June is Black Music Month (BMM) and as such, On Point with Juandolyn Stokes welcomed the Founder and Editor of "Radio Facts," which began as emails to industry colleagues who shared his frustrations; now it is a popular website, which highlights, news, and information specific to radio industry professionals.
His initial career goal was to become a "world renowned singer" using radio to light his path. Instead his career began in the early 80s at Turtles Records, a popular Atlanta record store before he got his first on-air position at WIGO, where many Atlanta radio announcers got their start in radio.
Ross worked at several additional radio stations in Georgia before moving to Denver then to Los Angeles, which is the current home of Radio Facts.
Ross shared his thoughts about the State of Black Radio in which he said," Black Radio is in a state of flux in the sense that radio stations have to co-exist with podcast, and audio books; it has to figure out how to acclimate itself."
He added, "We have an incredible array of genres and forms it's hard to address, because radio has to stay on target to attract listeners."
Podcasts and audiobooks are certainly new genres of listening as they did not exist 40 years ago when we began to celebrate BMM.
Before, we just had Father's Day and BMM. Now it's Pride Month and Juneteenth. I think we are trying to kill several birds with one stone, he says.
Ross believes BMM is important to celebrate because it is something that has been undervalued, but he feels BMM has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle. "Maybe TV could get involved and create programming around radio," he adds.
Ross said, "BMM has shifted. There is a lot of freedom. We should consolidate. Each market should do something every week like vignettes, features, or Top 10's."
"We should celebrate it [BMM] and it should be separate," he adds.
According to Ross, the early influences of Black Music included: Berry Gordy, Sam Cooke, Sylvia Rhone, Doc Winters, and Quincy Jones.
What is also different from those early music influencers is "We don't have legacy artists today. It's about a hit," said Ross.
As for Ross, he settled on singing hits as a hobby instead of a profession.
