STATION EDITORIAL

Posted February 24, 2025

This is a station editorial, I’m Randal J. Miller, station president.

I want to take this time to brag a bit on our great staff in both Taylorville and Clinton that provide LOCAL radio each and every day.

The most recent example of that were our High School Road Tour in January, and our First Responders Road Tour in February, in both markets.

Our sales staff secured sponsorships to enable our programming staff to hit the road across our 12 counties and do live broadcasts from a host of high schools in January, along with Police and Fire Stations in February.

In January, our 2 news and information stations WTIM Taylorville and WHOW Clinton did a combined eleven live broadcasts from area high schools during each station’s respective Morning Shows.   Our programming staff interviewed the host high school principal, athletic director, Student Council president, and one extracurricular student representative find out all the great things happening at our local high schools.

In February, WTIM and WHOW did a combined eleven live broadcasts during our respective Morning Shows, from police and fire stations, visiting with those who put their lives on the line to protect us and keep us safe.

Our entire staff at both clusters of radio stations were involved in the sales, programming and scheduling of these live broadcasts.  Kudos to all of them for doing a record 22 live broadcasts of our Morning Shows from locations other than our respective studios, in just 2 months!

This is what LOCAL RADIO is all about:   Telling the story of each community!

Our radio group remains committed to telling the story of our great communities in the 12 counties our 2 radio station clusters serve.   That’s the legacy of LOCAL RADIO in our markets.  Our 2 heritage news and information stations WHOW and WTIM have a combined 151 years of service to Central Illinois.

We’re continuing our pledge to YOU to SERVE.   That’s our opinion, we welcome yours.   Our e-mail address is editorial@randyradio.com.

STATION EDITORIAL

Posted February 6, 2025

This is a station editorial, I’m Randal J. Miller, station president.  All signs point towards a growing economy in 2025 based on the figures released by several different organizations.

The Institute for Supply Management, one of the leading organizations that track industrial output and trends, reported U.S. manufacturing activity expanded in January after 26 consecutive months of contraction.   They added the Production and Employment Indexes Output was positive in January versus December showing companies are proceeding with growth plans.  

The U-S Bureau of Economic Analysis reported consumer spending was up almost 44-billion dollars in January reflecting an increase in spending for services that was partly offset by a decrease in spending for goods.  

Yet, there are still headwinds, the biggest being stubbornly high interest rates.  But, future trends are predicting a 2-percent inflation rate for 2025 which is the Fed’s benchmark.   If that 2-percent number holds as we head further into this year, it’s anticipated the Fed will provide some relief from high interest rates which will be good news for big ticket sales such as homes and vehicles.

It's a lot of information to ponder and predict what the 2025 economy will look like.  But, with certainty on who will be in charge in Washington, it’ll likely give some support to the country’s economic train.

My last observation is that despite there not being any talk on beginning to pay on the country’s 36-trillion dollar debt, I’m hopeful those discussions will begin.  Interest on the national debt is the single biggest expense the federal government has.  Both Republicans and Democrats have contributed to this problem in their quest to get re-elected.   At some point, we’ve got to have some sanity in government spending as 43-cents of every dollar they spend is BORROWED, mainly from China and Japan.

All points to ponder as head further into 2025.

That’s our opinion, we welcome yours.  Our e-mail address is editorial@randyradio.com.