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ABOUT WTS MEDIA* Location: 2841 Hickory Valley Road* Business: Produces CDs and DVDs* Customers: Religious institutions and groups, companies, music* Facility: 40,000 square feet* Quote: “It’s something that sets us apart. We have standards. I think God’s blessing our company.” — WTS Media President Michael Salley on not accepting music with explicit lyrics or material it considers anti-American.
For a business in a sector that's seen as challenging, WTS Media officials say the Chattanooga company that makes CDs and DVDs is the busiest it has ever been.
Sales are expected to hit about $8 million this year, and it has integrated a recent acquisition into its Hickory Valley Road operations and added about 20 employees since spring.
"We know CDs and DVDs won't last forever," says company President Michael Salley, while adding that the industry will last longer than many believe. "We continue to come out with new offerings. We have to continue to innovate and give whatever the customer is looking for."
WTS Media, which now employs about 70 people, has been in business since 1977. It was started by Salley's parents, Tom and Diane Frady.
Salley, 42, took over as president about 13 years ago at the 40,000-square-foot facility, working along side his sister, Marianne Mankin, who is a co-owner and sales manager.
"It's nice we both work here," Salley says. "We have each other's back."
The company starts from scratch, turning bags of polycarbonate pellets into discs using injection molding. It then transfers music, information or video onto the discs, he says. Also, WTS puts the printing onto the CDs and DVDs, as well as on the cases before packaging and shipping them.
"Now, we do the whole thing," Salley says. "Most of our competitors don't do that. What we discovered is when we do the whole thing, it can save the customer money and be more profitable for us."
CD and DVD production is a commodity business, he says.
"How do you differentiate? It's printing, price, service, turn time," Salley says. "You have to differentiate. That's what we did."
He says that business has been challenging with the trend toward online streaming offerings.
"The whole market has gotten smaller," Salley says. "The people who weren't as well capitalized, they had a tough time with it."
WTS Media's customer base includes a lot of religious materials for denominations and churches, Salley says. It also produces a lot of CDs and DVDs for marketing or manufacturing-related purposes.
While it does produce music discs, that's not the majority of its business.
"Music is where most of the downturn of the CD and DVD business is," Salley says, as people switch to digital. "It hasn't affected us as much as some of our competitors."
What the company doesn't accept is music or material with explicit lyrics or content it considers anti-American, Salley says.
"It's something that sets us apart. We have standards," he says. "I think God is blessing our company."
Salley expects sales to be about 10 percent higher this year. In May, WTS purchased Optical Disc Solutions in Richmond, Ind. That business was in a position of closing its doors and it contacted WTS, Salley says.
"We negotiated with [the owner], picked up his customer base. It was a good thing for his customers," he says.
Mankin says the acquisition has been "a good stretch for us."
"We had to think outside the box in some areas, which has been really good," she says. "It lets you take a look at your personnel. They like the challenge."
ODS had a lot of national accounts as well as international business, which WTS picked up.
"We're shipping to Malaysia, France, Mexico," he says. "We hadn't done much. We're doing a lot more international now, and some real big international customers."
Salley says that officials are talking about a bigger building, noting it has five acres of land at its Hickory Valley Road facility. It also rents some warehouse space off-site.