Resolutions for a New Year

The New Year is always famous for resolutions, promises we make to ourselves, and those things we fantasize about accomplishing in the new year. All too often, like a gym membership, they’re forgotten by Groundhog Day. Not this year. This year, I’m sticking to my resolutions.

When it comes to resolutions for 2026, I want to listen more and talk less.

To attend more sessions than have meetings at conferences and seminars, which is a part of my continuing education. To learn as much as I can to better understand the impact of Nielsen’s change to using 3 Minutes as the qualifier for quarter-hour credit in PPM markets. To use what I learn to maximize the tricks of the trade made possible by the changes accepted by the rating service.

I resolve to continue to press broadcasters to be heard and seen on as many platforms as possible, and promote them as such to their audience.

The more impressions a station can generate the better positioned they will be to prosper as digital becomes a legacy medium. My respect for revenue generation encourages me to search out a group that will embrace impressions as the metric to be used by advertising agencies. Such a move would be great.

I want to expand my scope to encourage more broadcasters to take advantage of in-auto listening metrics from DTS by Xperi.

One view, and you can envision how real-time listening is a measurement that can be used to compete with digital. Encouraging more stations to utilize Quu is another resolution I am making. It’s a way to add the sense of sight to the audio that radio delivers. A resolution that all in radio should make is to own the center stack in the car and to earn the last listen of the day. That puts your station in a position for automatic listening when an in-auto listener restarts their vehicle. Apps; upgrading them.

One of my most important resolutions, at least to me, is to continue to mentor programmers and talent, encourage others to serve as mentors in a “Pay It Forward” sort of thing, and to become an even greater advocate for the charities that my family and I support. The Alliance for Women in Media, the Broadcasters Foundation of America, the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation, and those charities that help those who are less fortunate. There are charities like St. Jude Children’s Hospital and Children’s Miracle Network that save lives. They need our help. I resolve to enlist others to assist in their efforts.

It’s not about losing weight, stopping smoking, or eliminating unattractive vices. Resolving to be better at our business, being a part of the evolution of media, and using radios platform in helping others, requires commitment; and that’s more than a resolution.