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A controller helps turn a plucky broadcasting start-up into an industry player.
How does an upstart company compete against the likes of General Electric Co. or the Disney Co.? That question runs almost daily through the mind of broadcast executive Larry Wills, and he admits that it takes guts to wake up every morning knowing he'll be battling giants. But the 38-year-old vice-president of finance and controller of Granite Broadcasting Co. remains undaunted. "Our spending limits aren't as grand as theirs, but we can still put out a very good product," he says, with the scrappiness of an underdog. "And that's what we've been doing."
In the nine years since Wills joined Granite, the country's largest AfricanAmerican-controlled broadcast company, it has gone public, bought six television stations-bringing its total to ten-and earned a reputation for solid local news and community service programming. Granite bought its second "top 10" station last summer with the acquisition of KOFY-TV in San Francisco, expanding the size of its advertising revenue pool to $1.5 billion and bringing its reach to 7% of the nation's households. The company also owns one radio station.
Black Enterprise magazine named Granite company of the year in 1995, and in 1998 the company reached number six on the magazine's Industrial/Service 100 List, ranked by gross sale. For 1998 net income reached $42.4 million-a 5% increase from 1997. "In 10 years, we've grown from two TV stations generating $30 million in revenue to 10 stations generating revenue north of$160 million," Wills says. "And we've got a lot more to achieve."
Wills' role in Granite's growth is finding operating niches. He comes up with better and cheaper ways to run stations. He has had to act quickly to keep up with Granite's acquisitions and the constant demands of shareholders.
PUBLIC PRACTICE FOREVER
Wills expected to devote his career to public accounting when Arthur Young hired him in 1982. "A lot of people say `I'll go into public accounting for two years so I can get my CPA certificate,"' Wills explains. "I never took that position." Instead, Wills, who is a CPA, chose to enter public accounting for the broad experience it offered. He started in the auditing department focusing on the oil and gas industries, then...