March 31, 2023

If you could change one thing that is trending in radio, what would it be?

Valentine, WBHT: Personalities  need to put things in perspective when trying to become social media stars and are trying to get all of these followers. Although some people are great at it, in some cases it can sound very forced. Allow things to develop organically and remain authentic, and your audience and followers will naturally fall into place.

Brian Check, iHeartMedia: Increased stop set length which is fueled by low-rate spots or promos longer than :30 seconds. Thankfully, there are some efforts to control it, but it still needs our attention.

Jonathan Shuford, WRVW: The consolidation of talent and programming that stretches everyone to be far less creative than they can be.

Matt Johnson, WPLW: Serving Wall Street.

Drew Heyman, WHYI: I wish pushing out so much of our content from our show to digital/social media wasn’t a thing. It messes up the algorithms.

Toby Knapp, WASH: Automakers don’t need to be considering taking away local radio on the FM band out of cars in favor of paid apps, streaming services, SATRAD and the like. It’s weird. Some seem to have this idea which says non-local wins… but I’d beg to differ. If it’s live – and targeted local – and informs and creates an escape and is a companion… it will win, right? You shouldn’t have to pay for that and frankly, talent – regardless of location – should deliver as such.

Randi West, WRMF: A.I.

Mike O’Donnell, WKRZ: Not tapping out our talent with too many brands to deal with at one time. We shouldn’t be diluting our top talent shows.

Orlando Davis, WLLD: No interns and no part-timers. Both approaches stifle any future of the industry.

 

Buster Satterfield, WIOQ: I agree with Orlando. Bring back the interns and weekenders. We need ‘em!

Rick Vaughn, KENZ: The aging of the Top 40 target listener. When did she go from 22 to 35? We’re not doing ourselves any favors here.

Adam Rivers, WKCI: The move away from local talent that can represent our brands and actually be in the community.

 

Guy Zapoleon, Zapoleon Consulting: Jon Coleman had a brilliant article this week about the concept of the Overton Window stating that as the edge of any content gets pushed further and further from the current norm of acceptable, the norm (and cool and edgy content) levels shift with the masses. He stated, “New innovations and platforms have shifted perceptions of music and spoken word media. But radio is not part of the discussion.” So after 20+ years of not addressing radio’s serious problem areas the desperate need for radio to invest in talent and live & local, aren’t enough to change Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s perception of radio. Radio needs to create dramatic and groundbreaking content and events that they own to impact the perceptions of the medium.

Java Joel, WHBC: There’s more people writing about how to improve radio, than there are people actually trying to improve radio. Less talk, more action. Start breaking stuff now. We have nothing to lose. The hell we waiting for?

Mike Klein, WZFT: I love to get back to more personality, driven shows, in all day parts!

Jammer, WEZB: I just wish Top 40 had more variety and big star hits!

Jon Zellner, iHeartMedia: The increasing age of our programmers and talent.

Lee Abrams, mediavisions: The trend toward sameness in formats, production, and delivery.

Jagger, KCHZ: Let’s fix the problems we’ve been living with the past few years. Instead of living under a cloud, let’s get together as an industry and address the problems. We all compete against each other, but we all care about each other as well.

Big Rob, KKPL/KMAX: I just miss local. And I miss having street teams to help get us out with the people who love us. I guess I just miss people. LOL

Dom Theodore, Radio Animal Media Strategies: Apathy.

 

Next Week’s Question Of The Week:
If you could manage any artist of any era, who would it be and what’s the attraction?
e-Mail your responses to: jodorisio@deanemediasolutions.com or bburke@deanemediasolutions.com