Women have made more progress in basketball than they have in broadcasting.
Kathy Hughes built Radio One with raw talent, dedication, and perseverance.
My stations are merely vehicles to provide employment to African-American broadcasters. Where else would they work?
Kathy Hughes. Up next on Basic Black.
Kathy Hughes is at the controls of the largest black-owned broadcasting company in the nation. She owns Radio One, a conglomerate of radio and TV stations across the country, which now include Boston's WL and Hot 97.7 FM. Hughes credits her faith and love for her son Alfred as the catalyst for building Radio One.
The day that my son was put in my arms by the doctor, my whole life changed because for the first time in my life, I had a mission, a purpose much larger than myself.
At that time, Hughes was only 17, but was determined not to have her son become another statistic. She worked various radio jobs in Washington, including running errands at a low-power AM station, which she later bought as her first enterprise. To keep costs down, the new owner slept on the floor of the station. For 18 months, Hughes washed in the public restroom until she could afford a full-time staff. In 1999, she became the first black woman to take a company public. Today, she and her son Alfred, now the CEO, are running a $3 billion business. Tonight, a personal portrait of a woman determined to pioneer her very own media empire.
Good evening everyone. I'm Darren Dwarte with another installment in our Basic Black conversation series. And joining us tonight is Kathy Hughes, Radio One chairperson and founder. Welcome.
Thank you very much for having me.
Life is good now, isn't it?
Life has always been good.
Has life always been good?
I've been blessed with 55 years so far and everyone gets more glorious than the one before.
You bought one station. Your company has how many stations now?
65 radio and one television.
You're considered a radio mogul, if you will.
I hate that term. What does that mean?
I was going to ask you that.
I hate the term because number one, for some reason people who are introducing me at speaking engagements or whatever just seem they can't resist this introduction of the largest black-owned media company in America. Now we were number two before BET was sold. Once they became Viacom owned, we moved up to number one. I would have loved to have beat them fair and square, but by default I got elevated to okay. So people, oh, biggest black... Please do not applaud. I have 65 radio stations. My number one competitor is Clear Channel. They have 1,000. That's like a goldfish fighting a whale. So often in the black community, we, you know, my grandmama used to say, 'You can't fall off the floor.' So an itsy-bitsy step sometimes looks so much larger in the black community than it really is.
But you think then African-Americans should not either give credit or give credence to someone if no one else has done it? Take your company, you are the biggest one now. You think they shouldn't mention it or it's the way that they do it?
It's the joy that they take in it. I don't want them to celebrate it. I'm not saying they shouldn't mention it. I thank God for the recognition and I thank them. But I don't want them to rejoice in it. There's nothing to rejoice over yet. I mean, there's no comparison between the two competitors. Clear Channel and Radio One. I have 65 stations.
Now, do you want to at one day get to that point?
Absolutely. Absolutely. That's what I think everyone works towards. Well, sometimes some business people say, you know, I've got so much I can handle. I don't think I can handle anymore. I mean, there's some... No, I would never say that because see, I see radio stations as just the vehicles that God allows me to use to open the door of opportunity for broadcasters. If there were no Radio One, I have close to 2,000 employees. Now, 1,400 of them are African-American broadcasters. So, if there were not a Radio One, where would these 1,400 brothers and sisters get employment?
You mentioned before that once you got to the point where you had a thousand African-Americans on the payroll.
Yes, I did. I stopped. Yes, absolutely. I signed each check. And now my goal is 2,500. My goal is 2,500 African-American broadcasters. And if the good Lord blesses me with 2,500, I'm going to up it again because as I said, my stations are merely vehicles to provide employment opportunities to African-American broadcasters. Where else would they work?
Is that what one of the passions that drive you in this business?
Oh, what is totally what's driving me now? However, it's much rougher now. It is much more difficult for an African-American broadcaster to survive in this environment because of consolidation and syndication.
Tell me something in the comments that drives you, that motivates you, that pushes you to be better.
All the money, not all the money, but the majority of the big salaries. And it's probably almost all, it's about 95 percent of all of your big salary air personalities are morning drive hosts. And because that's when people are more receptive. That's when audience revenue.
Exactly. All right. And so when you realize that then you realize that if you don't open the door of opportunity...
I was naive when I got into management. It was Christmas morning and the Washington Post style section headline read 'first woman GM in nation's capital.' And I was like, 'Wow, who?' And I started to read it and in Howard University's customary way of doing things, they hadn't bothered to tell me. They were going to tell me after the Christmas break. Some type of way the Washington Post found out. I think someone in personnel had called them because they had put the papers through and they were going to surprise me after Christmas break. So, I'm reading and then I get down to my name and I almost faint because I don't realize it's me. They have interviewed me. I know that I'm in the running for it, but they had not officially said you are the first woman general manager. You've got the job. And so, I read it in the paper. I'm all naive and innocent. I'm thinking, 'Wow, women are going through this door. They're going to be women general managers, women news directors, women program directors.' And I thought that, you know, it would be almost like a WNAB, a Women's National Association of Broadcasters. There's a WNBA. And I just testified before the FCC a few weeks ago, and I said, 'Women have made more progress in basketball than they have in broadcasting.' And that's the truth. And even the commissioners themselves had to chuckle because that's the God's honest truth. So I thought, black folks and women, here we go. We're off and running. 20 years passed and I looked behind me and I was alone. And even though several had made it through some type of way, they were eliminated. And now a woman owner, women general managers are few and far between, but they exist.
What do you think about talking about a woman owner? It's me. What do you think about when you see that? Because some people might say, you know what, Miss Hughes, but yeah, it's hard, but maybe they're going after other things. The line you hear a lot of times when people can't hire black folk, it's well, you know, we don't find anybody qualified. There's no one there to take up this reign. What do you say to that? What do you feel about that?
I say that that's a bunch of bunk because women want the same opportunities that men want. And I think that the reality is that whether it's you, me, or Joe Blow or Sally Smith, all of us who labor in the vineyards of broadcasting all want ultimately the top prize.
Let me stop you right there for a second and let's back up a little bit. Here we are. I know present day, but take me back to the time when you were a teenager. A single mother. Divorced your husband. When you think about that now, what perspective does that give you on your life today or do you ever think about it?
No. No. And not compare it. You know, people zero in. They like to turn it into a heroical allure story. They really love the part. Not so much about being 17. And back in those days, you were really an outcast in black communities if your baby didn't have his daddy's name. That was the thing. The baby's name, that last name was critical because, I was just being a wild experimenting teenager. I was not in love or ready for the rest. But the story that they really love is the one where I slept on the floor in a sleeping bag. Oh, this is her rags-to-riches story. She, you know, lost everything. Well, number one, I'm like Nikki Giovanni wrote about in her poetry years ago. I didn't know it was a struggling time. I was having fun. Courting in a sleeping bag is far more exciting than in a bedroom. Okay. Nobody can get away. Okay. Cooking on the hot plate. I didn't have dishes. All right. I have one pot. And when you're really doing something that's fulfilling and something that's challenging and something that really turns you on, you don't see the hard times. And the hardest time for me quite frankly was none of what people write about. The hardest time for me was when I left Howard University and I went with another broadcast corporation that did not have the resources to pay my staff. And I used all of my retirement money that I had pulled out of Howard when I left to pay my staff because thank God to this day as I sit here in front of you, I've never had a check bounce and I've never had an employee go unpaid. And I used all my money and then they weren't able to come up with operating funds and they asked me to shop alone and I told them that if I shopped alone for them that I was entitled to an equity position and these people had been together for like almost 30 years trying to get this radio station on the air which I finally did for them. And so they thought I was being arrogant. I was, you know, in my 30s and they were, the youngest one was about 68. All right. These are prior to W. Yes, this is prior to W. And so they said, well, if you think you're so smart, why don't you just leave and go get your own station? And I said, fine, because I am not going to go out and get financing for you and your station. That's not what a general manager does. A general manager receives a budget and operates the station within that budget. And during that period, no one would even give me an interview. Because one of the things in broadcasting is if you tick up the wrong way and find yourself on the sidelines, it gets around. Exactly. And trying to get back in is the hardest challenge. And those were the most difficult times for me because I was demoralized. I really questioned whether or not I was really as good a broadcaster as I believed in my heart. I had taken a station that had been dark for 24 years and gotten it on the air. I had completely recruited and hired a staff. I had created successful formats.
