There are days in this business when a piece of news comes across the desk and the first reaction is simple:
This cannot possibly be real.
Then it turns out to be real.
And suddenly what might have been funny becomes frustrating.
On National Radio Day, of all days, word came that Audacy Kansas City had sent a copyright infringement cease-and-desist notice to Murfin Media and The Rock of Kansas over an issue involving programming connected to 97.7 KSNP, a small-market Kansas station serving the Burlington and Emporia area, with programming also distributed to other local Kansas stations.
National Radio Day.
You really couldn’t script the irony any better.
This is supposed to be the day when broadcasters celebrate microphones, transmitters, personalities, communities and the wonderfully strange business that has connected people for more than a century.
Instead, attorneys apparently entered the chat.
And frankly, it’s difficult not to be irritated by the entire thing.
Let’s Keep This in Perspective
We’re talking about small-town Kansas radio.
Not a new 100,000-watt competitor dropping a tower into downtown Kansas City.
Not some massive company attempting to siphon millions of dollars from Audacy’s Kansas City operation.
Not an insurgent broadcasting empire preparing to conquer Johnson County.
Small-town radio.
The kind of radio where people still care about what happened at the high school game.
The county fair matters.
The local business buying an advertising schedule matters.
Severe weather coverage matters.
The community fundraiser matters.
And sometimes the same employee is programming, producing, selling, posting on Facebook and trying to figure out why the printer stopped working before lunch.
That’s the scale we’re talking about.
Murfin Media operates stations serving Kansas communities, while Audacy is one of America’s largest audio companies. The difference in scale is precisely why the situation feels so disproportionate.
Yes Copyright Matters
Let’s get this out of the way immediately.
Intellectual property matters.
If Audacy believes it owns intellectual property that has been improperly used, it has every right to protect that property.
That’s what lawyers are for.
Nobody should confuse criticism of how a dispute is being handled with a declaration about who would prevail in an actual legal proceeding.
Those are two very different things.
But proportionality matters too.
Judgment matters.
Optics matter.
And when a gigantic audio company directs legal pressure toward a comparatively tiny Kansas broadcaster, people in this industry are absolutely entitled to ask:
Was this really necessary?
And That’s Where This Starts to Feel Petty
There really isn’t a nicer way to put it.
From the outside, this looks small.
It looks unnecessary.
And for an industry that desperately needs broadcasters working together to preserve radio’s relevance, it feels completely backward.
Radio already has enemies.
A lot of them.
Spotify isn’t taking the afternoon off.
YouTube isn’t worried about our feelings.
TikTok isn’t slowing down because terrestrial radio would like another decade to figure out digital.
Podcasts aren’t disappearing.
Satellite isn’t disappearing.
Connected cars aren’t becoming less connected.
Every listener is walking around with a device in their pocket capable of delivering essentially unlimited entertainment.
That’s the fight.
Yet here we are spending time, energy and presumably legal resources fighting over small-market Kansas radio.
Why?
The Most Frustrating Part Is the Collateral Damage
People work incredibly hard at these smaller stations.
That’s what gets lost when disputes become corporate chess matches.
There are programmers trying to build something.
Salespeople trying to keep businesses advertising.
Engineers keeping transmitters alive.
Managers wearing five hats.
Personalities trying to create companionship.
Promotions people trying to make a station visible in communities that still genuinely depend on local media.
Those people didn’t ask to become part of somebody else’s corporate dispute.
Yet they’re the ones who ultimately have to deal with the disruption.
The original situation has already resulted in people at Murfin Media having to respond to something they didn’t ask to spend their time handling.
And that’s the part that should make people angry.
Small Market Radio Isn’t the Enemy
This needs to be said loudly.
Small-market radio is helping keep this industry alive.
There are communities across America where these stations remain incredibly important.
They still show up.
They still broadcast from the parade.
They still announce the school closing.
They still carry the football game.
They still promote the church fundraiser.
They still tell people where to take donations after the tornado.
They still introduce the new restaurant owner.
They still answer the phone.
They still know their listeners’ names.
The original dispute is particularly frustrating against that backdrop because small-market broadcasters are already doing the difficult work of keeping local radio meaningful with dramatically fewer resources than major-market operators.
Maybe instead of finding new ways to make their jobs harder, the industry should occasionally applaud them.
Audacy Kansas City Has Bigger Things to Worry About
And this is where the criticism becomes very simple.
Concentrate on making incredible Kansas City radio.
Win Kansas City.
Make great shows.
Develop personalities.
Create moments.
Break stories.
Be visible.
Own the streets.
Build relationships with advertisers.
Find the next generation of broadcasters.
Make people laugh.
Make people angry.
Make people call.
Make listeners afraid they’re going to miss something if they turn the station off.
That’s competition.
That’s what radio desperately needs.
Burlington isn’t the existential threat.
Emporia isn’t the existential threat.
A small Kansas broadcaster isn’t the reason somebody decided to open Spotify instead of turning on the radio this morning.
The infinite entertainment universe inside the listener’s phone is the threat.
Go fight that battle.
And Yes the Timing Makes This Even More Absurd
National Radio Day.
Really?
While broadcasters around the country were digging out pictures of their first studios and remembering the first time they cracked open a microphone…
Cease and desist.
While people were celebrating the weird characters and incredible personalities who made them fall in love with radio…
Cease and desist.
While stations were reminding audiences why local broadcasting still matters…
Cease and desist.
The irony is almost impressive.
Almost.
Radio Doesn’t Need More Enemies Within Radio
This business has become difficult enough.
People are being laid off.
Local staffs are shrinking.
Veteran broadcasters are disappearing.
Programming is being centralized.
Automation continues expanding.
Advertising dollars are fragmented across an enormous digital marketplace.
Young broadcasters are wondering whether there’s even a career waiting for them.
And somehow the industry still finds time to fight itself.
Enough.
Compete aggressively.
Protect legitimate intellectual property.
Defend your brands.
Absolutely.
But maintain some perspective.
There is a difference between protecting a business and unnecessarily making life miserable for another broadcaster.
Here’s the Alternative Perspective
Maybe there’s information the public doesn’t know.
That’s entirely possible.
Maybe Audacy believes the infringement is significant enough that ignoring it could weaken its ability to protect the property elsewhere.
That’s a legitimate consideration.
Maybe attorneys determined that formal notification was necessary regardless of the size of the broadcaster involved.
Fine.
Those possibilities deserve acknowledgment.
But none of them change the broader industry question:
What outcome are we actually trying to achieve?
If the result is simply that a small Kansas radio operation has to change programming while everyone spends money, time and energy arguing over something that presents virtually no meaningful competitive threat to Kansas City radio, it’s fair to wonder who actually won.
Sometimes Being Technically Right Isn’t the Same as Doing the Right Thing
That’s a lesson bigger than broadcasting.
Companies can have the legal ability to do something while still deserving criticism for doing it.
The same applies to individuals.
Authority and judgment aren’t synonyms.
And if the goal is protecting the strength and reputation of radio, there are moments when people should look beyond the legal department and ask what something looks like to everybody else.
Because right now?
This looks terrible.
An On The Dial Editorial
On The Dial believes strongly in intellectual-property rights and the ability of broadcasters to protect brands and content they legally own. But it also believes in proportionality, professionalism and an industry where broadcasters recognize that smaller local operators are not the enemy.
This situation appears to represent exactly the kind of unnecessary internal warfare radio can no longer afford.
Audacy Kansas City should concentrate on making outstanding radio for Kansas City.
Murfin Media should be allowed to concentrate on serving its Kansas communities.
If a legitimate legal disagreement exists, resolve it quickly, professionally and proportionately.
Then everybody should get back to the business that actually matters:
Making radio worth listening to.
Because there’s an old piece of wisdom that seems particularly appropriate here.
Sometimes it’s better to let people wonder whether something is small and petty…
than to keep giving them reasons to stop wondering.
This editorial addresses the proportionality and industry implications of the dispute and does not make any determination regarding the legal merits of the underlying copyright claim.
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