Good Golly, the Folly of Losing Miss Dolly

Didja hear that Dolly Parton died a couple of weeks ago?  Of course you did.  Everyone did.  Her family released the news and it owned pop culture for several days.

I enjoyed the back-and-forth between people believing radio did a good job with it and those who feel we missed the mark.  From my listening, we mostly did good.  But I’m not hearing everyone.  One show I heard played “9 to 5” at 7:20, came on after, and told me what I already knew.  Yikes.

Can we pause for an unsponsored Steve Story® that starts with my least favorite phrase “back when I was on the air”?

Back when I was on the air, a big story broke the night before.  We had an intense general manager who was just coming out of a sales meeting (bonus tension there).  He stopped by the desk of my partner and me and asked what we did with that topic that morning.  I said, “We talked about it at 6:50.”  He said, “Well, I didn’t get up until 7:00.”  Then I said, “Well, get up fu$#ing earlier.”

No, I didn’t say that.  But I did think it.  Because I was a cocky know-it-all morning guy.

The super-smart GM then reminded us how listeners use radio.  They all come at a time that works for them and only stay for a short while.  His point was that we do a series of 15-20 minute shows and those who weren’t there from 6:50-6:54 had no idea we had a take on the big story of the day.

I have never forgotten that encounter and remind shows I work with who use this excuse to try and convince me they “were on it!” that I can’t give them relevance credit for what I don’t hear them do.

Same for Dolly.  Great shows were on it a lot over a few days.  Her unexpected passing was everywhere and near everyone felt emotionally connected to her, compelling us to find many treatments of that highly relevant topic.

Here’s my point:  when you have an all-consuming topic (like Dolly or the 25th anniversary of 9/11), we must, as content creators, come up with things to do that fit your brand and reflect your take.

The riveting things I saw and heard around 9/11 were all new.  It’s easy to do “where were you when” or relive that day.  But that’s lazy and we must be better than that in the Attention Economy to hold fans through the content.

It’s on us to come up with tons of camera angles so it’s not simply conveying information.  And that begins and ends with you.  The rabbit hole appeared on Dolly.  Know how I knew?  Besides it being all over social media feeds because of the algorithm, Apple Music and Spotify shared that people streaming her music was up 2840%.  That ain’t a typo and indicates to us the topic is huge and we must come up with many ways to align with it.

Great breaks start at your curiosity.  What do you know and what do you wonder about that big topic?  Did you fall down the rabbit hole and read all that you can to stimulate your imagination?

Here are five things I came up with that would have created more Dolly-centric content:

  1. Finding listeners who’d met her and having them on to tell their stories.
  2. Her Imagination Library is in almost every town. Having on the person who runs it.
  3. Doing a fundraiser of money or used books to give to the local Imagination Library.
  4. Doing a mass singing of Jolene with co-workers in the studio.
  5. Convincing three local drag queens dressed as Dolly, of course, to stand on a bridge with signs telling people in cars below to turn on your show.

How’d I do?  If you thought on any of them, “Damn, I wish I’d have done that,” then my point resonates with you.  Spend more time on prep or, if you do, change how you to it to come up with more camera angles.

I’m also open to that every one of those ideas could suck to you.  It’s very possible I went 0-5.  Then I’d ask, give the enormity of that topic two weeks ago and the subsequent conversation about whether radio did well or not, what are your ideas?

I wonder so that your show isn’t just a break or two and your fans don’t miss all that relevance.

Radio’s strength is to emotionally connect with whatever is going on right now.  But understanding how we’re used – as a series of 15-20 minute shows when a big topic appears – is critical to securing an image that you’re relevant.  You’ll then be more efficient meeting listeners where they are when that happens and when they tune in.

Dolly’s probably done as a topic.  Ditto the anniversary of 9/11.  But something else will appear soon that will be everywhere and own the news cycle.  To do one or two content breaks when that happens is a mistake.  What will your game plan be so you can do lots of breaks and be in the rabbit hole just like your listeners so your creativity and curiosity fuels your content?

The Monday Morning Free Idea page might help you here.

“No” Is a Complete Sentence

Several years ago, when Hubbard wanted to transition mornings on the iconic The Drive in Chicago, they asked me to help identify and launch a show.  It was a bit of a needle-thread because the daypart had been driven almost solely on music images.  But Hubbard knows how to build media brands, so they were all in on being strategic.

We had our sights set on Sherman and Tingle.  They’d done some time on Q101 in the market and had chemistry.  Steve Tingle and I had worked together before, so we knew each other.  In my conversations with Brian Sherman, I discovered something that made his hire an automatic yes.  In between radio gigs, he worked for his home city picking up trash in the morning.  That real life experience made him an interesting person to me.

The reason Brian interested me wasn’t because he was collecting trash.  It was because he had a life.  He had experiences outside of radio and interacted with people consultants and programmers never meet.  He had stories, perspective, and empathy.  Ditto Steve Tingle who survived a brain tumor.

I read a lot of radio advice where talent are implored to do even more to protect their jobs.  I understand why.  But at some point, we must ask what that “more” is costing us.  Where will the balance come from to keep our talent both interesting and protect their mental health.

Radio says to do more.  But more isn’t always better to create interesting people who have interesting lives.  Mental health matters, relationships matter, and creativity needs replenishment.

Which brings me to maybe the two most important words you’ll ever learn in a business that constantly asks for more:  say no.  And make it a complete sentence.

That’s no to another volunteer committee.  No to checking email at 11pm.  No to another appearance request.  No to another podcast.  No to another social media post.  And no to sacrificing your kid’s soccer game for a meeting that could have been an email.  Especially if it creates space for you to have interests outside of radio.

Saying no is hard for many of us in radio – an industry that wants us to do more.  Why?  Because we’re pleasers.  It’s almost impossible for me to say no to anyone in the industry who needs something.  When we rarely say no, our entire worlds – professional and personal – get out of whack.  Say no too much and that will certainly impact you.  But having your worlds in alignment makes for happy, productive people.

In my previous blog, My Love to Valentine, I shared the phrase “emotional hygiene”.  Where does yours come from?  What big or small things do you have in life that give you that balance, make you a more interesting person to be around, and create a more “whole you”?

Those who know me are aware that I officiate high school basketball in my hometown.  Officiating gives me a mission that has nothing to do with ratings, social media metrics, or coming up with another idea.  It gives me balance.

I am in leadership and working on creating a stronger organization and financial future for officials who come after me.  It’s quite rewarding.  That’s my jam.  What are yours?  And what should you say no to at work to create that space to find or do them for yourself?  We must.

How we do that is important.  It’s not no “because I’m not getting paid to do that.”  Or no “because it’s not in my job description.”  It’s no because I need space to be a real person in life – to find things outside of this industry that fill my cup with pleasure and happiness.

“No” is a complete sentence.  When we get there, we’ll be healthier mentally, preserve our relationships outside of radio, continue to have a better, more satisfying life, and become better talent.

Radio needs talented people.  But we only get that from mentally healthy people.  The goal isn’t to become less committed to radio.  The goal is to become more committed by having a life worth talking about on the air and the emotional hygiene that makes it worth living.

And to get there, it might just take an occasional no.

My Love Letter to Valentine

Valentine, Nebraska is a town of just 2,640 people.  It’s surrounded by bison in Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, home to Nebraska’s highest waterfall, receives 38-inches of snow a year, has a median home value around $149,000, and is just 2.6 square miles.

Mike and Kim Burge own KVSH 940AM in Valentine.  I met them while in Lincoln, presenting to the Nebraska Broadcaster’s annual convention last week.  They were absolute delights and radiated pride for the radio station they own, manage, and are on.

Spend five minutes on industry websites and you’ll find news about layoffs, consolidation, endless debates about our industry’s “monetization challenges” (thank you Bob Pittman for the re-frame) and radio’s future.  Spend five minutes with Mike and Kim Burge and you’ll remember why radio still has a future.

Mike McVay and I were asked by Jim Timm and Jenna McKain, both with the Nebraska Broadcasters Association (NBA for short – go have fun with that!), to do the programming sessions this year.  We both marveled at the energy we found.

We sat next to each other at their Hall of Fame banquet.  Mike knew one of the four honorees.  I knew none of them.  But at the end of every speech, I fought back tears at the pride in the room as each celebrant thanked their families and those they met along the way in broadcasting that helped them be immortalized.

When I was young, I wanted nothing more than to get to the Big City.  As my coaching career matures, I’m increasingly amazed by how radio is done in markets few of us know and by people whose names we’ll never hear.  Mike and Kim (and the many like them) will never be mentioned in RAMP or Inside Radio nor profiled on Barrett Media (hey Jason – profile these people!).  But they still have inside of them the thing we all felt when we got in the business.

I’m lucky to coach shows in smaller markets.  They have a commitment to growth and their talent in ways you’d never know.

Mike and Kim Burge aren’t outliers.  Across the country, I see and work with broadcasters in smaller markets making the same commitment:

  • Fort Myers Broadcasting and Sun Broadcasting in Florida know that without talent, they can’t make money. Mark Gilson and Jim Schwartzel are deeply committed to live and local all day and the growth of their people.
  • Jay Chapman owns Woof Boom Radio in Muncie, Indiana. We recently put a two-hour talk show on their oldies station as a differentiator in the marketplace.  The show’s goal is to “elevate and celebrate Madison County”.  Woof Boom’s mantra is “we use our voice to build and connect our community.”
  • And kudos to Kurt Johnson, Jared Willig, JB Wilde and their team at Townsquare. I get to work with live and local shows for them in markets like Binghamton, NY, Portsmouth, NH, Rockford, IL, and many others.  Shows that know that live and local ain’t just a marketing slogan.  They live it and take care of their communities in ways that’d shame many larger markets.

KVSH 940AM, Valentine, Nebraska makes me long for those glory days of radio when we all did it for the right reasons – in every market size.  It’s still being done like that in many places we don’t pay attention to.  Visit KVSH’s website and you’ll see they have everything from obituaries to agricultural news to a trading post, where someone needs to get rid of a piano in very good condition (yours if you haul it away – call Cody) and someone is selling a galvanized chicken feeder for $25.  Quaint, cute, and very about the community.

Meeting Mike and Kim, going to the NBA’s Hall of Fame dinner, and doing the work with the companies I noted above is emotional hygiene for me.  It reminds me that, while corporate-owned radio stations can sometimes serve up bad news and taint our perception of our own industry, there are so many people in markets we know nothing about who are truly committed to their communities.

Sometimes the future of radio isn’t found in a conference keynote, a consultant’s deck, or a corporate strategy session. Sometimes it’s found in a town of 2,640 people, on an AM station, where two owners still believe their job is to serve a community.  That’s where radio’s soul resides.

Spend time with people like Mike and Kim Burge.  You’ll remember why you started.  And you might just remember where radio’s future really lives.

Dig Deep, Be Original

If one of radio’s superpowers is connecting with the audience, let’s talk about how that grows over time.

Traditionally, we look at character development in a very linear fashion.  Steve’s married; Steve has dogs; Steve is an NC State fan.  For new shows, this is a safe place to start.  Minus a formed relationship with an audience, this gives you the broadest appeal to form a connection with listeners.  That’s where any of us would be if we met someone at a party.  “Do you think State will win ten football games this year,” is a great way to begin a conversation.

There are wonderful human connections in those stories.  Those give the audience an entry point to getting to know you.  That’s Character Development 101.

But true connection, a requirement as a show matures, requires much deeper levels of vulnerability.  As I talk with talent to nurture their relationships with fans, we focus on the F’s:  fears, failures, and flaws.  Those unpolished parts of your life – the things that did not go according to plan – make you human.  When you dig deep, you become more of an original.

The audience doesn’t want a flawless hero.  They want a real person.

Being vulnerable doesn’t mean turning every break into a therapy session, oversharing private details of your life, or manufacturing false drama.  It means having the courage to acknowledge how messy your life is so listeners can get to know you there, too.  Because that’s all of us.

My friend, Sam Milkman, who works for Coleman Insights, told me once of a talent he worked with who ended every break, “I’m Christian, and I have a lot of personal problems.”  That’s quite disarming and deepened the connection between him and his audience.

Polished can earn admiration.  Social media is an endless parade of perfection.  The perfect meal, the perfect outfit, the perfect social life.  It’s the persona those we follow want us to see.  Perfection creates distance, though.  Unpolished earns trust.

Failures, flaws, and fears (mistakes, embarrassments, regrets) have tension, uncertainty, lessons, humor, and humility.  Some tips as you go there:

  • Share the lesson, not just the wound. A story about a mistake becomes valuable when it gives the audience something to recognize in themselves.
  • Be specific in your storytelling. “I was nervous before that job interview” is fine.  “I sat in the parking lot for ten minutes before going into that meeting because I was convinced I didn’t belong there” is human.
  • Don’t wait for the perfect ending. Life’s not perfect.  But do tell me what you learned about yourself from the experience.
  • Let your flaws co-exist with your strengths. The confident personality can still admit insecurity.  The funny co-host can have a bad day.  The successful person can express doubt.
  • Make room for imperfections in your content. When talent admit a misstep without pretending it didn’t happen, listeners get permission to be imperfect, too.

The goal is to become more recognizable to the audience.  Because the deeper a listener sees themselves in you, the more durable the connection becomes.

Give an F:  show your fears, failings, and flaws to the audience.  Besides the standard attributes, know your weaknesses, too.  Because the things we try the hardest to hide are often the very things that make us worth hearing.

In a world overflowing with image management, digging deep may be the most powerful way to stand out as an original.

Radio’s Culture Wars and the Big Bleed Out

In the 90s when I programmed WRAL-FM, there were some seminal learning moments that have stuck with me for decades.  Things that shaped how I coach talent today.  Let me share one of them.

Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting was a progressive media company.  The owner, Jim Goodmon, believed in several core things which is why the broadcast properties always excelled:  hire the best people, treat them well, and invest in growing their leadership skills.  That investment in the people paid dividends.  The company believed if I got better as a manager, my people would be challenged, happy, and in growth mode, too, and help make the company more successful.

I got to choose yearly leadership training.  One year, I went to the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, NC and took a three-day course on how leaders must adapt in the face of change.  They ran us through several exercises and then put significant change in all of them to see how we’d adapt.  I learned much.

The most thought-provoking included identifying those who reported to me prior to arrival.  The Center surveyed them in two areas:  what leadership attributes are most effective to motivating you as an employee?  And evaluate Steve against those principles.  Kinda like a mini focus group on Steve.  It was all quite fascinating to see me from their perspective and learn from the CCL how to adjust to be a better leader.

The previous Planet Reynolds, I Need This Job:  The Creativity Killer, focused on this.  Radio’s biggest problem is not just its revenue issues.  Bigger than that, it’s the deteriorating culture and fear that permeates everything.  You must fix that to fix the revenue issues.  Because wherever there’s a shitty culture, the best, brightest, and most innovative players (aka the ones who are best equipped to help a manager fix their problems), will leave first.

So, who’s confident enough to do a focus group on their own culture for some honesty to fix what might need to be repaired?  If you’re a curious manager, programmer, or leader of a show, read on because I’ve made this easy.

I’ve put together a short survey you can steal and send your people to assess your culture.  A link is below.  Grab every question and re-create it in Survey Monkey or Google Docs.  This is kinda like your yearly physical.  Your doctor does blood work then shares results that are off so you can adjust what you do to be healthier.

Promise your people and me a few things?  Assure them this is completely anonymous so they can/should be very honest.  There might be a tendency to deny what you see, justify why something is off, or (worse) blame outside forces.  But real leadership is about responsibility and accountability.  Standing up, acknowledging the honest results, then being committed to making any necessary changes to fix what’s off in your culture would be powerful.  It might also help you keep those employees who can help you.

Here are the questions you’ll find in the survey along with why some of them are included.  Completely steal it (link below).  You’ll then get better because you not only listened to your people, you heard them.

  1. How would you rate the overall culture of our station/cluster?
  2. How valued do you feel as an employee?
  3. Do you believe station leadership genuinely cares about employees as people? (This is the most important question because if they don’t feel like the leader cares about them as people, they run.  People will tolerate a lot of challenges when they feel seen, respected, and valued.  When they don’t, they’re scanning the horizon for something else.)
  4. How comfortable are you sharing concerns, ideas, or disagreements with management? (A culture isn’t healthy because people aren’t complaining.  It just may mean key people have given up.  A culture is healthy because people feel safe enough to complain.)
  5. When problems are identified, how confident are you that management will address them?
  6. Do you see a future for yourself at this company (station) over the next two years?
  7. How often do you feel recognized or appreciated for your contributions?
  8. If offered a comparable job elsewhere tomorrow, in or out of radio, how likely would you be to leave? (If more than 25% answer “likely” or “very likely”, your culture will leak talent before you realize it.)
  9. What is the one thing management could do, besides raises, that would improve our culture?
  10. What is the one thing about our culture we should protect and never lose?

This has nothing to do with the company you work for.  It has everything to do with managers and leaders in the building locally.  The most dangerous workplace isn’t the one where people are speaking up.  It’s the one where they’ve stopped.  Let’s be confident enough to ask, and competent enough to act on all of it.  Leaders do that.

The purpose of my doing this for you isn’t to prove you’re doing a good job.  It’s to discover where you can do a better one.  The stations that win the talent war (and by “talent” I don’t mean just the on-air people) won’t necessarily have the biggest budgets.  They’ll be the ones that create a culture where good, smart people want to stay and great people want to come.

Find the full survey to steal/recreate here.  If you want a PDF of the questions and answers to make this on your own, download that here. 

Do this and those you work with will know you care enough to have a great workplace. And know that I’ll be privately cheering you for caring about your culture to ask.

I Need This Job: The Creativity Killer

Tuesday, June 16, 2026, approximately 1:15pm.  I’m in the middle of a creative talent coaching session with a show then a cast member lays this on me:  “I’ll do it because I need this job.”

It was a gut punch to hear.  They weren’t moving forward with an idea because it was sound, strategic, entertaining, or memorable.  But because they needed the job and they didn’t want to rock the boat.

Fear is an absolutely shitty place from which to make creative, artistic decisions.  But that’s where we are.

Much of what I do is remove fear from rooms.  An idea appears that might get us talk or an image that we’re original around relevant content.  But a show doesn’t want to do it.  Why?  Maybe because they don’t know how, maybe because they disagree, and maybe because they’re scared of what could happen.

Then iHeart offs hundreds of people with smaller companies adding to that number and, once again, to our creatives on whose shoulders rest the kind of radio that works best, more fear.

The Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud once said, “Fear is the path to the dark side.  Fear leads to anger.  Anger leads to hate.  And hate leads to suffering.”  Freud didn’t say that.  Yoda did.

Fear kills creativity and culture.  We must address the fear with a laser focus.

I cannot speak to radio’s financials.  I’m not that smart despite taking accounting in college (I got a D+).  I don’t understand it all.  I do know that fear courses through the veins of our talent and that, dear friends reading this, leads to failure all the time.

Who’ll take that fear away?  Well, good reader, that’s on us all.  Here are things Stevie Wonders®:

  • If you’re in corporate and participate in these conversations, do you owe it to the survivors to have an open forum where they can ask any questions, so they understand this better?  Stepping into the arena means you will take a few punches.  But many are angry from their fear.  Having that open forum could bring short term pain but rebuild trust with those who remain.  If not, we’ll get public corporate statements like this to justify the RIFs (aka terminations):  “We’re always looking for ways to maximize our verticals for efficiency that bring a heightened experience to our audiences.”  Huh?  WTF?  The cynicism deepens as a narrative is affirmed you DO NOT CONTROL, which is NOT GOOD for any of us.  There are companies where this happens when these decisions are made.  How straight can you be with everyone so they can help solve the challenge?  Knowledge and transparency past “we have revenue issues” builds trust.
  • Part of being a leader is being with people. It’s on all of us (not just someone in a managerial position) to listen to those who are scared. You don’t do that by having Panera once a month so everyone can have a free lunch in the conference room.  The very best managers I’ve worked with over the years have EQs off the charts.  Do much more of that.  And if you’re not a “people person manager” learn those skills and/or find those who can.  Our future depends on it.
  • For God’s sake let’s all of us pay attention to those whose passions and livelihoods we’re just taken away from them. They may say on Facebook what a pleasure it was to work there or remind us that you’re bound to be fired in this industry (an awful way to think, but I get it).  Wonder what those people are really thinking in bed at night, fearful about their future in a contracting industry, if they’ll be able to afford their gas or rent, and what happens if they get sick.  We really need to show leadership and be with them.

If there is one skill worth mastering, let it be making people feel heard and valued.  Your words, energy, and presence leave a mark long after the moment is gone.  Most people are fighting this battle and we cannot see it, because they might be too proud to admit it.  Be the person who leads, inspires, listens, and uplifts the survivors and those who lost their jobs and those with fear.  The greatest gift you can give these people is reminding them of their worth.

The “I need this job” people remain and the only way to fix our substantial issues is to not complain about the industry and reference it as though it’s circling the drain, but to do the hardest thing possible and be with people who are impacted – and that is on us all.

Life’s about seizing control.  We can all do that.  A prominent show in a prominent market at a radio station all of us have wanted to work for in our careers just asked for some professional advice.  I told them to find someone who’ll help put together a business plan moving forward where they can create income streams with their talents in other ways than radio only.  Doing that puts you in control of your future.  I say this from personal experience – once you do that, your self-worth is affirmed and you’ll thrive in ways you cannot comprehend today.

The most troubling thing I’ve heard in the last few weeks wasn’t, “Hundreds of people were laid off.”  It was, “I’ll do it because I need this job.”  Fear has never created great radio.  Great radio comes from curiosity, from conviction, and from people willing to raise their hand because they are fearless.  Talent are protecting their jobs – which means the radio they do becomes forgettable.

Each of us have a choice.  Let’s commit to listen more, to explain more, to encourage more, and to lead more by making our people feel safe.  When we do, they create.  And when they create, they connect.  And connection is still the most powerful thing radio has ever done.

Do it for them.  And do it for you.

The Day My City Wept

The Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup and there’s a vibe shift in my hometown of Raleigh, NC we should never lose.  People are smiling at strangers.  Car horns aren’t expressing frustration, they’re celebrating.  Social media isn’t filled with arguments.

People are weeping with happiness, and radio needs to create that local pride every day.

People who have nothing else in common are connected by a shared feeling.  The Carolina Hurricanes were celebrated with a parade 150,000 people attended.  They didn’t just win the Cup.  They reminded an entire community what it feels like to be part of something bigger than themselves.  Everyone has new best friends.

My message in this week’s Planet Reynolds is that radio has the power to do that every day.

Often, we see ourselves in the entertainment business.  And most days we are.  But we’re also in the belief business.  Think of that big service project you did to support a cause important to you.  You had to move fans into the belief business to get that done.

Every day, we decide what matters.  We help listeners choose what to care about.  We help shape how they feel about where they live.  If we spend hours every day talking about what’s broken, we’re teaching the audience what to believe about the community.

But if we spend hours every day celebrating local people, local victories, local traditions, and local pride, we’re teaching them something else.  We’re teaching them that this is a place worth loving.

I live in a market with Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, and NC State.  We have seen championships before.  But this one was different.  It bonded the community like nothing I’ve seen in my decades here.

Often these feelings of joy live for a short while.  A team wins, you celebrate, then a few days later it dissipates.  I wonder what it would be like for all of us to make a longer-term commitment to celebrating where we live.

The negativity industry is thriving.  Algorithms reward outrage.  Cable news loves division.  Social media radiates conflict.  Everywhere we go, someone or something is telling us what should make us angry.

Radio has an opportunity to do something different, because you control how listeners feel by what you do.  There might be problems, but there are also victories.  Yes, there’s conflict, but there’s also kindness.  There certainly is division, but there’s also community.

Sometimes the most rebellious thing a personality can do is make people feel hopeful.  It’s like running in the opposite direction from everything else we experience.

No one can tell the story of your town better than you.  Nobody can celebrate local heroes better than you.  Nobody can create pride in your community better than you.  This is not about putting on your show a Thursday feature called Hometown Heroes and ticking that box.  It’s about making a wholesale change in your content to always be the champions of your city.  A vibe that permeates everything.

When the Hurricanes won, the great radio stations of Raleigh didn’t just report it.  They amplified what it meant to be a community experience.  When they won 20 years ago, the celebration was them parading in the parking lot of the arena where they played (true!).  When the Hartford Whalers moved here 30 years ago, they said hockey wouldn’t work in the south.  This time, 150,000 showed up to the streets of downtown Raleigh to express their love for what the team did for us.  And the team responded in kind.

The best personalities become the emotional mayors of their communities.  They celebrate what deserves celebrating.  They shine a bright spotlight on those who make a difference.  They create moments where listeners feel connected to one another.  They don’t tune in just for a laugh, but because they’re desperately in search of something that makes them feel good about where they live.  You can help them see their hometown through a better lens.

Do you need a winning team like we have in Raleigh or in New York when the Knicks won?  Nope, you just need to access the passion you have for your town, then make that content commitment to your fans.

If we committed to making daily moments of civic pride, what might that be like?  One story, one local hero, one example of generosity, one reason to feel grateful.  Imagine the cumulative effect if you did that five days a week, 52 weeks a year.  Not just to build ratings and revenue.  But to build belief. Because when people feel connected to their community, they become happier citizens, better neighbors, and more engaged participants in local life.  And if you did that, how might you be celebrated?

Build that community and radio becomes more than a source for content.  It becomes an epicenter for connection.

The roar coming from Raleigh wasn’t really about hockey.  It was about identity, it was about belonging, and it was about thousands of people sharing the same feeling at the same time.  That’s why we wept.

Radio has always possessed that same superpower.  The question isn’t whether we can create those moments.  The question is whether we’ll become intentional enough to use them.

Because in a world that’s constantly telling people what’s wrong, great talent can still remind them what’s right.   And that might be the most important job we have.

You game?

Donald Trump and the Attention Economy: Steal from Him to Stay Top-of-Mind

Several years ago, I was invited to attend a gathering of Hubbard programmers.  Traditionally when programmers of any company gather, it’s time to learn.  One of the teachers that day, besides me, was Fred Jacobs.

Fred gives a great presentation and something he said that day has stayed with me for years:  Donald Trump would have been an amazingly successful program director because he knows how to command our attention and create talk.

The previous Planet Reynolds (Steve Wants to Sell You a Horse) noted how we are in the Attention Economy now.  Everywhere we turn, something is vying to capture our attention.  I’d mentioned in that piece that often what I hear on radio shows is pleasant people having pleasant conversations about perfectly acceptable topics.  We don’t try hard enough to capture and keep the attention of our listeners.  By not doing that, we create the circumstances where something else will.  That’s one of the reasons TSL is abysmal.

So, Steve got to thinking!  I noodled on this question:  what does Donald Trump do that makes all of us, regardless of whether we love or hate him, stop to pay attention?  And what can we take from that to get better so our fans don’t leave?

Here are the ten items I landed on with applications of how they might work for you.  I’m not advocating you start talking about politics or culture-war issues.  But seizing on some of his techniques noted here up against the topics appropriate for your show might create more energy where listeners will stay longer or come back because you’re electric.  Because tension equals attention.

  1. He frames everything as a fight. Everything is a battle:  winners and losers, there are always stakes.  He knows that friction magnetizes attention.  For you:  think about how you frame things.  For instance, you can say, “Let’s talk about tipping in America.”  Or you can say, “If one more person asks me to tip them, I’m going to drive my car into a building.”   Which is more attention-getting?
  2. He uses memorable labels. He knows how to brand everything with sticky shorthand.  Fake what?  Crooked who?  Sleepy who?  It’s all mental Velcro.  For you:  naming what you do is highly memorable.  Labels are remembered faster.
  3. He talks in simple language. He uses short sentences and everyday words with a punchy rhythm with his barstool voice.  For you:  if the sentence sounds like it belongs in an email from corporate, kick it out.  We’re just in the car chatting.
  4. He repeats the message relentlessly.  He knows that repetition builds memory and memorability builds identity.  Because repetition is branding.  For you:  never fear over-teaching anything by repeating yourself.  A catch phrase or a core belief of the show said over and over helps it cut through.
  5. He creates moments designed for reaction. Reaction fuels attention.  Attention fuels coverage.  Coverage fuels reach.  For you:  engineer a reaction in what you do.  Bold language ignites a conversation in their brain.
  6. He makes everything personal. Stories about people are easier for audiences to emotionally process.  For you:  Who’s human in what you’re doing?  Humans beat abstractions every time.
  7. He performs confidently. He has absolute certainty on everything.  Maybe?  Kinda?  Nope.  Conviction builds trust.  For you:  Not arrogance, but conviction.  We like being around people who know what they want and think.  Because living in the mushy middle is a one-way ticket to Loserville.
  8. He creates ongoing storylines. Ongoing narratives are followed.  It’s Trump vs. the media.  America is winning not losing.  For you:  make people pay attention to see what happens next in the story.  For instance – Steve thinks golf is stupid.  Let’s change his mind with some lessons and beers this weekend.  Tune in Monday to see if he’s a convert.
  9. He understands the camera. He creates mental cinema.  For you:  speak to create a picture.  “I’m standing in the aisle at Walmart, holding a $9 jar of Hellmann’s mayonnaise, wondering why it’s so expensive.”  You saw me in that Walmart aisle holding the mayo, right?
  10. He is unpredictable. He never lets the conversation become background noise because he knows that predictability comforts and surprise captures attention.  For you:  don’t let your break become background babble.  The unexpected guest, the sudden stunt, the random street audio, a new segment.  It all goes to helping keep their attention.

Attention beats perfection.  A show that occasionally ruffles feathers, but sparks conversation will beat a polite show no one talks about.

The world around us has changed, folks.  It’s louder, edgier, and very, very noisy.  Job #1 is to capture their attention.  Job #2 is to keep it.

Do that and they won’t just hear you, they’ll follow you.

Steve Wants to Sell You a Horse

It was the Monday after the Kentucky Derby many moons ago.  My on-air partner and I decided we needed to use that topic for content on the show.  So, we hatched this brilliant idea to call the McDonalds up the road from the station, claiming we were the owners of the horse that came in last place, to see how much they’d give us for him, saying he’d make for delicious hamburgers.

Genius, huh?  We live in the attention economy and thought those three minutes would certainly keep listeners from going elsewhere.

At 10:00 that morning, we were hauled into the GM’s office and informed we’d lost the McDonalds account.

Fortunately, we had a very good manager who awarded creativity and risk-taking.  He understood, gave us a pass, and replaced them with another client paying a higher rate.

Don’t bank that idea for next year.  The world (and business environment) is different now.

I listen to radio all over the country and, in too many places, hear pleasant people having pleasant conversations around acceptable topics.  In this environment, that won’t cut it.

Where are my renegades?  The mischievous people?  The quirky who can capture the imagination of the audience and cause talk?

I am NOT suggesting you be reckless or inappropriate.  But we do need to foster an environment of silliness again if we’re ever going to stay top-of-mind with our fans, so they develop this fear of missing out.

We ain’t gonna get that through a prep service or being inoffensive and playing it safe with bland conversations and phone calls from listeners chiming it.

Yes, I know the corporate folks look down on this and the lawyers default to “no” a lot.  But how do we work past this to find the sweet spot for people who can do it?  I know we’ve chased many of them away from our industry.  But that doesn’t absolve those of us who remain from thinking that way, too.

Pleasant all the time is our enemy.  It makes radio completely missable. Take a stand, access your sense of humor for silly angles that can be leveraged into talked about breaks.  In one word:  innovate without doing wacky radio bits.  Wait, that was six words.  Sorry.

I had a show once that bought a ton of girl scout cookies.  They invited in two teachers who built a big Jenga tower with the cookie boxes.  The teacher who made the tower collapse lost, and the other got all the cookies for their school.

Or the Boston show that was outraged when Dunkin’ changed the name of the Boston Cream Donut to the Philly Cream Donut.  The Flyers were making their Stanley Cup run (rivals to sports-loving Bostonians).  They had listeners bring their Dunkin’ merch to the station to burn unless they changed the name back.

Or the talent who mused on-air, concerned he left the iron plugged in before leaving for work.  A C-level show would have left it at that.  A B-level show would have opened the phones, asking listeners if they’d ever done that, too (kinda lame, but it’s something).  This show went A-level and sent the co-host home to check.  A narrative with tension!  And while en-route (all of it on-air), they called his insurance agent and found out he hadn’t paid his renters insurance.  Ouch.

Or the show, in new digs, who found a crushed Cheez-It in the carpeting and called every other talent during that program, asking their favorite snack, to figure out who dirtied the studio, pissing off the chief engineer.

We don’t need prizes and contesting isn’t the elixir.  We need imagination.  Doing something imaginative to capture all who are listening will feed the fear of missing out.  An image every show needs to get that extra measure of audience to set you apart.

I’m inspired when I watch old Letterman clips on YouTube.  He was a master at it.  So was Colbert.  I know they had teams of people to suggest this stuff.  But we need to access those odd things more if we’re going to survive and thrive.

So much of what I hear lives in the Sea of Sameness.  Shows that do this kind of stuff will prevent people from leaving.  You’ll capture them for a moment to see what happens next.  If you create attention through imagination, you can then persuade listeners to stay longer, come back, or have a deeper relationship with your show.  If you don’t create imaginative attention, then you can’t.

Let’s go already, radio.

PS:  Because I know you’re wondering, Pavlovian came in dead last in May’s Kentucky Derby.  He had 30-1 odds.  Today, there’s a better than even chance he’d make a delicious quarter-pounder if anyone is willing to make the call.

PPS:  Colbert wrapped up being on CBS on a Thursday night.  The very next night, he’s hosting a cable access show in Monroe, Michigan.  Absolute, total silliness.  I dare you to not laugh at this.  It’s a giggle-fest.  We need more of that.

The Personal is Universal

My girlfriend is out of town on an extended business trip, and I have the place to myself.  She’s expecting me to keep the house clean.  So far, I’d get an F.

My neighbor borrowed my lawnmower two weeks ago and still hasn’t returned it.  I’m scared to ask him for it back.

I’m going on a vacation and on a limited budget.  The cheapest place I can find is a “sex hotel”.  I’m thinking about staying there but won’t do anything and I definitely won’t get naked.

My dog is really sick and so far, my wife and I have racked up $3900 in vet bills.

 

I talk much on these pages that a show’s goal is to Conquer Content and Create Connection.

What is connection, but proving to the audience that you are just like them?  Think of the people you’re close to in your personal life.  It all started by common bonds.  How to do that today?  Well, be honest in whatever you’re talking about.  And tell stories about yourself by being vulnerable and letting them in your world in ways that prove you are just like them!

There are some general guidelines to follow when deciding if a story you experience is worthy of the show.  Ask these questions, because not all experiences qualify:

  1. Is it an experience the average listener could find themselves in? Is there a fair shot they have had or could have a similar experience?  That’s called relatability.
  2. If not #1, is it an experience so extraordinary and intriguing the listener would be interested in hearing it?
  3. In both of the above, is there conflict or tension? We’re all addicted to drama and without it, you don’t have anything.
  4. Is there a powerful emotion associated with the story, so the audience feels it?

Check all the stories at the very top top.  They each satisfy #1 above:  I’m alone in the house and have to keep it clean for when my girlfriend returns from a trip; I am going on vacation without much money and might stay at a “sex hotel” because it’s cheap; my neighbor borrowed something and won’t give it back; my dog is sick and we have massive vet bills.  In each of these, the average listener could relate and you’re bonding with them because of those commonalities.

Where shows get in trouble, you get a disconnect because not every story has the same strategic benefit.  I recently saw a social media post of a talent talking about being on a corporate jet and spilling red wine on a white sofa.  Not very relatable or great use of content time as the audience says, “that’s not me.”

The other problem is when you have stories with no tension.  Because tension is what creates attention.

Follow these general guidelines as you aggregate personal experience content to be sure your strategic goal in creating connection is reached when making your choices on what stories to share with the audience.

Because the personal is universal.