NAB CEO David Rehr
New Captain on deck at the NAB
Radio & Television Report Managing Editor Dave Seyler sat down with National Association of Broadcasters President/CEO David K. Rehr early in March. After briefly discussing children, Dr. Seuss and the truth of the story "Too Many Daves" in "The Sneetches and Other Stories," we moved on to the state of the broadcasting industry as he found it after three months on the job.
You obviously had a winning job interview with the NAB board members so I was wondering if you could do a summary of what you told them for the people that weren't there.
It was a very competitive process...I think there probably wasn't one thing that swayed them in my direction other than I like to be very value driven meaning that everything we do has to provide value to our members since they pay dues for it. I want to run a very efficient but effective ship meaning that we're getting the biggest bang for each dollar that I spend on behalf of the members. I absolutely love politics and Washington and I have let's say many friends but having spent 25-years of my life here meeting members of Congress and staffers and coming from the beer industry where I first think well what's the difference between or what's similar between beer and broadcasting? But I think beer is probably more regulated than broadcast is and just understanding what it's like to be in an industry that is highly regulated and how you work through kind of regulation to ensure that you're in a good competitive position but yet you allow sufficient entrepreneurism and market forces to work to help you be profitable.
What translates over from your previous job?
Number one working for people who are committed to their local communities. In most local communities in America it's the GM or Owner of the affiliate, the radio station owner and the beer distributor that everybody looks to and maybe the small manufacturer although a lot of those are being displaced but everyone in the community looks to them first. So they are highly visible people in their local communities and they are especially committed to improving the quality of life cause that's where they live and work and that's where their futures are. So that's number one. Number two, got a lot of changes going on. I always say to people close your eyes and say to yourself what industry is flat to declining in revenue and has cost going up? And that was true of beer and in many cases it's true of broadcasting. So there are a lot parallels but there are a lot of differences too. I think broadcasting issues tend to be a little bit more complicated than beer issues. I think just the cut of the magnitude of broadcasting is just so much more prevalent in the culture. Two-thirds of America doesn't drink, a third of America does but almost everybody in America watches TV and listens to a radio.
I guess both industries require depending from time to time again well-meaning people?
That's right and deciding that you're going to shape your future rather than having other people shape your future. When you first talked to the NAB Board that you were going to be making, taking active steps to reach out to the broadcasters that happen to live outside the Washington area.
How is that going?
Well it's going pretty well. I've been to Philadelphia. I've been to Portsmouth. I went to Carthage, Texas. Everywhere I go I try to visit NAB members because I think, I'm one of these people that I learn the most by actually seeing and kind of touching...It's been a great experience because people really kind of cut through and they tell you what's really important. I'm going to continue to do that through my whole tenure at the NAB.
Tomorrow: Are there any plans, any movement in the efforts to get CBS, NBC and FOX back in?
