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Padgett
and Schemmel Form Media Company
Allen
Schemmel & John Padgett Have Announced the Formation of
Gabriel Media, LLC. |
Padgett,
the former Vice President and General Manager of WSM AM/FM/,
WWTN-FM and Schemmel, the General Sales Manager of WSM
AM/FM and the Grand Ole Opry, both expressed excitement
about the company.
“We did some due diligence in the radio marketplace
to gauge the interest from radio stations about
our ideas and the response was very strong,” said
Padgett.
Schemmel noted, “We nearly quadrupled the local radio market in 2002
in revenue growth with some very creative strategies and sales programs
and then continued those increases through the first five months of this
year. Through May we were up 17.3% locally while the market here
was tracking 4.6%. That‘s a very nice trend and pretty good proof
of our ideas.”
The Nashville market certainly is no stranger to competition with WSIX,
WKDF, WSM FM and WSM AM fighting for market share in the country music
capitol of he world.
“Nashville has four country stations, while bigger
cities like Dallas, Houston and Atlanta each have
just two. We managed to find ways to survive and
thrive in one of the toughest and most competitive
radio markets in the nation. Allen has created
sales programs that are truly unique in the industry
and we made a good team together at WSM,” according
to Padgett. |
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“Awesome
Ideas” Says TAB |
“I’ve
known both of these gentlemen for many years,” said
Whit Adamson, Executive Director of the Tennessee Assoc.
of Broadcasters. “They have developed some awesome
ideas that are exactly what the radio industry needs
right now--and that is a new way to make money. They
are proven winners at what they do. Every station
knows how to cut costs and trim staffs. Show me
somebody who can lift sales. I know Allen and John
can. Their programs will help any market especially
medium to small sized markets.”
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Gabriel
Media “Has Value” Says Benson |
“Charlie
Douglas called me and said he wanted to bring a friend
over and show me something,” said Ed Benson, Executive
Director of the Country Music Association. “I met
Allen and we talked about Gabriel Media and what they
had to offer to help stations increase their revenues. He
and John have a lot of experience in the radio industry
and country radio. There is value in what they
are doing. They are good for country radio.”
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Ideas
Have Salamon “Enthused” |
| Ed Salamon,
the Executive Director of the Country Radio Broadcasters
also expressed his enthusiasm for Gabriel Media. “Radio-especially
country radio-needs a media company that specializes in innovative
sales ideas. Allen and John have a lot of them. Every
radio station today needs a new way to make money. I
saw ideas that I had never seen or heard of before. I’m
enthused for our industry.” |
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The
shakeup resulting from Gaylord Entertainment Co.’s
recent sale of two radio stations has spawned at least
one new business venture — a media company determined
to shake loose radio and TV advertising dollars.
John Padgett, former general manager and vice-president of Gaylord’s
group of radio stations — WSM-AM, WSM-FM and WWTN-FM — has
teamed up with former WSM sales manager Allen Schemmel to form Gabriel
Media in Nashville.
The sales consulting company aims to repeat past successes in boosting
revenue by using a business model the partners said was successful in raising
over $2 million in new business over the past two-and-a-half years for
the WSM country stations, despite trailing other Nashville country stations
in the ratings.
“We grew our revenues 21.6 percent in 2002 over
what they were in 2001. The (Nashville) market
only grew 5.9 percent, so you can see we more than
tripled the market,” Padgett said. “That’s
what’s got people excited about what we’re
doing.”
Declining to be specific about the business tactics, the partners say the
company, which gets a straight commission on results, offers about seven
programs, including a sales blitz aimed at booking about 10 to 15 percent
of the station’s advertising billings for the year in a 10-day period.
“At WSM, it was very, very successful. We did over
a half a million dollars with it every time we
did it. There was a lot of stealth marketing underneath
the radar with small business that the market didn’t
know we were getting,” Schemmel said.
Schemmel, Gabriel’s chief executive officer, had been with WSM for
14 years, and was sales manager for three-and-a-half years until he resigned
during the sale transition in June. He approached Padgett about his new
business idea and asked him to become vice-president of sales.
Padgett worked for Gaylord for nearly 20 years, starting as an account
manager and rising through the sales ranks to become general manager in
April 2001. When Gaylord sold WSM-FM and WTN stations to Cumulus Broadcasting
in July, the radio group was dissolved and Padgett was out of a job.
With the goal of adding a station or a station group at a rate of one market
a month, the partners have been pitching their service for almost three
weeks primarily to radio stations in Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Huntsville,
Ala. The response, they said, has been positive and there are contracts
in the works.
Robert Unmacht, a radio consultant in Nashville, said Padgett appears to
have the experience and connections to be taken seriously among numerous
radio consultants offering programming and sales know-how.
“If he’s built up a good network of connections
over the years, that’s half the battle in
being a consultant,” he said. |
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