April 3, 2017

Meet Bryan Crabtree of Talk40.com in Buckhead

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryan Crabtree.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I started in media while in High School. I then spent several years in Country radio before starting a real estate company in 2000. Quickly, I was approached about doing a real estate talk radio show and hosted that for 13 years. During that time, I filled in for the talk shows on that station as a guest host. In 2013, I took the morning host position at WQSC in Charleston. In 2015, I moved to Atlanta to host three time slots on Salem Radio in Atlanta. I also started writing for Townhall.com, DailyCaller.com, Lifezette.com and ClashDaily.com whose combined readership is north of 10 million per month. Certain articles and subjects in my writings were rejected by the larger sites, so I started talk40.com to allow for a platform of thoughts that were conservative based but not centered on one ideology or thought pattern. As an example, we will publish articles that are very pro-Trump and also anti-Trump so that there is a more balanced perspective.

Has it been a smooth road?
Not smooth at all. No matter how effective you are, the broadcast media business gets lost in its growing top-down bureaucracy. Content creators get judged greatly by executives based on their world view (or lens of subject matter) and less on the compelling nature of the content. Individualism gets lost in this environment and there is a constant struggle between being a conformist to remain relevant in media circles and being an individual so you can remain relevant to the group that should matter most: the audience/readers/viewers.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Talk40.com story. Tell us more about the business.
I have always been a consultant – helping people to simplify and understand complex subjects in business and life. Having operated a company with nearly 450 associates and employees from 2002-2009, while also working in media, I am able to explain the gray areas where politics, business and culture collide and HOW it affects my audience. Re: This house bill will cost you X and why. This politician really means X even though he says Y.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Digital media is the future. Local news outlets will remain relevant so long as they continue to be the local source for news and strong on the digital frontier. Dozens (if not hundreds) of national outlets such as mine, Talk40.com, will grow seemingly overnight in spaces that only the top names in media could previously penetrate. The shift will likely be that many companies will fracture the top names in media and continue to put pressure on them – in the short term. In the 10-year term, a lot of radio listening will shift to digital listening (but radio will remain a viable asset for at least 15-20 years to come especially given the average age of an American car is 11 years old – which gives radio a large runway to transition to digital and remain viable on both digital and broadcast simultaneously). I believe we’ll see large media conglomerates who paid excessive valuations for their broadcast assets go bankrupt and there will be a de-consolidation leading to smaller media outlets forming (50-100 station groups). In order to survive, these outlets must be the market leaders in broadcast, digital and social media. The huge risk for traditional media is that they aren’t very good at digital or social media and they don’t seem to listen to suggestions from those of us who are. My model is to build what talk radio is missing (digital news/opinion and social media) and plug it into a group (or groups) that needs help while remaining in talk radio.

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