Originally published on January 12, 2007

Gary Burns

3 Daughters Media
CEO

3 Daughters Media CEO takes underperforming stations, applies good programming practices and sells at a profit

Gary Burns has extensive experience in turnaround situations both for his own company and as a consultant for many of radio's premier operators. Burns' focus for 3 Daughters Media is to invest in undervalued and/or distressed media assets at bargain prices. The company has an impressive track record and continues to see considerable opportunities moving forward.

Getting into the business: "I'm one of those guys that didn't ever want to do anything else. I used to write letters to Al Herskovitz when he was programming WPRO/Providence in the '60s telling him how to make his radio station better. I was a kid in junior high and high school, and I used to tell him what talent in the market on other stations was ready for his station and who was ready to go. I saw Al a couple of years ago and asked if he read all those letters, and he said, 'Absolutely not.' I went to Graham Junior College because they offered radio programs."

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First job: "A fraternity brother, Jim Harrington, actually opened the door to my first job. It was in Chicopee, Mass., at WACE in 1969. I was selling, and they let me read the news on the weekends. Then I had an opportunity to be closer to home, and I went to work in Fall River, Mass., at WSAR. Then I was a regional sales manager in Providence at WGNG and then general sales manager. The station was going through a format change, and they brought John Rook in as a consultant. We were able to see the station go from being an insignificant player to taking on WPRO and WICE, and we came out on top. It was so much fun. By 1973, I was managing my first radio station in Trenton, N.J., so I got to the programming part of it through the general manager's office because I always understood if you could control the money, you could sort of control the station."

Founding 3 Daughters Media: "It is a successor company to Burns Media Strategies. I look back at my career and sort of feel like the decades channels on XM. In the '70s, I got to play with FM radio stations when nobody was looking. In the '80s, I became a group manager, then a consultant and then an owner."

The company's mission: "We look for underperforming media assets, buy them, fix them up, bring them to market, produce a profit from cash flow and sometimes people come and offer you big multiples. When I left D.C., in '97, I was looking for something entrepreneurial. I was looking for stations in rated markets that had not been consolidated, that may have been inferior FM facilities or that may be near bankrupt. And if I could buy those stations in a market that had a VHF television station and a daily newspaper, I converted it to talk. As an example we took a station in Lynchburg, Va., that had $300 in billing on it when we bought it to $800,000 in billing. I bought it for 500,000 and something dollars and sold it for $4.4 million, so it was a good day in the park for me."

Current projects: "We have a station in Gretna, Va., I found a little AM station in Bedford, Va., that had a CP to go to 5,000 watts. Clear Channel needed to divest a radio station in Chattanooga and as part of the negotiation process I got them to throw in their AM sports/talk stations in Roanoke and Lynchburg, so I am putting those together with all of the stations I have in this area, and we are going to do ESPN sports/talk on a number of AM and FM radio stations from this area. We've launched a statewide sports magazine called the Virginia Sports Report, and we're going to run it in conjunction with all of those ESPN sports/talk stations I am putting together. Then we've got a project on an AM and FM station in Chattanooga. I'm not sure what we are going to do with those stations yet, but I think we're going to do something fun."

Biggest challenge: "I'm really enjoying life at this point, and I'm only working on projects that interest me. I see a good opportunity with the network of sports stations and the sports magazine, and again we're looking for exciting things in Chattanooga."

State of radio: "The BIA study that came out a couple of weeks ago said you can get higher returns in radio than in almost any other business in America. We just don't have the growth anymore but neither does a satellite company. There are just so many forms of distribution now and as HD radio comes online, my God, isn't this like FM all over again?"

Career highlight: "Probably at 57 years old that I'm still in the business and making more money now than I ever made—so you can't tell me the radio business is in difficult straits. I try to take stations nobody wants and just put good principal programming on them with a defined mission, and we make money."

Career disappointment: "Of course, if you could go back and rerun your career and look at it in the rearview mirror, I think everybody would do a lot of things differently, but at the end of the day, you can't look back. You can only look forward, so I am pretty content and happy."

Most influential individual: "I worked with the guys at Burkhart Abrams. I like Kent a lot, Dwight [Douglas] and Don Benson and being able to bounce ideas and concepts with those guys was great. Kent and I still talk a couple times a week and always have dinner at conventions and stuff like that."

Liner Notes

Profile: Gary Burns

Title: 3 Daughters Media CEO

Favorite radio format: Talk

Favorite TV show: "I watch 'The West Wing' on Bravo every Monday where they do their marathons."

Favorite song: "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin

Favorite movie: "My Cousin Vinny"

Favorite book: "Three Blind Mice" by Ken Auletta. "After reading that book, it confirmed to me that nobody at the top in the highest sense of the media business really had any more of a clue than I had."

Favorite restaurant: Meriwether's Market in Lynchburg, Va

Beverage of choice: Orange juice

Hobbies: "I'm dating a physician who is the daughter of a farmer who has like a thousand head of cows, so right now I am learning about farming."

E-mail address: gburns5896@aol.com 

'There are just so many forms of distribution now and as HD radio comes online, my God, isn't this like FM all over again?' —Gary Burns