2005 NETWORKING® MAGAZINE’S DAVID AWARD HONOREE.

DAVID WIDMER
President and General Manager, Barnstable Broadcasting’s Long Island Radio Group
1100 AM WHLI, KJOY 98.3 (WKJY), B-103 (WBZO) and ISLAND 94.3 (WMJC)

BY MAUREEN TRAXLER

With 82 signals coming into Long Island,
Barnstable Broadcasting’s The Long
Island Radio Group looks to differentiate
itself from the city stations and
wants to give its 500,000 weekly listeners the reassurance
that they are listening to Island media. They want
people to see, hear and feel themselves when they listen.
Indeed, this mission of David Widmer’s local
radio stations goes hand-in-hand with Barnstable’s
corporate philanthropic philosophy, which he states in
this fashion: “A radio station is like a mirror that
reflects the surrounding community, and I see the stations
as part of the key behind the successes of local
charities. They give people a reason to care. And, in
order to care, people have to be aware.”

In the almost seven years that Widmer has been
with Barnstable Broadcasting he has stepped up both
the company’s and his own investment in community
service. Through a partnership program with nonprofits,
the stations offer public service announcements
and publicity for local organizations, programs and
events; field marketing of community programs like
blood drives, and appearances by their mascots at
local events. The radio group’s community involvement
is widespread and embraces hospitals, cancer
and other disease organizations, minority organizations,
food networks, environmental groups, the arts,

youth and recreation, and other broadcast media, such
as weekly newspaper groups and publications.

Community service, Widmer emphasizes, is “something
we want and like to do.”

Of his personal investment in community, Widmer
says, “I enjoy being involved. I like to make a difference,
and like others, I want my actions to have meaning.
Everyone wants to be a part of something larger
than themselves.” That personal investment includes
serving on boards of Promote Long Island, Island
Harvest, Telecare, and Long Island Philharmonic,
CancerCare, Find a Cure Today and the New York
State Broadcasters Association; the board of directors
and Leadership Council of Long Island Mentorship;
and being a supporter and patron of Big Brothers/Big
Sisters, American Liver Foundation, American Heart
Association, Saltare Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes
Foundation, National Alliance for Autism Research,
Rick Shalvoy’s Row for a Cure and Cold Spring
Harbor Conservancy.

For his service, he has been recognized with the
2002 Community Outreach Award from One-in-Nine,
the 2003 Humanitarian of the Year by Educational
Assistance Corporation, and in 2004, was honored by
the Center for Developmental Disabilities.

“I have a hard time saying ‘no’,” admits Widmer.
“ Yet, like anyone else, I’m touched by the passion of

the people in charities. I’m inspired by the people who
run these organizations. They’re the real heroes.” And
he adds, “It’s nice to know we can do things that don’t
necessary have a fiscal bottom line.”

A Connecticut native growing up in Fairfield
County in the Darien-Norwalk area, Widmer graduated
from Lynchburg (VA) College. A sociology/psychology
major, he was interested in people, their
behaviors, interactions and tendencies. So he notes it
was “rather serendipitous” that he “fell into radio
broadcasting.”

In 1984, Widmer began his professional career as a
sales account executive with WEBE 108FM in
Bridgeport. In 10 years, he worked his way up through
senior account executive and local sales manager to
national sales manager before he joined Commodore
Media/Atlantic Star Communications, owner of eight
radio stations in New York and Connecticut. There he
moved up to director of sales for Fairfield County and
the Westchester region. “Radio is a marketing medium
that is very versatile and dynamic,” says Widmer,
“ and provides the opportunity for creativity.”

In 1998, Widmer found the “opportunity to be the
captain of my own ship,” and accepted the position of
vice president and general manager of Barnstable
Broadcasting’s WHLI and WKJY. Two years later, he
assumed the post of president and general manager
and merged those two stations with the company’s
two western Suffolk stations, WBZO and WMJC. In
addition to overseeing the daily operations of the four
stations, he manages and motivates a workforce of
over 100 full- and part-time employees; sets the policy,
strategy, vision and tone for the programming, sales,
engineering and business departments; and is responsible
for all revenue, expense budgeting and management.

In addition to spearheading a rapid growth in
advertising sales, Widmer’s accomplishments at the
radio group include fostering a synergy between the
“ great staffs” of the different stations and promoting
the corporate ethic of service. The station and Widmer
have a long list of service projects and several notable
involvements include: the radio group’s Long Island
Radio Relief Fund, begun after 9/11, which raised
$175,000 to benefit the families of firefighters, police
officers and emergency medical technicians who perished
in the attacks; Concerts for a Cause, which has a
different monthly charity focus; CancerCare’s100 holes
of Golf where employees solicit pledges per hole;
School to Career, a program that brings employees to
schools and colleges to talk to students about careers
in broadcasting; Teens on the Job, in conjunction with
Long Island Mentoring and other career advisory
boards, which invites teens to “shadow” employees in
the programming, production, sales and business
departments; and beginning this year, “A Voice in the
Crowd,” a weekly teen talk show on Island 94.3, featuring
local teens speaking on issues and interests to
their Long Island peers.

Widmer is personally responsible for the creation of
Radio for a Cure, a breast cancer awareness campaign.
Now in its sixth year, Radio for a Cure is comprised of
radio vignettes recorded by Long Island “heroes” and
aired on the four Radio Group stations from
September to December. The programming encourages
early detection of breast cancer through self examinations,
clinical examinations and annual mammograms.
To date, over $2.5 million in media value has been
aired in raising cancer awareness.

Huntington residents, Widmer and his wife Angela
have six children ranging in age from 14 to 2-yearsold:
twins Nick and Max, Jacqueline, Andrew, Tessa
and Thomas.

NETWORKING® January 2005