Originally published on June 22, 2007

Peter Davidson

Davidson Media Group
Founder and President

Now running two startup media companies, this entrepreneur believes in reflecting and responding to America's diversity

Since beginning his career with his first love, newspapers, Peter Davidson has become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the U.S. Hispanic media world. Now running his fourth and fifth startup companies, Davidson is committed to providing quality local radio programming to emerging Hispanic and ethnic markets across the country.

Getting into the business: I had always been involved in newspapers—I was editor of my high school paper, worked for my college paper and was editor of my business school paper. I loved the newspaper business and was looking for a way to get into the business.
I worked for a while at The Washington Post. After business school, I worked at an investment bank for a number of years, focusing on the media industry and newspapers in particular.

Advertisement

Focusing on ethnic markets: Gannett was interested in selling El Diario La Prensa, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in New York City. I put together a group of investors and bought it in 1989. I had been at Morgan Stanley and became president of the newspaper.

We renamed that company Latin Communications Group, and expanded from the one daily newspaper to operating three weekly newspapers and three Univision television stations, and we eventually had a 22-station radio group called XL Communications. We sold that company in 2000 to Entravision.

Founding of Davidson Media: The Spanish population had continued to increase in new cities and new states, like Nevada and Portland, Ore., and the fastest growth was in the Southeast—North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee. I thought there was a great opportunity to launch a Spanish-language radio company focused on these emerging U.S. Hispanic markets.

I started Davidson Media Group in 2004, and in 2005 and 2006 we purchased 42 radio stations in 24 markets.

Long-range plans: Spanish-language continues to grow. Spanish advertising is growing. We were in pretty early, so we have leadership positions in virtually all of our markets, and we're happy to continue developing the stations and the markets we have.

We have been the most aggressive buyer of radio stations in the country for the last two years. We are actively looking to fill out the rest of our footprints, but I'm very focused on the Southeast, the lower Midwest and the Northeast.

The recently formed Blackstrap Broadcasting: Everything I've been interested in is responding to the great ethnic diversity in our country and having that diversity be reflected in programming. We just signed an asset-purchase agreement to acquire stations in New York and Boston.

We actually don't do Spanish; the focus is on immigrant communities and immigrant programming.

Biggest challenge: The challenge is that the world of investors and lenders is not nearly as positive about radio as it used to be. There is a lot of fear out there, so when you're an aggressive acquirer and builder of companies like I am, it's gotten more difficult to bring the capital to bear.

State of radio: I love it. I wish everyone would stop being so depressed about it. Broadcasters have got to buck up. Maybe it's a different business than it was 20 years ago, but it's a phenomenal business.

It's a phenomenal business with the reach it has. It's a phenomenal business with the $20 billion in advertising that still goes to radio stations. It's a phenomenal business in being awarded a very scarce resource, FCC licenses, that give you a very defined group of competitors in a market. It's just one of the great business opportunities.

Career highlight: Davidson Media Group is the fourth company and Blackstrap is the fifth company I've founded. Looking back, I feel the greatest personal reward is that I've had great people working with me.

Career disappointment: There are many assets I would have loved to have kept, but when you borrow a lot of money from equity investors, you have to sell sometimes, even when you, as the operator, would like to keep owning assets.

Most influential individual: My grandfather. He was a Russian immigrant who came to this country and built himself up and made some money in the business of exporting blackstrap molasses from Cuba at the turn of the century.

He spent a number of years in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. He knew Spanish and was always talking about his early days in those countries, in the molasses business. That gave me a real love of the Spanish language, the Spanish community and entrepreneurship, so I named Blackstrap Broadcasting as a tribute to him.

Advice for broadcasters: For managers of stations, my advice is, by any means possible, become an owner. Life starts being fun when you own the assets you work at. There are more opportunities now than there have ever been, with stations up for sale, with major groups looking to divest properties, with what's happening with the Clear Channel properties.

And there's never been more of a need to bring radio back to local, committed people who love their communities, who love what's on the air and who love what they're selling. There's never been a better time to get into radio.

Liner Notes
Profile: Peter Davidson
Title: Davidson Media Group founder and president
Favorite radio format: Classic rock and smooth jazz
Favorite TV show: "Friday Night Lights"
Favorite song: Bruce Springsteen's "Youngstown"
Favorite movie: "The Man Who Would Be King"
Favorite restaurant: "I don't have one."
Beverage of choice: Water
Hobbies: "I am a big baseball enthusiast, as a fan, as a player and as a coach. I coach a lot of baseball."
E-mail address: "Best to reach me through our Web site at davidson-mediagroup.com."

'There's never been more of a need to bring radio back to local, committed people who love their communities.' —Peter Davidson