pages now and we've adjusted, and I think, for the most part, the radio medium has done that.

- I think I may have already touched on this a second ago, but I'd like you to expand it if you can, fast forward the clock 10 years, what's radio, talk radio, in particular, going to be like?

- Hm, that's a tough one.

I would say that it is going to have to continue to do what it's doing, but also, you're going to have to be hyper local.

Because as you're seeing things develop on the social media side, you can get, and I'll relate this to sports, you can get who the Cleveland Browns are looking at drafting on what, 45, 50 different social media platforms, but you might not be able to talk about the Archbishop Hoban football coach who won his first championship and certainly, the trials and coming up through the systems that he had to deal with.

Or you might not be able to be able to talk to the mayor of a particular area who did this fundraiser and was originally a teacher and now is a mayor of a community.

I think the key for these stations, going forward, and I've tried to do that on our station, is yes, in this hand, you have to be informative, you have to touch on the ideas of the world, but let's not forget about that local community that you can give them that information of talking to Mark Welfley about technical things that are going on where he can take you right into your homes.

It's also important to have guests, you mentioned that before, to have guests that are local, that people that can relate to and say, "Oh yeah, "I saw him over there on that street.

"Oh, he's talking to Ray about this."

Because, believe me, in the world of radio, I can get national guests at the flip of a coin anytime I want to talk about war, pandemic, vaccines and viruses, I can do that at any time, but to me, I think they'd rather hear it from Akron Children's Hospital, the University of Akron, Cleveland Clinic Akron General, Summa Health System, Kent State University, Hiram College where they might know those people and they can relate to those people and they trust them to have the best for their community.

So I think community and local is gonna be a real key going forward.

And it is today, but I think even more so on down the line.

- Share with me a story about a high moment in your career in broadcasting.

A pinnacle moment.

- Okay, I have a couple, and one of 'em, I wouldn't say is high, but it's one I'll never forget, and it's the morning of 9/11.

I got off the air, just before 9:00, and as a matter of fact, I put on a recorded show, and we went to 9:00 and I went back into my office and my supervisor, Ed Esposito, at that time, came in and said, "Hey Ray, "we'd better go in and do an update.

"It looks like some sort of plane "hit into the World Trade Center."

And at that time, we thought it was a single-engine plane that was just off-course.

We had no idea what was going on.

So we went into the WAKR studio, we cracked the mics and Ed did an update and then it started to unfold in front of us on what we had going that day.

And that day, my company, I get kind of emotional with this, that day, our company, we had, probably, 15 or 20 people out, that just went out on their own to Hopkins Airport, to Akron Canton Airport, to the police grounds, to the fire stations, to different communities, and I was taking all these people in on the phone and they were doing reports, trying to work.

You asked me before about what makes this area special, that day we had 10 to 15 people out donating their time to get the information out to all those people in the region.

And keep in mind, this is before social media, this is before, you know, the infant stages of the Internet.

People weren't getting their information.

And Ed and I were on the air from that morning, 9:00 a.m., until 5:00 that afternoon, unfortunately, doing play-by-play of 9/11 disaster.

It was a day I'll never forget in my history.

On an upswing, I will say, following the LeBron James story, from his sophomore year through his senior year, doing every one of those games, was something that was unimaginable, on seeing the groundswell with this 16, 17, 18 year old young man, who I'm watching playing Pauley Pavilion and I get off the plane in Los Angeles and it says, "LeBron plays here tomorrow night."

And I'm going, "That's the kid from Akron."

Sold out, going to the Pauley Pavilion and watching these 20,000 people at each and every one of his games, show up to watch the young man, and then, watch this young man go into the NBA and watch what he has become.

And I'm not even talking about on the court, I'm talking about off the court, how this gentleman, this man now, who's going on 40 years of age, never forgot where he came from and donated back to Akron and helped that Akron community from education to rec centers to development in every way he possibly can.

That story, to me, is unbelievable and I tell that story, and I was a sidebar of it.

I did his games play-by-play, but watching that movie, that story unfold to me, was breathtaking for those three years.

- I have to ask you a question that's more personal to me, silly personal, (Ray laughs) but hockey play-by-play commentators and in some cases, football, how do you remember all the names?

(laughs) How do you do it?

- Well I will say this-- - The game goes so fast.

- Yeah, I've done over 40 years of play-by-play.

You mentioned hockey, to me, it's the most difficult sport to do play-by-play because of the changing of the lines and the flow of the game.

And basketball, you've got five guys on the court, you're going up and down, and the substitutes come in one, two at a time, to me, basketball is the easiest sport to do play-by-play 'cause there's not a lot of fill time.

Hockey is difficult because Welfley's checking in and Horner's checking out and you don't know it because you're doing at this end so you'd better know the players and you memorize.

Baseball and football are difficult in their own way because there's a lot of fill time.

So you have to be able to tell stories about the sport and talk about that.

Baseball and football, you need to have a good partner.

When Tom Hamilton was with Mike Hegan in the booth for all those Cleveland Indians broadcasts, it was a show and they were just wonderful to listen to, talking about their baseball stories.

That's what you need in that sport.

Football you need to have that good team as well to fill all that time, but hockey is real difficult.

How much time do I spend, preparing for a football game, probably five hours a week memorizing names, their statistics, where they came from, key plays, key things about these people because, like I just said, by the time the guy makes the tackle, they get to the huddle and come back to the line of scrimmage, you're almost at 35 to 40 seconds.

You can't have dead air.

- Very entertaining, thank you, Ray.

Known as the multi-tasker's best friend, radio is portable and free.

Whether you are listening to a broadcast of your favorite Cleveland sports team, in the background, while working or tuning in to hear an urgent weather advisory, more than 90% of Americans have access to a radio, there's no wonder why radio has stood the test of time.

While some great ideas, like the record player, have seemed to have had their moments in the sun, and are now fading off into history, radio remains a staple in the American conscious.

Take a few minutes, sometime soon, to listen to the radio.

The connectedness and the nostalgia you feel will remind you of the good times from the past, which we could all use a little bit more of these days.

Thanks for watching and listening, and thanks, Ray.

Let's keep our minds and ears open.

Until next time, on Forum 360.

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