Content creation should not only be thought of in regard to where people consume radio (audio) today, but also how they use the same content differently across many locations.

Today, all media is portable, forcing legacy media to make uncomfortable adjustments. Content creation should not only be thought of in regard to where people consume radio (or audio) today, but also how they use the same content differently across many locations.

Because of the strength of successful talent, those who are dominant and well known, bad behavior can lead to the loss of support from ownership and the audience, and no one wins. Situations like this have the potential to derail a career, cost a company advertisers and an audience, all while destroying a culture.

It’s not about poor performance; it’s about eliminating cost. Legacy talent are retiring rather than taking a pay cut. Positions are eliminated, and technology is activated to share talent across multiple markets. The fear of AI is real, and there will be human carnage. It seems as if it’s not a good time to be a talent.

Media will be in the thick of the celebration. A 24-hour special titled “Disney Celebrates America” will be broadcast across many of the Disney-owned and affiliated channels, including ABC. Country Radio and News/Talk are expected to be the biggest among the formats that will embrace this special occasion, although you will be hard-pressed to find any station that completely ignores the holiday and this once-in-a-lifetime event.

Because of the nearly even competition among broadcasters, competing today is often dependent on habitual listening developed in previous years, the longevity of your air talent, and the audience’s affinity for that talent. If your station has talent that serve as a cornerstone of the station, and the station is successful, then hang onto that talent.

The Alliance for Women in Media’s 2026 Gracie Awards Luncheon is today in Manhattan. For more than a decade, I’ve served as one of three Co-Chairs for The Gracie Awards. The Gracie Awards acknowledge creators, producers, and talent who develop content For Women, By Women, or About Women. In addition, I am honored to be a Special Advisor and a former Board Member of the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation.

The strength of audio has never been greater and utilized more to build brands, create images, attract an audience, and sell advertisers’ wares, products, and services. Creating content, as radio does, should universally evolve with multiplatform distribution in mind. Radio as an origination point magnifies audiences by being everywhere. It seems obvious that the way to compete with digital and one-point platforms is to be multiplatform.

Why do some storytellers create the urge to listen to their show every day, binge every episode of their podcast, search out short bytes on YouTube and follow them on social media? It starts with the way you tell a story, your delivery, and most importantly, that you know where you’re going when you start your story. It’s about using imaginative words, the pace with which you tell the story, and it’s about you as the storyteller understanding the message at its core.

There are a lot of opportunities for radio to take advantage of this summer. A record number of Americans traveled over this past weekend, with most choosing family road trips despite sharply higher gasoline prices. We’ll likely see similar travel and celebrations for the Fourth of July, as this Independence Day is America’s 250th Anniversary, and for the FIFA World Cup.

Jane Fonda called her ex-husband “ a gloriously handsome, deeply romantic, swashbuckling pirate.” Longtime CNN anchor Anderson Cooper described Turner as a “bold visionary with an unrivaled work ethic.” Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav noted that “Turner changed the industry with his vision of creative risk, cultural impact, and global reach.”

There are those stations who have little knowledge of how to maximize the interest advertisers have in buying digital, and there are those that insist that digital be a part of every ad buy that is closed. I’ve sat with sales leaders who aren’t sure of how much digital they have to sell, what it’s worth, or even how to traffic it when they do get a digital ad buy.

Radio has much to feel good about. Time Spent Listening is showing slight growth. A third of all audio consumption is owned by Radio (OTA and Streaming). That’s greater than all other audio sources. However, that 33% was 53% in 2014. Where and how the audience listens is also changing. Listening to radio via streaming was only 5% in 2014. That’s grown to 14% in Q1 2026.

Radio is present on demand via podcasts or on digital devices that store content. SiriusXM Satellite has been around for several decades now. There are many music channels on television and via cable distribution. Despite the acknowledged erosion of time spent listening, radio’s reach remains dominant among modern media.

The first: I spoke to state broadcast groups from Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky at the Tri-State Radio Show in Covington, KY, on “The Advantages of Locally Owned Radio Stations.” The second: a response to a Radio Ink column I authored about format changes and unrealistic expectations of broadcasters. Together, they fed the creation of this week’s column.

The biggest obstacle to success is that the level of noise from all forms of media is loud and getting louder. Whether radio, television, podcasting, social media, or live and on-demand streaming, the delivery method for content is vast and omnipresent. We have traditional receivers, wired and unwired, satellite, smart speakers, tablets, computers, apps, and mobile phones. Devices. Lots of devices on which to receive content. The choices for content are many. Free and subscri

What separates a business that merely survives from one that achieves legendary status?

Many Millennials, according to Dr. Twenge, experienced a ‘90s childhood of peace and prosperity, only to enter adulthood during the Great Recession. People started locking their car doors while driving. If you grew up as my children did, it meant we now had to lock our home doors … even during the daytime.

Country music is the format where the storytellers who write the songs are as successful as the stars who sing them. Few genres outside Country still do that today, but those that do, like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Olivia Rodrigo, are dominant because of it.

This trend is as much about the demise of radio as a venue for spoken word content as it is for podcasts’ growth in the format. It’s also about the necessity for radio stations to be more than a pure-play one-platform medium.

The use of high-profile on-air personalities isn’t a new trend to radio. The glory years of radio from the 1960s through the 1990s had many big names on-air. Talent who were known for generating big ratings. It is fair to note that the erosion of audience levels began in the mid-90s following deregulation, but it was the rapid consolidation of the early 2000s that found many air talent being eliminated. One would think that the best of the best would have been retained, but t

The Intercollegiate Broadcast System (IBS) is an organization that supports both college and high school media outlets and organizations. It was formed in 1940 and is a volunteer organization led by passionate educators and broadcasters who are engaged and passionate about student media. Some of the largest audiences I’ve spoken to have been at the IBS as student broadcasters attend from across North America and the world.

News bulletins interrupting programming have become almost commonplace on both multiple national and cable channels over the last two weeks. We’re all watching a real-life, real-time crime story unfold.

The time was different. Consolidation of radio stations under fewer owners was ramping up. The FCC changed limit rules and was in the process of changing how many stations you can own, and then expanded how radio markets themselves were defined, allowing for increased consolidation. The rating service was Arbitron and not Nielsen. The Portable People Meter was being tested in several markets and had not yet been fully launched. The times and approaches to operation were vastl