24 RADIOINK•COM MAY 6, 2019
Most people thought I was basically
there as a mole for my dad. We discussed
nothing about what happened while I was
working at Forever. Nobody believes that,
but it’s true. Even when we do announce-
ments now, observers think it’s all rigged.
Forever Media and Seven Mountains
Media/CapCity Communications are
separate companies. It’s hard to give the
credit my mentors deserve without people
thinking we’re the same company. But
there’s no way I could have done any of
this without their support and advice.Radio Ink: 2007 comes around, and it
sounds like there was a parting of the
ways.
Cantrell: They basically said, “You have
reached the pinnacle of what you can do
in this company.” I was restricted from
working with local clients, which really
gets me jazzed. I love to work with local
businesses, to evaluate their needs and
dreams, then put together marketing
strategies to get them where they want
to be.
I was handling all the regional/national
business for the company, which was 30
stations. They wanted me to stay in my
lane, which is fair enough. But I’m not a
stay-in-your-lane kind of person. I informed
them I was going to look for my next
opportunity and that I did not know if it
would take two weeks or 18 months. I said
I would be happy to train my replacement.
Donald told Gerald Getz, who at the
time was the CEO of Keymarket, based out
of Pittsburgh, that I was looking to leave,
and he called me. I went to interview and
he said, “I have a couple of opportuni-
ties.” I said, “Where do you need the most
help?” He answered, “Steubenville, Ohio.”
I said, “Let’s go look.”Radio Ink: So you moved to
Steubenville.
Cantrell: Yes, I took that job and ran the
group of stations there for five years. It’s
a rough-and-tumble market. I think I was
number six in a line of managers in three or
four years. The turnover was outrageous.
We had a good run. I moved there in 2007,
and then the bottom falls out of every-
thing, but we managed to keep the revenue
steady during those recession years.
I told the sales staff, “I realize six of our
car dealers closed in the last few weeksand that’s unnerving, but there is always
an opportunity. We have to focus on some
other categories. Steubenville has been in
a recession since 1987 or so, so it does not
matter to us. We’ve got this.”Radio Ink: The upbeat and positive
approach.
Cantrell: I was a cheerleader every day.
I loved my staff and the people I worked
with in the community, but it was a
brutal time for me professionally. I was
in my early 40s. My dad and I were hav-
ing dinner one night and he said, “Let’s
chat.” I told him I thought I was special
and I would be more by now. I had two
mortgages. My house in Altoona was
still on the market after five years. I
was really struggling. I was exhausted. I
guess you could call it my mid-life crisis.
He said, “You need to move on and get
your own operation, and I will help you
find it.”Radio Ink: So he helped you move on?
Cantrell: Dad is the king of identifica-
tion and acquisition. He’s unbelievable.
Looking at where properties are avail-
able that have a lot of upside or a hole in
the market and priced right. He’s done it
hundreds of times. He’s bought and sold
over 200 stations in the last 62 years.
He would show me the prospectuses of
places and introduce me to the broker
scene and how you look at properties.
Donald Alt calls me in 2011 and says,
“I hear you’re looking to buy some sta-
tions. Have you ever heard of Frankfort,
Kentucky?” I said, “Well, I know it’s the
state capital.” He said, “We own some sta-
tions there and we’ve grown them a bit
since 2007, but they need more attention.
They are far away from Bowling Green,
where we are based. If there was some-
one there paying attention every day, they
could do very well. I think you would love
Frankfort and Frankfort would love you.”
I went down to take a look, and he
was right. I love this area. Kentucky is
a wonderful cultural blend of the South
and North. They embraced me readily. I
moved here and bought the stations. That
was January 2012, and everything is going
great.Radio Ink: When you told the staff
after five years you were leavingSteubenville, what was that like?
Cantrell: There was a lot of crying. I
said, “You guys are in a good position,
just keep going. I will train the new per-
son, and if you need anything, call me.”
They did for about a year. Eventually,
they closed that office, about three years
ago.Radio Ink: So Kentucky was the first
group of stations you started this
company with?
Cantrell: Yes. We have two companies.
The Kentucky company is called CapCity
Communications. All the key people on
our leadership team (except Jim Loftus,
who joined us in November 2018) live in
Kentucky. Our chief programming officer,
JC Burton, was born and bred here. He is
fantastic and unbelievably talented. Our
chief creative officer, Dave Taylor, moved
here in 2014. He is a brilliant creative
strategist for our station and our clients.
My husband, Steve Cantrell, does a lot
of work with IT and websites and innova-
tion things like our Alexa skills. He’s our
videographer and photographer for our
Kentucky clients. He is the one who often
gets us back on the air, fixes the stream,
troubleshoots the copier, and helps staff
with their smartphones — endless prob-
lem-solver. It is an interesting “mom-
and-pop-and-the-guys” project.Radio Ink: How did Seven Mountains
get started?
Cantrell: It was 2014, and some sta-
tions came up for sale in State College
and Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Some
were owned by First Media and some by
2510 Associates. I worked in all those
areas when I was director of training and
national GSM for Forever.
I had a lot of connections in that area.
I’m actively engaged in whatever com-
munity I live in, so it doesn’t take long
for me to become entrenched. It’s impor-
tant to me and to the radio station; I’m
the face and the spirit of the radio sta-
tion. The broker calls and says, “These
two companies are ready to sell. Are you
interested?” I was a bit hesitant because
Forever owns stations in State College,
so I would be competing against them,
which is very uncomfortable for me. But
I knew what the upside was for those
stations.