Mark Oppold Redirects His Career

Last April, Mark Oppold left full-time employment at RFD-TV after a nearly 30-year association with RFD-TV Founder and President Patrick Gottsch. Word around the farm broadcast industry was that he retired, but his wife, Kathi, said, “He didn’t actually retire. He just redirected.”  While leaving full-time employment, Oppold continues to perform hosting and reporting duties for RFD-TV at conventions and trade shows. Those duties have included two private one-on-one interviews with President Trump, which Oppold says are career highlights. Free of his daily duties, part of Oppold’s redirection is a reintroduction of a piece of his broadcast history.

“Wishing you a profitable day” is a tagline Oppold popularized in the early 1980s when he produced a market program called The Helming Report. When the company discontinued the reports, he renamed the program The Bottomline Report and continued producing the program for another 10 years, including time with Doane Broadcasting. During his time with The Helming Report, Oppold also recorded a video version of the program and fed it daily to a new agricultural television network that had just started in Omaha – RFD-TV. Eventually, he joined RFD-TV full-time in late 2008, when he helped launch Market Day Report, and later was part of the team that put Rural Radio on the air on Sirius/XM Channel 147. Oppold also anchored the popular Rural America Live call-in programs. All this time, his radio program laid dormant and out of mind. But upon his decision to “redirect” last April, Oppold tested the idea of bringing back the program with farm broadcasters and producers. He secured initial support and commitments from radio stations; and in late October, The Bottomline Report returned to the air for the first time in nearly 20 years. Oppold explains it is not a market report but rather a market commentary with observations of current conditions and intermediate-to-longer-term strategies he hopes are helpful to producers. The report also includes periodic comments on outside markets like crude oil, precious metals, the stock market, and currencies – whatever is moving the market at that particular time. Oppold works with two to three firms providing the information, in addition to leaning on his 45 years of market reporting, to write and voice the script each day. “I can’t tell you the satisfaction and blessing that comes with putting this information back on the air and uttering those closing words again each day,” Oppold said. He added, “Susan Littlefield at KRVN (Surprise, Nebraska) summed it up best when she simply said, ‘It’s good to have you back on our air again!’” After just three months on the air, the program roster already includes more than 50 stations. The report is offered free of charge. There are no commercials in the program. Opening and closing tags identify supporting sponsors. A pause in the middle allows the local station to add a commercial if they desire. Oppold said he hopes that makes it a win-win partnership. The report runs 1:30 minutes and is emailed daily around 7:30 a.m. CT. For more information, contact Mark Oppold at  markvmediagroup@gmail.com or 913-638-2611.