The newest entrant in Anchorage's radio market is an up-and-comer known for promoting live, local programming over the automated playlists and pre-recorded DJ patter that characterizes much of the industry.
Alpha Media agreed to buy six Anchorage stations from Morris Communications as part of a $38 million deal encompassing 36 radio properties in five states from Texas to Alaska.
The company's pending arrival appears to be a testament to the well-being of the Anchorage radio market. Alpha Media Chairman Larry Wilson, who has been in the business for four decades, said he has tried to buy the stations before.
"We don't want to mess them up," said Wilson, whose home base is his ranch in Big Fork, Montana. "We'll just let them do their thing."
Alpha, based in Portland, Oregon, would be entering a market that is healthier overall than those elsewhere in the country, said Dennis Bookey, who was the Alaska market manager for Morris Communications for more than 25 years.
Ad revenue is radio's lifeblood and the prohibition on billboard advertising in Alaska, approved overwhelmingly by voters in 1998, helps keep marketing dollars flowing into radio, Bookey said.
And unlike the rest of the country, Alaska's economy remained fairly stable during the 2008 global financial crisis, the effects of which lasted for several years.
"Nationally, there's a great deal of anxiety in radio, but we haven't seen it too much in Anchorage yet," said Rick Goodfellow, owner and manager of KLEF, one of the few remaining stations in the country that exclusively plays classical music. "I'd be naive and self-delusional to say there aren't people trying new forms of advertising outside radio, but the market here seems to be holding up pretty well."
The deal would make Alpha Media the new owner of popular country music station KBEAR 104.1; classic hits station KOOL 97.3; adult contemporary station Mix 103.1; rock station KWHL 106.5; sports radio station KHAR 590; and 91-year-old news and talk radio station KFQD 750, the first station to go on air in the state.
The sale is subject to final approval from the Federal Communications Commission.
Competition is fierce among the 30 or so stations in Anchorage. Nielsen Audio ratings show most stations moving up and down in rank as they jockey for audience share. Ties are common.
Other big players in the market include iHeartMedia, formerly Clear Channel, and Ohana Media Group.
Tom Oakes, operations manager at Ohana Media, said Alpha Media's arrival doesn't affect his company in any way.
"Morris has been a great competitor and I'm well aware of Alpha Media's reputation," he said. "They're a good operator, too."
Radio stations vie not only with each other, but with all other forms of media, including television, the Internet and personal music collections, Oakes said.
"It's a competitive market," Oakes said. "It always has been and it will be for a long time."
Wilson said Alpha Media plans to help its new stations produce catchier commercials that will keep listeners from tuning in to rivals or turning to other forms of entertainment.
"We will provide them with more research into what audiences want to hear," Wilson said. He also plans to improve station websites and promotions "to tell people where we are on the dial."
He said Alpha is not planning to make changes in personnel.
Alpha Media, formed in August 2009, is known within the industry for promoting live, local on-air personalities in contrast to the widespread practice of pumping in automated programming from elsewhere, said Michael Harrison, editor and publisher of RadioInfo, a trade publication based in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.
"That's their reputation and that's what they've done everywhere else," Harrison said. "Not every show will be live and local, but there will probably be more of it than there might have been had a different company bought those properties instead."
Wilson lambasted the radio industry for its reliance on automation during an interview in January with consulting and analytics firm Bunzel Media.
"It's very short-sighted for people to think we can do everything by remote control and not have any personality in our programming. That's an area where we've fallen down in this business. We used to develop our overnight talent to become evening talent, and they moved up and became middays, and then they moved into morning drive. But the industry did away with all that because it was trying to be cheap," Wilson said.
Alpha Media's ownership is split between many parties, with the largest share of close to 30 percent belonging to Warren Stephens, a financier based in Little Rock, Arkansas, whose net worth according to Forbes magazine is about $3 billion. But Wilson, its chairman and a part-owner, is the company's most visible presence.
The former chairman and CEO of Citadel Communications seems to be no slouch himself when it comes to personal earnings.
"I've had my own plane for about 25 years," Wilson said. "When we do market visits, we jump in my plane and go there." Wilson enjoys fishing in Alaska at a friend's lodge outside Wasilla and is passionate about rescue animals.
After leaving radio in 2001, he returned in 2009 with purchases of stations in Portland from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The Morris deal puts Wilson on track to grow Alpha Media into a modest-sized company of 135 stations.
When asked whether he is worried about the very real prospect of an economic slowdown in Anchorage driven by low oil prices and the resulting pullbacks in state government spending, Wilson called Alaska a place of survival.
"People in Alaska are creative and they get through bad times," he said. "I think good times will come again."