You can’t tell the story of Radio Lobo without Telemundo Nebraska. And you can’t talk about those without mentioning News Channel Nebraska.
Though they’re all separate outlets, they work together. And all the divisions of Flood Communications are tied together by their singular approach: A hyper-local focus that caters to the needs of specific communities.
“Our approach is hyper-hyper-hyper-localism,” said CEO Andy Ruback.
Flood built huge followings in Hispanic communities with Radio Lobo and Telemundo Nebraska as well as rural audiences with its statewide News Channel Nebraska and radio stations such as KSID in Sidney and Ol’ Red in Fairbury.
As the area’s largest media companies have scaled back on local content, Flood has focused there. They’ve hired local news reporters, given them cameras and pointed them at local communities. Hyper-local news, radio and social media all work together to create needed content that under-served communities crave.
And it’s worked.
“When you add us up across the platforms, we have more social media followers than any media company in Nebraska,” Ruback said. “Any of those micro things that a lot of companies don’t do any more, we do that every day for our underserved audiences.
Based in Omaha, Radio Lobo is one of the top radio stations in the area. And the Omaha and statewide Telemundo Nebraska offers news through its website and local news broadcasts in Spanish.
Through its media outlets, Flood Communications largely works with Hispanic audiences as well as rural audiences. And the way Ruback sees it, that’s nearly half of Nebraska’s population.
“We’re doing it in a local way and doing it at scale,” he said.
As the largest owner of broadcast stations in Nebraska, the company now has 26 radio and TV stations, creating content that reaches across the entire state of Nebraska. Among all its properties, there are 200 full- and part-time employees working at 11 offices across Nebraska.
Ruback treats it like a family company, and he boasts knowing every employee’s name. And having employees embedded in the communities they cover helps them serve their audiences better.
And while their employees are focused on doing their day-to-day business, the Omaha Chamber focuses on the larger business climate.
Ruback summed it up: “The Chamber watches our back.”
“The Chamber is watching the environment in which we’re doing our work. There are business issues happening in local, regional governments, and they’re the ones advocating for us, they’re the ones protecting us,” he said. “By ourselves, we can’t really do it. We need a chamber that is helping all of us together. We’re all better off because of it.”