Thunder rules Sullivan County market

Community is key

By FRITZ MAYER

UPPER DELAWARE VALLEY — In little more than a year, Vince Benedetto has turned the worst performing radio station in Sullivan County, NY into the best performing station. How did he do it? Admirers and critics agree that it’s all about connecting with the community.

The station is WDNB, better known to fans as Thunder 102. In the summer of 2005, Benedetto bought the station, which then had an all-news format and turned it into a country station. There’s nothing particularly unique about that. What is unique is that the station’s personalities and staff turn up seemingly everywhere: at pancake breakfasts, at sporting events, at festivals and store openings. That, in turn, has paid off in valuable exposure: convenience stores and other businesses that used to feature the WVOS or WSUL in their establishments have tuned in to Thunder 102 and listeners have followed.

The latest numbers from the ratings service Arbitron show that WNDB has a 25.8 share of the adult audience in the all important morning drive time, which runs from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. This means that more-than-one-in-four adults in Sullivan County, who are tuned in to a radio station during those hours, are listening to WDNB, Thunder 102. Not bad for a new station, and one that maintains its headquarters in Honesdale, PA. The second highest rated station is WSUL with a 17.2 share.

“It’s rather incredible,” said one market observer who preferred not to be identified, “that a bunch of guys in Honesdale have suddenly become the voice of Sullivan County.”

While the station has some listeners in Wayne and Pike counties in Pennsylvania, its focus is clearly Sullivan County, NY.

One of Benedetto’s first moves was to sign up veteran Sullivan County radio personality Mike Sakell. He was working at WVOS last year when ownership of that station was changing. Sakell became one of the anchors of the morning drive-time program. Benedetto then signed Paul Ciliberto as co-host, a broadcaster with a long history in the Scranton, PA market. The show “Sakell and Ciliberto in the Morning” was born.

From the beginning, Bendetto and crew said they were out to change the face of local radio by focusing on the community, and the concept shows up on the air. Along with Sakell and Ciliberto, members of the community are an integral part of the show.

On one recent morning, Frank Godlewski, the director of golf at the Tennanah Lake Golf and Tennis Club, was on the air talking up the appeal of golfing in the fall. Along with the pitch, however, Godlewski joked that his appearance there created a hardship for his boss, because she’d had to change a “nail appointment.” That comment was good for a few jokes from Ciliberto.

Another example of community involvement comes from Lou Monteleone, the marketing director at the Eldred Preserve. At the station’s prompting, Monteleone called the program last February to chat about the preserve. When he explained that the trout in the preserve ponds jumped out of the water when Monteleone feeds them, Ciliberto immediately dubbed him “Lord of the Trout.” Now, the Lord of the Trout conducts a twice-weekly trivia segment on the air, which ties in with a trivia game available at the bar at the preserve. Monteleone said his exposure is good for the preserve business, and he has also gained a bit of fame. He was asked for his autograph at one of the concerts staged by WDNB this past summer.

People in the radio business agree that this local involvement is in large part responsible for the station’s ratings success. Dave Robinson, a well-known local personality who used to work for WVOS said, “They’re beating the other stations because they’re very community oriented, which is what you need in this market. I don’t think you can overdo it.”

The man at the top

Thunder 102 is owned by Bold Gold Media, which also owns two other radio stations in the Honesdale, PA market and two in the Scranton, PA market.

Bold Gold Media is a limited partnership, of which Benedetto, 30, is president and managing member.

Benedetto, who was raised in a suburb of Philadelphia, said his father was a musician and audio/video producer, and he “grew up in a recording studio” and the radio business was in his blood. But before he committed to it full time, he took a detour into the military.

He graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1998, and became a Captain Special Agent in the Office of Special Investigations for the Air Force. In the aftermath of 9/11, Benedetto worked in Bosnia to keep that country from sliding back into civil war. He said he had some “life and death” experiences there because the situation was still chaotic, and “chaos attracts a lot of bad guys.”

He worked with military personnel and civilians from several countries including Russia, France and Ukraine. He said working with so many different people with varying agendas led him to realize that “I really enjoyed bringing people together.”

He left the air force in 2003, and was attracted to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania where his family has vacationed for four generations. He worked as a radio producer in Scranton and the surrounding area before forming Bold Gold Media in 2005.

Although he is now responsible for the operation of five stations he said WDNB was the most fun because, unlike the other stations, WDNB went through a radical transformation.

“It was an opportunity,” he said, “to build something new from the ground up.”