I’m sitting in DFW airport waiting on a flight to New York to attend another NAB conference that far too few radio people will be attending. Maybe I’m bitter because I’m finally at a point in my career where I’m being asked to speak at these conventions, but that low radio attendance makes me worry about the state of our industry. I get it, budgets are tight, everyone is in survival mode and watching every single dollar. So, it’s understandable why many broadcasters think it’s not worth the investment and the time away. But, now is not the time to sit on the sidelines. Our industry is at a critical point. More people are getting into our space with each passing day and we’re all grappling with how to ethically incorporate AI without letting it eliminate what little we have left at the local level. There’s still room for our industry to adapt and thrive, but we need to speed up now. Here are a few ways we can do that.
Add cameras and better lighting in every studio and every remote bag. It’s too affordable and easy to do now for radio stations to continue making excuses. I know we all like broadcasting in caves and wearing whatever we want, but cameras offer far too many benefits to continue without them. Making significant digital revenue requires significantly more digital content and the easiest way for radio stations to create more content is to video everything we’re doing audio-wise. That opens up the option to create reels for social or livestream at the click of a button and it makes everything more sponsorable.
Fully embrace AI technology. Everyone that works at a radio station, regardless of position or department, should already be using AI every single day. Learning to use this technology to make ourselves massively more efficient is the key to making sure it doesn’t replace us. Granted not all AI tools are created equal. So, it does require some research to make sure we’re using the latest/greatest, but it’s worth the time and effort. Plus, most AI powered services let us try it for free or low cost to see if it’s the right fit for exactly what we need it to do.
Every on-air personality should have at least one audio/video podcast. I get why some on-air talent are resistant to blog. Not everyone is a writer, although AI tools like Radio Content Pro can help with that. But, podcasting utilizes skills they’ve already learned. Yes, it does require them to get out of tight and bright mode and away from broadcaster voice. However, that’s an approach that works better on terrestrial now anyway. These podcasts can build on and expand content from their shows or have nothing to do with their shows and instead be built around something else they are passionate about. Podcasts are much more powerful than radio gives them credit for. There are podcasters who literally tour like rock stars. Podcasting is here to stay and all of radio has to get on board.
Partner with content creators and influencers at the local level. It’s ironic that we spend so much time fighting with our on-air talent to get them to create more digital content when there are people in virtually every local market doing it on their own. Identifying people who have good engagement locally and offering to partner with them or compensate them to create content on the station’s behalf is a no brainer. Some of them could even be trained to handle an on-air shift or could at least be incorporated into a show.
Overall, stop broadcasting like it’s the mid-nineties. We can’t embrace the future when we’re stuck in the past. Longing for and trying to recreate those bygone days is clearly the wrong approach. But, there is something to be said for bringing back some of the creative promotions and contesting we did back then and giving them a refresh using modern tools. However, that’s hard to do with stations that haven’t upgraded their equipment, processes or structure in thirty years.
What do you think? How has your operation sped up and what are you doing differently than you were a year ago? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.
Pic generated by AI for Freepik.com.