John Jacobs has seen his radio business go worldwide in 60 years but says success lies in staying local.

"The biggest thrill is being able to see my family get involved and carry on the business with new ideas," said Jacobs, who was inducted into the Emmy Awards Gold Circle during the Southeastern Regional Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Awards on Saturday in Buckhead.

"There were 500 people there in the Grand Hyatt grand ballroom, and it was lovely. I had my four granddaughters and their mommas there as my guests."

Jacobs, board chairman of Jacobs Media, was inducted as a professional who has been a "vibrant, talented and contributing member of the broadcast community for five decades."

Jacobs said he "never really thought" about the television business while working in radio, but he was the first to bring cable to Gainesville.

"One of the moments that stands out is when we first did remote broadcasting when the First Baptist Church burned at the old location before it moved to Green Street," he said. "We were able to cover it, and it was the first time we had on-the-spot coverage."

Jacobs’ radio career began in 1949 when he founded radio station WDUN-AM and began operating the second FM station in Georgia. Today, the AM station airs a combination of locally produced and nationally syndicated talk shows. Jacobs passed the business on to his son, John W. "Jay" Jacobs III, about 20 years ago.

Jacobs is now completing a memoir about his career that will be published by Brenau University in November. Covering news locally is always a favorite memory, he said.

"My whole life has been local. I had the opportunity to go to New York early on and had a couple of job offers, but I decided to come home," Jacobs said. "I tried to devote my life to local news, and now my son and daughter carry on the tradition. In today’s business world, so many entities are owned by mega-businesses, so it’s nice to have the family touch."

But his children must now worry about how to replace their income through the online market, he said.

"What we were doing then on cable, we’re doing now with the Internet," said Jacobs, who started the online news site www.accessnorthga.com. "Local programs we do on the radio are now being seen worldwide, and that makes a whole difference for everybody working in media."

A combination of visual and audio elements are vital for the future of journalism, he said.

"Discovery is going to have to be brought about," Jacobs said. "Creativity is the key, and the ideas are wide open to build."