When we’re tasked with doing a live shift on a radio station, our main goal is simple, keep a portion of the audience tuned in a little longer than they intended. If we can do that we bring real, tangible…

One of the first lessons we have to learn as a programmer is to set aside our personal views and make decisions based on what our target audience is most likely to want to hear. That’s especially important if we…

Anyone who’s ever played sports on a really good team, or a really bad one, knows that it takes successes or failures in all areas to become either consistently dominant or consistently lousy. That’s why coaches across all sports are…

Today’s radio stations aren’t just graded on what’s coming out of the speakers. Although on-air is still the most important, it’s no longer enough to just win in that one phase of the business, we have to be competitive in…

When I’m working with brand new air talent, one of the first questions I get is ‘How long should I talk?” It’s an understandable question. After all, they’ve no doubt listened to on-air personalities across formats and dayparts that do…

Whenever I’m consulting a station on digital content the conversation generally starts with everyone throwing out a bunch of zany stunt-like ideas for silly things the on-air talent can go out and do to turn into video content. All of…

As close as we are to the business of radio, it’s easy to lose sight of just how magical listening to the radio can be for our passionate listeners. That’s why its so important that our on-air talent do everything…

The labor shortage in our country has been widely reported as of late, with a barrage of news stories touting headlines like ‘The Great Resignation’ and surveys published showing the percentage of workers who say they’d rather quit then return…

There are still a lot of my radio colleagues who look down on podcasting. Many within our industry think of it as just a hobby for people who don’t have their own radio show, or station. Even when you point…

Its easy for those of us who have been in the business for a long time to forget just how magical the experience of meeting that person from the radio can be for a loyal listener. Putting a face to…

I write a lot about how on air personalities should structure breaks, 5 Keys to a Successful Content Break, what kind of content they should choose, Choose On-Air Content You Can Add To, and what to avoid overdoing…

When stations are underperforming, either from a listenership or revenue stand-point, its typically clear to everyone involved that something needs to change. Generally, we all start by either making programming changes or tweaking the sales strategy and approach because those…

As a consultant I program in all the major formats and a few niche ones as well. To do this I have to keep track of a ridiculous amount of new music. So, to make that manageable, and most importantly…

Most on-air talent that have ever cracked a mic on a music station have one goal, to out-perform the music. They may not ever verbalize that goal, or even be cognizant of it, but the ambition is there none-the-less. We…

If you’re working harder than ever right now you’re probably doing it right. I’ve always been an advocate for finding a healthy work/life balance and working smarter not harder so we’re not spending twelve-hour days at the office multiple times…

One of the reasons I’m so adamant about on-air personalities creating digital content on a regular basis is because they start out with a huge advantage over everyone else. The terrestrial platform they’ve been given have helped them build up…

When most of us start out on-air, and once we’ve cleared the hurdles of being able to handle the basics, we typically default to choosing the content that we think everyone is supposed to talk about. By that I mean…

Radio is over a hundred-year-old media and through that century of growth and development we’ve gotten really good at doing one thing well, providing professional, high quality audio entertainment to the masses. So, it’s not surprising that its taking our…

There’s a documentary on Paramount + called Bring Your Own Brigade by filmmaker Lucy Walker. Its an excellent piece of investigative journalism that looks at the many reasons for the recent increase in deadly California wildfires. She chronicles the well-known…

When I’m throwing out content and engagement ideas to programming people the feedback I often get is ‘We love all of this, but we don’t have time to do half of them and if we did all of that, it…

With the push in recent years to keep air talent ‘out of the way of the music’ we’ve tightened and shortened on air breaks across the board on all formats. I understand the rationale for this and, in most cases…

Virtually every radio group I’ve talked to over the past few years wants their on-air staff to create more digital content. Which is understandable, creating digital content is simply part of the job for today’s on-air personalities and it has…

Over the years I’ve consistently attempted to come up with ways to make the stations I worked with the most engaging, interactive stations within their individual markets. On one hand that’s allowed me to come up with some creative innovations…

As a life-long Cowboys fan who’s been let down every season since 1996, I was just as ready as the next guy to see Jason Garrett move on. Despite having the best O-line in football for several years and a…