I step out of the house, locking the door behind me. Coffee and trail mix in tow, I climb into the car and turn on Lightning 100 to keep me company as I begin the long journey home. It’s a promising start as the Nashville skyline disappears behind me, but as I put the miles between my city and myself, the fateful moment arrives. Just as I’m about to belt the chorus of my favorite Dawe’s song, static begins to breach the sweet harmonies. Stubborn, I hold out. The next few songs battle it out, music and fuzz fighting for airtime.
Jack White’s new single comes in and out until at last the distance from the radio tower is too great and the electric guitar is completely overcome by static. A little defeated, I pilfer hopelessly through stations and find nothing but Blake Shelton chewin’ tobacca and Pharell, who’s somehow still incredibly happy, even after all this time. With a CD player that cuts out and no aux cord option in my 2004 model, my only options are suffering through Ke$ha or enjoying the rest of my car ride in silence. If a ride home seems miserable without Lighting, how much more miserable still might it be if all independent stations were silenced?
The United States is home of American dreams and American disillusionment. While we love the idea of people with humble beginnings making it big, our culture simply does not function through this principle. Instead it is the big dogs that often stay on top. Corporations are king and the airwaves are no exception.
In the commercial radio model, independent stations struggle to survive. Corporate stations playing pop music and appealing to mass audiences are far more stable than the independent underdogs we root for, but fail to really back financially. Like any business, radio stations seeking the largest audience, the largest number of clientele, will be far more profitable than those stations that play music for a smaller, more specific audience.
The larger the audience, the more companies seek out the station for their advertisements, and the more profitable this station becomes. So, stations play pop music because it is listened to on the largest scale. To tap into the most listeners, they play music that has the highest demand, often neglecting genres that don’t have mass appeal. While artists like Tame Impala or Bear Hands might draw an audience, this audience won’t be nearly as large, or profitable, as the audience Taylor Swift would attract. But if every station appeals to the mass audience, diversity in radio is completely lost.
That’s where independent stations step in. While not as profitable as corporate stations, these stations have to value more than just the money or they’d play Jessie J as well. “We’ve had the same philosophy the whole time,” said Lightning 100’s VP of Operations and Programming, Gary Kraen. “We’re all about the music.”
The love of music is the heart of Lightning 100, but love alone won’t keep Lightning alive. Tapping into the local scene became the lifeblood, keeping Lightning beating. Lightning cannot afford the $3,000 a month bulletin boards to advertise the station. It does not have the financial backing to attract big time advertisers. It doesn’t even have the signal strength to broadcast a large area and pull in listeners that way. But it can compete locally.
Lightning 100 was locally owned, born and raised. “Not a lot of us were radio people,” said Kraen on starting out, “just people who liked music. Like putting on a neighborhood play, we didn’t know what we were doing. There was just a hope for the best mentality.”
Many people in the team that began Lightning 100 were in bands or at least had friends in bands, so part of their early local push tapped into this support system. Local Lightning Spotlight was thus born where local acts were featured on air. This allowed Lightning to attract not only local artists as listeners, but also their fan base.
Lightning then, and still now, has a focus to “be Nashville’s radio station,” said Kraen. “We want to reach with hands; we want to be everywhere. Go to these places and get involved.”
And that’s precisely what this station has done. Lightning found that rather than pay for a thirty second add, places like Tin Roof would rather pay for Lightning to be there and mention them on air. They go beyond the airwaves to sponsor events. Even in the early years of Lightning, they would host quarterly acts at Mercy Lounge featuring three to four bands they really believed in, “hoping someone would show up.” Through events like these, Kraen says Lightning hoped to “be a part of what Nashville is.”
That’s where independent stations step in. While not as profitable as corporate stations, these stations have to value more than just the money or they’d play Jessie J as well. “We’ve had the same philosophy the whole time,” said Lightning 100’s VP of Operations and Programming, Gary Kraen. “We’re all about the music.”
The love of music is the heart of Lightning 100, but love alone won’t keep Lightning alive. Tapping into the local scene became the lifeblood, keeping Lightning beating. Lightning cannot afford the $3,000 a month bulletin boards to advertise the station. It does not have the financial backing to attract big time advertisers. It doesn’t even have the signal strength to broadcast a large area and pull in listeners that way. But it can compete locally.
Lightning 100 was locally owned, born and raised. “Not a lot of us were radio people,” said Kraen on starting out, “just people who liked music. Like putting on a neighborhood play, we didn’t know what we were doing. There was just a hope for the best mentality.”
Many people in the team that began Lightning 100 were in bands or at least had friends in bands, so part of their early local push tapped into this support system. Local Lightning Spotlight was thus born where local acts were featured on air. This allowed Lightning to attract not only local artists as listeners, but also their fan base.
Lightning then, and still now, has a focus to “be Nashville’s radio station,” said Kraen. “We want to reach with hands; we want to be everywhere. Go to these places and get involved.”
And that’s precisely what this station has done. Lightning found that rather than pay for a thirty second add, places like Tin Roof would rather pay for Lightning to be there and mention them on air. They go beyond the airwaves to sponsor events. Even in the early years of Lightning, they would host quarterly acts at Mercy Lounge featuring three to four bands they really believed in, “hoping someone would show up.” Through events like these, Kraen says Lightning hoped to “be a part of what Nashville is.”
One specific event allowing Lighting to be a part of what is Nashville has been Live on the Green. As a freshman in college coming from a small town in Kentucky, I enjoyed my first Live on the Green experience in a state of complete elation. As the kick drum started and the familiar riff I’d grown so found of pulsed out of the speakers in front of me, I didn’t care that I was shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other sweaty fans; all that mattered was that Brittany Howard, lead singer of the Alabama Shakes, was absolutely killing it on stage. I had no idea how I’d lucked upon finding myself in a college city that offered a free concert series with music of this caliber. The music scene in my hometown was non-existent. Occasionally, you could pay $70 to see a “big” act like Garth Brooks or the Jonas Brothers play at the closest city, about a 30 minute drive away, but that never excited me much. I was often uninterested in the artists that were playing or otherwise didn’t want to foot the $70 bill for a ticket. Coming from this background made my experience at Live on the Green ever so profound.
Even this year, as I watched the incredible yet haphazard performance of Cage the Elephant I couldn’t help but wonder how on earth I was enjoying this performance for free. Some audience members even had the privilege of getting lead man Matt Shultz’s sweat wiped onto them completely free of charge (Shultz, known for his outlandish concert antics, wiped sweat off his bare chest to the audience members beneath him as he crowd surfed, saying something to the effect of, “put it in a bottle and rub this on your pillow tonight”).
Lightning’s commitment to be more than just the songs they play even goes further than the events hosted by the station. Lightning has been able to provide programming, like interviews with some of the music industry’s greatest minds, that is sometimes only seen by stations under the public service model. The public service model allows stations the luxury of not relying exclusively on mass appeal. Take the BBC for example. The BBC is funded by state taxes. This allows the BBC to have programing that caters to specific audiences instead of only the general public.
While in London, I was able to experience this programming first hand. Many ties can be drawn between BBC and Lightning’s programming, but while the BBC comfortably broadcasts this material, Lightning faces a tougher battle. I was lucky enough to sit in as BBC’s Mark Hagen discussed British Media and some of the programming broadcast by the station. He described one of his latest projects and I was surprised to learn it was a documentary on Nashville session guitarist Harold Bradley. Bradley has played on thousands of records and for a large number of big-names, Patsy Cline, Elvis, Willie Nelson and Buddy Holiday being just a few. This artist also played a large role in establishing the Nashville recording industry.
It seems rather absurd that right here in Nashville, many of us know little to nothing about this musician, while across the pond, a radio station is covering his story. Would it not seem more likely for a documentary such as this to instead be aired here? You’d think. But there’s no way in hell a corporate station would break from scheduled programming for any documentary, much less one on a little known artist. This type of programming appears only possible through tax support, but leave it to Lightning to make it happen.
On Sundays at 7pm and Mondays at 10pm, Lightning features Music Business Radio where programming similar to Hagen’s is created. Producers, artists, songwriters, record executives, artist managers and everyone in between are interviewed on air. Again Lightning looked to see what they could have that stations like SiriusXM did not. Lightning has access to a large number of artists who are grateful their record’s getting airtime and who ask to pop in, sometimes more than they even have time for. “We have these artists at our fingertips,” said Kraen. “We have these great relationships with record companies and artists because we’re helping them and they’re helping us. These artists have their own fan base, so when they put on Facebook, ‘Hey, check out Lighting 100’s feature with me,’ we might just gain one more listener.” The publicity goes both ways benefitting both parties.
Lightning’s programming can certainly be admired, with its divergence from mass appeal and range of programming, but how successful is the station really? If looking solely at numbers, Lightning would not be counted as a largely successful station, ranking 13th in ratings. . But Lightning does not stake its value in numbers. Lightning looks to measure their success in other ways. “For Lightning,” said Kraen, “it’s all about presence.”
By this measure, Lightning is largely successful. Even those who do not listen to the station regularly are at least aware of the station’s presence. And though it’s numbers don’t compare to Top 40 stations like 1075 The River, it still attracts a relatively large audience. It is not necessarily an easy feat to be a successful radio station and play such a diversified range of artists, but Lightning 100 seems to be in an almost perfect position to do so. In a city plagued with people in beanies, skinny jeans, and flannel, who are quick to tell you they’ve been listening to that artist you “discovered” for quite some time now, Lightning has found a prime location. Many wouldn’t be caught dead pulling up to Frothy Monkey with Jason Derulo pulsing from their speakers, but The 1975 now, that’s more acceptable. Being located in Nashville certainly has its perks and it provides Lightning with a larger listening base than it would likely have in other cities.
Even programming like Live on the Green is optimally located for a receptive audience. Even had a program like Live on the Green emerged in my hometown, it would have been incredibly short lived. I can imagine the events unfolding, and see myself cringing as the guy next to me, decked out in Carhartt, tells his friend, “Nah, man. I’m not going. Don’t know who that Cage the Dragon, or whatever they’re called, band is, so I’m not really feelin’ it.” Yeah… Live on the Green in my small town in Kentucky would not quite be the best fit.
While it seems a blessing Lightning be located in an area so well suited for its success, it is also a bit discouraging to think of the reality of larger independent stations as a whole.
Yes, Lightning is successful. Yes, Lightning enjoys a relatively large listenership. But regardless of these merits, producing an independent radio station is simply not as profitable as producing a station playing pop music of a mass appeal. And, unless a station is located as optimally as Lightning, the niche audience is sometimes not quite large enough to allow for the stations’ success and survival.
There are clearly many setbacks for independent radio that make their production a little less enticing, but the outlook is not all bleak. While independent stations have a few odds stacked against them, they will hopefully have the support of music lovers rallying beside them, who aren’t quite ready to let Ryan Secrest rule the waves. Maybe one of my long drives home will find me under better circumstances. I can only hope that when Lightning 100’s wavelengths no longer reach, I can simply change the station to hear St. Vincent singing back.