The power of talk

But today it is clear, that the band has widened and, having set the standard for what talk radio should be, has also seen the growth of other talk radio stations in TT.

There are more than five stations dedicated to talk radio in TT. But Radio Vision Ltd’s [under which Power 102 falls] chairman Peter Gillette is certain that Power 102’s format, with help from new technologies, will see another 20 years of Power 102 and talk in TT.

He recalled for Newsday, how the station got started. Gillette said: “The Gillette group had applied [for a radio licence] to the Government of the day, at the time it was the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) who was looking at liberalising the radio and television sector and we got the opportunity to get two frequencies. We got 102.1 and 102.5 to be able to give national coverage.” TT’s geography and radio technology, at the time, he said, demanded other frequencies to get the coverage. “So we began broadcasting out of Cumberland Hill and Gran Couva, which, is today, our main broadcast site.” But that was not the only concern for the Gillettes in terms of broadcasting. Of equal importance was what should be broadcast.

“At the time, we were very concerned about which segment we would serve and there was a feeling in the group that the talk radio market, while many had before flirted with it, was not successful...I had forged a friendship with Louis Lee Sing, who is former CEO at state media, by serving on boards jointly.

“I said to him, ‘Louis if ever you were interested in doing something you might want to join us’. And he had been relieved of his duties over at state media by the then Basdeo Panday- led administration. He said, ‘Peter, what do you have in mind’ and I said, ‘talk radio’. And he asked, ‘Why talk radio, everybody has failed at that, it has not been something that we have been able to prove as successful, people still want a fair amount of music and so on’.” Gillette said the underlying philosophy was that people were always going to be interested in what was going on around them, whether it be in their neighbourhoods, communities or country.

“So I convinced Louis to join us and he became a business partner and equity owner in Power 102 and that was how Power 102 launched.

“I think it has proven to be a very successful format. It has proven to be ground-breaking in many ways, in terms of some of the things we sought to do. Over time, Power 102 has gotten a reputation for doing a number of controversial-type programmes.

The phones never stopped ringing from our corporate sponsors.

I remember vividly a call from one corporate sponsor who was very infuriated by the kind of conversations that were taking place on Power 102 at the time and, while we had to be very sensitive to the language, the question of libel and so on, it was provocative language.

“It pricked at the consciousness of the elite, and the bourgeois.

For me, we were being successful the more those calls came in from our sponsors. We lost sponsorships because of it, we lost them full well, knowing we continued to give voice to the small man in the corridor.

Knowing that the small man did not have that voice,” he said.

While the face of how messages are transmitted is changing, for Gillette, the core of what Power 102 does remains the same.

While social media, with platforms like Facebook and Instagram, is rapidly changing how people receive information, Gillette believes this opens a market, previously TT was unable to harness the international market.

“We are seeing that more and more millennials, in particular, are tuning in to getting their news and information from social media and that is what we are competing with. All media is facing that competition. Today, we have a national, regional and international audience. Tremendous amount of people that tune in to Power 102 to get their news is diaspora- based. We don’t see, that in fact. We are no longer competing for listenership, or viewership, or readership, in just TT but actually on a global scale.” The diaspora, Gillette said, would be Power 102’s main target going forward.

“What we want to do is meet people where they are at. Whether they are comfortable going on a desktop computer or on a tablet and accessing our link and tuning in to us, or whether they are just comfortable doing updates and podcasts in the future to listen to our programmes, we’re going to be there. We are going to be on all the platforms, we’re already on Facebook, Instagram, and our website...

“We see eventually, down the road, the way that we reach our audience may be completely digital and utilising a terrestrial broadcast may become obsolete in the future. We are prepared for that.” The station’s strength was built on the interactivity of its current affairs programmes, the ability to have different personalities and opinions and this he said would not change. The company, he added, would continue to invest in its content and programming going forward.

Gillette sees the market growing rather than shrinking.

While many might believe that foreign content and music are what will sell radio spots, Gillette sees it differently. “For me when we started 20 years ago, I was told over and over we have got to play, foreign music because that is what Trinidadians want to listen to. To me, that was not the future, the future is what we’re seeing right now.

I said we have to have something unique so when the future arrives not just Trinidadians will be interested but Trinidadians and West Indians, generally, and the rest of the world. If they want to find out what’s going on in TT , they tune in to us. That is why we remain positioned the way we are...” Whether that old argument of talk radio’s impending death is true or not, for Gillette there will always be a place for talk even among millennials. “If you look at a lot of talk products that exist today...they are highly, highly successful.

But we have to challenge ourselves to make it interesting, informative and entertaining. It must fit all those categories...” While over the 20 years it has been a long journey for Power 102, Gillette maintains that the fat lady’s song is far from over. “It is a long journey, we are no where we want to be yet,” he said.

Gillette said, while thanking those who stood by the station throughout its 20 years, to, “stay tuned for more exciting stuff.”