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Richard Helppie
Hello. Welcome to The Common Bridge. I'm your host, Rich Helppie. I've got a great guest with us today from WJR Radio, the Great Voice of the Great Lakes in the city of Detroit, Chris Renwick.
Chris Renwick
Hello, thanks for having me.
Richard Helppie
Very happy to have you here, Chris. We've been talking a lot about the media environment and how complicated it has become. There was a day that people would get a daily newspaper. They'd read the paper and they'd say, hey, I'm done with the paper. I've got my news for the day. There would be a little evening news on perhaps. When we listened to the radio, it was very unifying. Hey, did you hear what JP McCarthy said today? Did you hear this new song that came out today? Things are a lot different now, and you've been at this game for a while. You're a rising personality. Our audience likes to know a little bit about the background of our guests so maybe a quick portrait; where did you grow up, what were some of your early experiences and what brought you to the point of hosting your own program on WJR?
Chris Renwick
Well first, you'll have to excuse me, I'm Italian, so I talk with my hands a lot.
Richard Helppie
I'm glad we've got this on video.
Chris Renwick
So there will be a lot of flailing [chuckle.] I was born in Pennsylvania, in West Pennsylvania, and I moved to Novi, Michigan in about '97. It was a good year sports-wise as a sports fan growing up; Michigan, winning a national title, The Red Wings finally getting it right. But I moved here the summer before going into fourth grade so I view myself as a true Michigander. One of the things I always gravitated towards [was] the radio. I never really had any aspirations of being on the radio, but I always liked this person in my mom's car as we were driving around, going to the store, going to the mall or whatever, this person talking to me or playing music for me. It was something I always kind of gravitated towards.
Richard Helppie
So how did you break into the business?
Chris Renwick
Well, in high school - I went to Novi - and in high school we had a tremendous TV/radio class. That's kind of where I first figured out that, oh, like, this is an actual thing, people actually do this. And so I went to that class and we did everything. I was on camera, I was behind the scenes, I was running the chyron, I was doing everything. Then I'd go on the radio and talk to my friends who had a radio show and that's where it first started. Once I graduated I went to Western Michigan University thinking that I was going to be a psychologist for some reason. I took psych 101 and realized this is not for me. I left Western actually, and I thought, well, that radio thing was pretty cool in high school. So I went to Specs Howard School of Media Arts - which is now rolled into Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan - and did this very focused year long program. And then my thought was, I'm going to go to Michigan State or I'm going to go to Central Michigan - two really good broadcast schools in the state - and I'm going to get my degree in journalism or communications or something. It just kind of happened that I just started working. Generally, in radio, the lowest, entry level is a promotions team. Whenever you're at an event, somebody's got a table set up and a tent, and they're giving away swag or T-shirts or pens or whatever (Rich Helppie: And empty the waste baskets.) That's right. You're tearing down the tents and all that stuff. So I started doing that, and then I'm like, I'm in the business. I'm getting paid. This is great. But I always wanted to be on the air and so I started doing more things, and I applied for a job at a radio station in Howell, Michigan. I sent my really awful demo reel from Specs Howard to this station for a sports reporter job. My whole role was to call in at each quarter on the phone and they record it on a mini disc and then they play it during the sports show, each update that I chime in with. I sent my reel to the program director and he called me a couple days later, and he goes, you're hired. And I'm like, I'm hired? And he's like, yeah, sounds good. And I'm like, do you want to meet me? What are we doing here? He's like, no, everything's fine. Just come in Monday.
Richard Helppie
What do they care, it's like, we heard you, we're good.
Chris Renwick
We're pretty sure you're ugly, but you just come on in. So that was my first on-air job, calling in and doing these sports reports for high school football. Then my real on-air job in a studio was, they asked me if I wanted to do one shift, one on-air shift from midnight to 6am on Sunday mornings. I was in my early 20s, just became of age so I wasn't really interested in taking a nap on a Saturday. On my way into the station at 11 o'clock I would stop at the gas station, I'd buy two Red Bulls, I'd buy a five hour energy drink, and then in the span of six hours, I would drink both of those energy drinks, the energy shot, and then brew a pot of coffee. So I was just wired. Then we'd get the bar crowd calling, "play Toto, Africa." So I played Toto's "Africa." So I was like, I'm living this thing all of a sudden. Up until I've been at WJR I hadn't been at a radio station for longer than a year and a half, because I kind of just had been taking...
Richard Helppie
That's how you were getting your preparation. How long have you been with WJR?
Chris Renwick
Been with WJR for...it'll be nine years around Thanksgiving.
Richard Helppie
Fantastic. What I love about the way you describe your career arc was that high school opened up this world to you, (Chris Renwick: Yes.) and it was a public high school and people need to understand that. Men and women that are teaching, administering in those, dealing with kids with undeveloped brains, are exposing them to things. I had that same experience. I wish I would have been a better student, but I got exposed to computer programming. Then you went to a trade school, Specs Howard, that led to this career. So now we're kind of coming back around that, if you know what you want to do or discover what you want to do, that might be a good path.
Chris Renwick
It was a seed. It was a seed that was planted, and it was ultimately my decision on which way I wanted to go.
Richard Helppie
Then you were willing to do the hard work of hey, twelve to six, yeah, all right, I'm going to find a way to do that. That, to me, is still the American dream and I relate to that. I look at my career, I may not have always been the smartest or most talented, but nobody's going to outwork you, and there's no substitute. When I talk to young men and women about what they want to do, I say, look, here's your formula for a chance of success. It's your talent - everybody's got some, you've got to figure out what it is - multiplied by your effort, plus luck. The only variable you can control is effort, because you can be the most talented person with the hardest work and have a bad break and it can go the opposite way.
Chris Renwick
Well, for me, it was the opposite way. Being hired at this little station in Howell without an interview was a break. Later on, I took this job at a little radio station down in Adrian, Michigan, and I was the news director. This was my first full time radio job in this little, tiny radio station. The station was in an old bowling alley they had converted and I kind of went in and I was like, yeah, it's small. I want something bigger. I didn't realize it at the time - and this is something that I tell a lot of kids that I talk to that want to go into this business - you've got to hustle. It's a hustle business, not necessarily unique from anything else, but it's very competitive. It's hyper competitive and there just aren't that many jobs. It's kind of like being an actor or a musician. You've got to really hustle.
Richard Helppie
Adrian, down in Lenawee County, is a good distance from Novi. Did you move to Adrian?
Chris Renwick
I moved. I rented an apartment. It was a great little apartment in downtown Adrian. I could walk to the station, which was great. I made the decision to move down there because as the news director, I kind of needed to be there. I needed to be available and I needed to be around what was happening so I did. Then when my lease was up that year...this wasn't long term for me.
Richard Helppie
But let me just say this, the message that you're carrying away...oftentimes I counsel younger people, where do I go in my career and they'll say, well, I only want to live in this city and I don't want to commute. It's like, yeah, but the person that wants it more is willing to go to...Adrian's a lovely little town but probably not a thing that a young single person at that time was going to say, you know what? My desire is to get to Adrian. If I can only get to Adrian, things are going to work out. And where I hear some folks say, well, I want to live in Austin, or I want to live in Boston, or wherever - great - that comes with a set of results. But let's get in a little bit today about where AM radio is. Your station has a reach of geography. It's got a very powerful transmitter.
Chris Renwick
Yeah, we're in about 38 states and half of Canada on a nice cloudy day.
Richard Helppie
On a cloudy day, that's great. I know that I've been driving down south and being able to pull in WJR from a long way off.
Chris Renwick
I've had emails from people in Portugal, no kidding, saying that they've gotten our signal. Yes, it's the frequency. This is that technology. You don't see it. They're not building new AM stations but this is what that reach that a 50,000 watt blowtorch has.
Richard Helppie
Then also now, because of where the world's gone, there's a WJR app and you can listen in. Could a person, like any place in the world, pick up the app and listen?
Chris Renwick
Any place in the world.
Richard Helppie
That's such a profound change. And your audience, it must be difficult to understand actually who's listening. What do we know about that?
Chris Renwick
You brought up JP McCarthy earlier, who's to me, not just a legend in Detroit, he is one of the greatest radio hosts of all time.
Richard Helppie
Let me explain that for my audience who is not around Detroit or not around Michigan. We do have an international audience. You should see some of our numbers from Europe. I don't know how that happened, but it does.
Chris Renwick
Send me a croissant, if you could, [laughter] chocolate stuff, something.
Richard Helppie
JP McCarthy was a radio host in Detroit. Had a morning program. It was the news, it was a little music, it was talk, it was a guest, and then it would be stocks, sports and weather, and basically everybody heard him. It was certainly on in the kitchen, when I got up my mom and dad would have that on. That AM radio in the past was that unifying force. They said, we know we're talking to this region, and everybody was kind of on the same page back in the day. So they knew who their audience was. Today, someone in Portugal is hearing you and there's an app that someone in New Zealand could be listening in. What does that mean for you folks in terms of your content, what you're putting out?
Chris Renwick
We are an all service station still, WJR is very much. We want to make sure if you're on the road, that you know the best way to go, or if there's a obstacle in your way, we want to make sure you know that. We want to make sure that people are informed on things that matter to them. God bless that person in Portugal listening, but I don't really care about what he thinks, because he's not my audience. It's cool, but I'm worried about what Wendy and what Steve and what Jimmy and what Joanne in Southfield or Southgate or Novi or wherever, what they're dealing with. (Richard Helppie: I see.) And so our audience tends to [be] a little older. I think with what we're seeing, it's if you're 35-40 you start to care about different things in life. You want to know what the stock market's at. You want to know where your 401K is. You want to know the value of your house or the equity. Things start to matter a little more. You start to pay attention to different things. Our audience is getting a little younger, which is great, but I focus on...like, when I'm building a show and my producer and I sit down and we argue about topics and we figure out what we need to hit on a particular day, I'm always thinking, what do they need to know? What impacts them the most or in an election cycle. So it's a lot of politics right now, but anything that is impacting people day to day is what I focus on.
Richard Helppie
Great. Now AM radio, and WJR in particular, did support - and they were a great platform for very conservative right wing: Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Dan Bongino and others - and it was known almost as a Fox model. If you want to hear the conservative or right wing, or some extreme right wing point of view, you can tune in. That drew huge audiences. I'm sure it was good for business but is that where you guys are today, or have you moved us to a new place?
Chris Renwick
I don't know that we've necessarily moved. I think what we do well is we have informed opinions on things that matter to us. I've had Donald Trump on a couple of times this year. I had JD Vance on a couple of weeks ago. The things that I asked them are about what people in Michigan care about. Anything too grandiose or anything that deals with Mike Johnson in the house or whatever, none of that matters to us. What matters to them? So we're talking about manufacturing, we're talking about the economy. We're talking about a lot of the issues that people care about. WJR is a full service station, and I think what our management team has done, particularly with going to an all local lineup... You mentioned Rush Limbaugh, you mentioned Dan Bongino and Mark Levin, those are all syndicated shows, and look, whatever people think about Rush Limbaugh, he is the godfather of this format and this kind of political talk. He did it better than anybody. He basically created it. But with that being said, I look at things differently than those guys do, while still taking some of the same approaches to topics. Where, for me, it doesn't matter what letter is in front of your name - D, R - doesn't matter. If you do something good, I'm happy. If you do something bad, I'm not. So it's not necessarily conservative talk. It's more just we've now crafted this lineup of all local to cater to a local audience and we're not ideologues. We don't take a certain stance based on party.
Richard Helppie
That's a very important differentiation; the syndicated national versus doing all local.
Chris Renwick
Nobody is [doing that], I mean, find me another station that is local from sun-up to sundown, that has actually changed in that direction. Whereas a lot of stations now all over the country, they're taking away that local talent because it's much cheaper to go to syndication. This commitment that I believe our station has made, I think it serves Southeast Michigan, it serves all of Michigan, in a much more impactful way.
Richard Helppie
Indeed, I would agree with you. There's a concept called micro reporting or intensive micro reporting. There are little local newspapers, hyperlocal reporting, excuse me, is the name of it. (Editor's note: also called “narrowcasting.”) There's a little paper out in Washtenaw County where they've actually put reporters on the street and they distribute it to everybody within a certain zip code. They've got ads in there for a business model but also you're invited, you can write them a check, which I do, because I want to support that local reporting. It's very important. We can't get away from having journalists on the ground. You made mention of Trump and Vance being on your show and that had to be interesting. I want to dive into that a little bit. But have you made overtures to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to see if they would like to come on the show?
Chris Renwick
Not only them, we've made overtures to the president and the vice president. From my perspective, particularly when we are relating a message to the audience, I don't lie to my audience. This is me. I don't have a radio personality separate from my daily life and so I'm a very straightforward person. We have continued to make efforts to try to get the vice president and her running mate on and they haven't taken us up on those yet. I'm hopeful, because I think it's important to give that platform to everyone, because if I assume - and I think correctly so - that my audience is smart, well-informed and intelligent, then I want to make sure that they are getting that information straight from the horse's mouth. I can ask the question, but I want people to know their answer. And it's funny about this, because this is the fickleness of an audience. Where I've got people on the Right when I have the Secretary of Transportation - I had Pete Buttigieg on just the other day - I get the text of, oh, well, you didn't push him enough. You didn't push him hard enough. And then I get people from the Left, when I've got JD Vance or Donald Trump, they're like, you didn't ask the question seriously. I asked a question about manufacturing, for example, how do we bring back these jobs? But then how do we have a workforce that's ready to handle those jobs when they do come back and if they come back; and whatever that answer is, it's their answer. You don't need me to spoil it. I don't need to be Bret Baier in a confrontational interview with Kamala Harris; doesn't serve anybody. I'm asking a question. You want to know what she has to say? Here it is. Or you want to know what Donald Trump has to say, here it is live...
Chris Renwick
[Inaudible, cross-talk] It's live. I think that it's important to offer that to everyone. Not everybody takes you up on it, and that's the purview of these political campaigns and those decisions that they make.
Richard Helppie
Those are some pretty interesting guests. When you look back at the guests that you've had, any that stand out as particularly interesting, whether they were controversial or just insider or maybe surprised you, any that you'd like to really have back?
Chris Renwick
I'll tell you, it's funny. My wife and I were just talking about this. She said you really should write down who you interview like you're going to forget someday. The ones that really stand out, it's not just these big names; I've interviewed Stevie Wonder and William Shatner recently, those types of people, which is great, but I've also interviewed people that are going through really hard times, everyday people and the stories that they're dealing with. People who are dealing with an incredible loss or somebody was taken from them, and they're just trying to find answers. It's this incredibly heartfelt conversation. I talk a lot to veterans and the struggles that they deal with coming back and living in a world post-conflict or post-war, and how they've managed that. I've talked to a lot of just everyday people that are in almost every way more meaningful to me than talking with a former president or a potential president or potential vice president. Those are fun and they're cool and it's a headline, but all of these interviews are very special in one way or the other.
Richard Helppie
That's really a tremendous insight there. Jumping back quickly to the former President Trump. Is he as uncontrolled as he's made out to be? How did you find him in your chats with him?
Chris Renwick
It's funny, I've had a few different interactions with Donald Trump in my conversations with him over the last year. You talk to him for just a second off-air, you just say hi, thank you, we appreciate your time. Just a very personable guy and it's probably a little bit more what people see on like Joe Rogan's podcast, or some of these other podcasts where he doesn't quite have his guard up. It's a little bit of a different conversation, but it's very brief, because I don't want to take too much of their time just talking behind the scenes. But then once you get them on it's a lot of what you see in the media. I thought the interview with JD Vance was pretty insightful, like, he's a Buckeye, so I tried to get him to say something nice about Michigan, which he didn't really bite.
Richard Helppie
I would imagine that he would have choked on that.
Chris Renwick
He said it was the hardest question he's gotten so far, which I appreciate. [Laughter.] But a lot of that is just, it's disarming people. I'm not here to attack, I'm here to inform my audience. Very briefly, I used to be the executive producer of the Frank Beckman show. He's a legend. He was the play-by-play voice for Michigan football for 32, 33 years. And when Donald Trump was in office, he invited us down - our show - to do a show from the Eisenhower Building, which is the building inside the gates at the White House, part of the property. They called us over. They said, you want to do an interview with him? So we're like, sure, so we go and do this interview with him in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing. (Richard Helppie: You and Frank.) Me and Frank Beckman (Richard Helppie: and Trump.) and Donald Trump. He and Frank are sitting at this big conference table, and they do the interview. And then after the interview, Donald Trump stands up and shakes Frank's hand, and he says, have you guys ever been to the Oval Office? And we're like, no, why would we? And he says, well, come on, I'll show you. So he takes us into the Oval Office. He shows us the resolute desk. He's talking to us about Kennedy, and he shows us the little picture of the son coming out from under the desk and he's talking about the history and all of this stuff. And then he starts asking us some questions. I'm standing in the Oval Office, we walk in and like, Steve Mnuchin is there, a couple of cabinet guys are there; we're like, oh, he's about to have a cabinet meeting and he just brought these two guys from Michigan in to hang out. He was very kind and accommodating. And he was just...it was an interesting little bit of time, but we were with him for like 45 minutes in the middle of the day. Just a couple of interesting stories like that that always stick out.
Richard Helppie
Yeah, and of course, the knock on Trump will be, hey, he's undisciplined. You never know what you're going to do minute to minute. Frankly, that's been one of my criticisms of him. I don't want to get into the news coverage, but there are legitimate questions they should be asking him that are not being asked. It's really interesting about the way the media environment has evolved as a business. Back in the day when people got their information from local radio, local television and local newspapers there were regulations. You couldn't own a newspaper and a voice or television audience in that same place. Now we've got a lot of consolidation. Of course, there's a lot that has been made of George Soros trying to buy up the 200 stations from Audacity; whether he can get that through the FCC - although it seems to be being fast tracked - is a question. But your station, you're part of Cumulus Media which owns 401 radio stations - I was surprised to find this out - that the market capitalization of that company is only $20 million for 400 radio stations and the company is hemorrhaging money at this point. Which lets me say, all right, your income is coming from advertising. Is there pressure on you, from a content point of view, based on the advertising content? Or is that just kept completely separate?
Chris Renwick
No, I mean, look, always my responsibilities are to the audience but the realities are, we've got to pay the bills. We've got to keep the electricity on. We've got to keep things moving. We're not a subscription based model. We're not a situation where you have to buy into something. I think that comes with a little bit of the charm of radio. It hasn't really changed, terrestrial radio, and so people know what to expect. There's comfort there as well, but the realities are, we do have to juggle that. It's important that we make those connections with businesses in our area that have the same characteristic makeup that we do, people who are committed to the community, people who are committed to doing good things for people and doing the right things for people. It's really important. And so I think it would be foolish to to omit that and say that that's not something that we think about, because, of course, it is. It's how we stay in business. It's how we're able to to keep people informed and keep these dialogs going. When I walk into that building every day, I'm not thinking about sales, I'm not thinking about advertising. I am thinking about how do I best serve my audience. But it certainly is something that we think about because we have to.
Richard Helppie
Well, I will also endorse that, because when I'm traveling and I'm listening to Sonos or TuneIn radio, I want to hear local. Because I want to hear that this club has got a particular act coming in or there's a special on pizza or at the putt-putt, or whatever. You get a you get a local flavor by listening to local thing.
Chris Renwick
You know what that is, too? It also...we get to peek into what other people are thinking and how they're doing things and how they're approaching this because it's human nature. You can kind of get into a wall, or you can kind of end up doing the same things. It can be monotonous, and people don't necessarily see that because they're in the middle of it too. But it could spur a completely different idea when you're able to pick and listen to what other people are doing.
Richard Helppie
Absolutely. But again, radio was that unifying force in the community, when you were driving to work people were listening to only one of three things. Now they could be listening to a podcast. They could be listening to something broadcast. They could be listening to satellite ratio and then drive right past a business that offers great steaks or whatever and just not be aware. That's really changed. Chris, one of the things that we have going on, I think, in our country and in our world, there was - prior to the technical revolution of the internet - we had more controlled media, more edited media. It's been characterized as mainstream media and criticized today for being agenda driven. When you think about AM radio in general, or perhaps WJR in specific, are you mainstream media?
Chris Renwick
No, I would say we're not, because our mission is different. Not in the sense that Fox or CNN, they also rely on advertising to pay their bills, to pay their people. It's not necessarily different from the business model, but whether you're on MSNBC or CNN or Fox, they are catering to a particular group of people. We don't, we cater to everyone. It's why we have conversations with everybody. It's why I've talked to everybody from Donald Trump to much more progressive... (Richard Helppie: Pete Buttigieg.) Pete Buttigieg. People need to separate the politics from the people.
Richard Helppie
What people need to understand is, when you get to a certain level in politics you're a pro and you're pretty good at what you do which is why I always thought these negative campaigns were silly, because then the person comes out to the debate or whatever, and people look at him and go, well, he's not that bad or she's not that bad. They're people and they're all pros at a certain level. I don't know Pete Buttigieg, but he seems like a really smart guy.
Chris Renwick
He is a smart guy. What I don't like and what a lot of these outlets do - again, they have a different perspective on coverage, they're catering to a specific group of people. I don't want to selfishly have conversations with people that I just agree with; that's boring. I don't do that and it's a disservice to my audience. If they come to my show from 2:00-4:00pm eastern every weekday looking for the same thing or something cookie cutter or something out of a box, that's not interesting to me. I don't want to do that and I don't think people want that. It's why I diversify who I talk with because I'm not an ideologue. I have feelings on both sides of the aisle that I agree with, but in my view, I do my audience a disservice if I don't have those conversations with people and at least give people an opportunity - whether or not they agree or not, one way or the other - give them an opportunity to hear a different perspective. Whether that changes things for you or not is up to you, but I want to make sure that I'm giving that to you.
Richard Helppie
I really like that because I'm a fellow traveler. I actually had a guy scoff at me on a not so much used social media platform. He said, all you guys that think you have a different take you don't know what you're doing. I'm like, oh, a different take is we're not following the formula. (Chris Renwick: You're not thinking how I think.) Exactly. Fox, again, pioneered I think... I haven't watched Sean Hannity since he had Alan Colmes on. It was Colmes and Hannity, it was interesting. Although Colmes going against Sean Hannity was never a fair fight. [Laughter.] It was like - I said this on another interview - Colmes was like the Washington Generals, he's going to get...(Chris Renwick: fumbling around.) by the Harlem Trotters. And people tune in to that, to hear that. People tune into Rachel Maddow to be lied to. I mean, she's testified that she lies. (Chris Renwick: Exactly.) Exactly. And so you're coming at this from a different way. But my guests might want to know, look, have you ever criticized Donald Trump, or criticized...
Chris Renwick
Worse. Of course. I think even going back to what happened on January 6. I don't believe that the things that he said spurred what happened. I do believe he waited far too long to say anything. It was a horrific day. I think one of my biggest criticisms of Donald Trump is even in times when I think he's right or I think he's on to something, he doesn't articulate it properly. For example, I'm not saying this is something that I agree with, but after the Dobbs decision, he came out and said, look, each state is going to have its own rules and the states are going to have to make those decisions, the voters in those states are going to have to make those decisions. Since then, he's come out and he said things like, well, if you want to change, win elections, and he kind of just leaves it at that. Whereas I think he means if you want to change the laws in your state, then you need to become active. You need to go out, put yourself on the line, win elections and then once you have that control over your state legislature, then you can take whatever you think that corrective action is.
Richard Helppie
Or referendum. Look at Kansas. Nobody would have forecast that. That very contentious issue, it's with the states. Ruth Bader Ginsburg thought that's where it belonged and I'm kind of with her, because she knew more about the law than I would ever hope to imagine. (Chris Renwick: I could teach her a couple.) [Laughter.] But on January 6, that was one of the things I would love to hear someone ask Donald Trump. The observable fact is, for 187 minutes you did nothing, why? Because had the president heard, Mr. President, people are going into the Capitol, it would have been, wait a minute, get on a bull horn and tell them to get out. Now he said many other things that he shouldn't have said. I think he should be held accountable. But I don't want to go down that tangent about how his political opposition empowered him and obfuscated the issue by their exaggeration and such so I'm just going to try to awkwardly move on to... I look at what you do with talk radio in a time when we have interactive, multi-dimensional communication, it's not just one way. It seems to be that - to your point with future generations caring about their world, and with talk radio being this ubiquitous two-way - it ought to look really bright in the future. But then I look at the market cap. What do you guys talk about as it comes to what's the future here?
Chris Renwick
I think one thing that is really important in our business in 2024, going into 2025, is you've got to be multiple. You have to be active on social media. You have to be active in different ways to engage with your audience. It's a lot more than just a two hour radio show in the middle of the afternoon.
Richard Helppie
It's a long time. I love what we talked about getting ready for the show.
Chris Renwick
Yeah, it is but there are things that we can do in a podcast format that can live on our sites, that can act as an accompaniment to what we do on the air. And so I think that when you think about where this thing is headed, I don't know... I mean, vinyls are back, so who knows. You know what I mean? I don't think that this is a... I don't think that we're going to be a dinosaur here. I don't think that we become extinct. The business has changed. It continues to change. It's changed in the last decade since I've been there. It will evolve. It will change. It will become something different than what it is today. I don't know that anybody really has an answer, but I think that it is going to evolve in such a way that it will make the platform relevant for the future.
Richard Helppie
Chris, as we near the end of our time together, a couple of lightning round things, and in the lightning round (Chris Renwick: Prime rip.) you can always pass. If you read what we would loosely term "the mainstream media" organs that are watched, the perception is that Americans are at each other's throat, are very angry. Is your audience angry?
Chris Renwick
I don't think my audience is angry. I think that there is a frustration. I think there's a frustration with what maybe some people would think. Like, how could you possibly think like that or, how could you stand by this? And it's probably both ways. I don't know that it's... I mean, sure there is some anger. I'm sure there is some some animosity. I don't know if they're angry. I think they're probably more frustrated, because everybody injects their purview into what politics is. They all have an idea of how things should be run and when you don't match that, or when you don't meet that expectation, there's frustration.
Richard Helppie
I will tell you from my audience, I don't think there's been an issue where I couldn't take somebody stalwartly in one camp and someone's equally cemented into the other and find places that they agree. Even getting them to agree that that middle ground would be better than what we have on the extremes. I look at the divisions of - and I predicted this day would come - when the victim Olympics would run into who's the bigger victim. People thought that the pinnacle of that was Hamas, Palestinians, Israelis, but I really saw it when they couldn't figure out whether Asians were privileged or whether they were a minority. But I digress. In this climate, your sense: will either side accept the results of the presidential election?
Chris Renwick
That question to me is so wild because of course they may not accept it, but it's going to happen one way or the other. Whoever wins is going to be president.
Richard Helppie
Will they say that's my president?
Chris Renwick
Oh, probably not because... you mean from a people perspective, or from a campaign perspective?
Richard Helppie
From a people perspective. My look at it is this. We have a couple of bad choices. Again, political parties are not doing a great job for us. But whether Kamala Harris is elected the president, or Donald Trump is elected the president, that's my president. I want them to do a great job because we're not served. I've been asking people, will you accept the results of the of the election and say that's my president?
Chris Renwick
I think probably that started under Donald Trump. That "he's not my president" line, and so then Republicans have adopted that in the Biden era. So look, I don't know. I think we get caught up in a lot of it because we're in the heat of the moment, but at the end of the day, you're still going to get up in the morning, you're still going to have your coffee, you're still going to read the paper or turn on whatever platform you want to hear from, you're still going to go to the grocery store, you're still going to have to plug your car in, or go to the gas station; you still live.
Richard Helppie
Well, platforms are going to be there, either WJR or The Common Bridge podcast.
Chris Renwick
That's right. It's really the only media [cross-talk.]
Richard Helppie
It's the only place in the world that people can find [cross-talk.]
Chris Renwick
That's right. I think people, we get caught up because we're in the heat of it, but it's going to be fine.
Richard Helppie
Great. Our audience has been amazing. The number of subscribers that we're adding, it's got... the downloads broke over five million.
Chris Renwick
Because you're having conversations with people. That's it. Have a conversation. Talk to people. It's okay.
Richard Helppie
It's not rocket science to talk to people. It really isn't. We've been talking today with radio personality and talk show host Chris Renwick, Chris of WJR radio, the Great Voice of the Great Lakes, 760 on your AM dial, in 38 states and half of Canada. On the WJR app and @wjr.com. You can hear Chris from 2pm to 4pm eastern time most weekdays. With our guest, Chris Renwick, this is your host, Rich Helppie, signing off on The Common Bridge.
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