They Missed the Cut (Pun Intended)

I love sports, but hate golf. Many of my friends play and I’ve never understood the appeal of a venture that so frustrates and angers people. That said, I adore The Masters and am glued to its final round every April. I cry tears of joy when someone wins their green jacket.  It was no different when Rory McIlroy won.

A friend and very successful talent penned what’s below. He makes a terrific point I’ve noted in previous Planet Reynolds. Radio’s relevance has eroded over the years. Sometimes because of increased competition and at other times because of content choices. That’s the case in this one.

The writer wanted to remain anonymous so you could focus on his message. So, we’ll call him Gary the Golf Guy. Here’s Gary’s story about Rory McIlroy and relevance.  It applies not just to spoken word radio, but for those in music radio, too.

Masters Monday: A Listener’s Journey

On my usual drive into the station, I flip on the local News/Talk to catch up on headlines, weather, and traffic. But not today. It was the Monday after The Masters. And if you’re like me, you know that that tournament hits differently. The tradition, the history, the Sunday drama—it was everything. Rory. DeChambeau. Rose. Jack, Arnie, and Tiger—oh my!

So naturally, I went all-in on Sports Talk radio. I was craving takes, analysis, emotion—anything to keep the Masters high alive. First stop: a national show diving deep into the front office moves of a third-tier NBA team. Click. Next: another national show, but this time…NFL talk. In April?

I get to the office, turn on the TV, and boom—local and national news both leading with Rory highlights every 15 minutes. Validation! I wasn’t crazy. This was the sports story of the day.

Surely the ride for about 20 minutes during lunch would bring redemption, right? First local show: five minutes on whether people even care about The Masters (uh, what?)…then back to the NFL Draft. Again, in April?

So…do people care? I saw the ratings—20 million at the peak. That’s 2006 American Idol territory. Yeah, people cared.

Next local show: they’re breaking down a former NFL player’s new (much younger) girlfriend. Entertaining? Sure. But that’s not what I came for. Finally, I land on a fifth (local) show on my way home in the afternoon and there it was: all Rory, all the time. Rory is a choke-artist takes. Golfers are soft debates. Callers chiming in. Laughter, passion, back-and-forths about moving the pin on the 16th hole. LIV vs PGA. They delivered The Master’s meal I was hungry for and it was delicious.

Days like today should be enjoyed by on-air talent because you don’t have to do any heavy lifting! The content/drama was served to you by someone in a beautiful Green Jacket!

Two quick notes:

  1. No, I didn’t listen to every minute of every show. Maybe the others hit on The Masters eventually. But in my 25-minute commute(s), only one show of the five nailed it.  If you’re not on the big topic when listeners tune in for their few minutes, you get zero credit for being on it. Don’t make that mistake.

  2. That fifth show? It’s been #1 in its time slot for over 15 years—and it shows. They crushed it by focusing on what their listeners were thinking about. And spoiler alert: it wasn’t the NFL. In April.

When a big story appears, they become shiny objects. We go towards them until the next shiny object appears. Rory was a shiny object. If we don’t feed that need in radio, we’ll just be another bland, boring, irrelevant choice for listeners that day on their journey for connection.

The Overused Talent Excuse

Which brings me to Facebook and an exchange I had with a morning talent about relevance and appearing tone deaf to the audience.

I was listening to a show in another market getting nailed with bad weather.  With snow falling, here’s the show’s content that morning:  hacks on how to vacuum your house better, a phone topic on what listeners think of Trump’s desire to get rid of pennies, Apple’s new iPhone, and how the dress Meghan Markle wore at a movie premiere only cost $455.  No shit.  What does any of that have to do with what that market was experiencing that morning?

That market was being hit with bad weather, and that’s what the show should have been about.  I noted it on Facebook (without naming names).  A morning guy in another market, wanting to support the show I was listening to, suggested the overused excuse I swat down every time a big topic appears and is not covered:  we didn’t do it because we’re the escape.

Consumers are not rational thinkers – we interact with a brand because of how it makes us feel.

You can see the exchange here.  Out of respect to that morning talent who challenged me with the escape excuse, I have redacted his name and market.

I didn’t suggest what they do with it (that’s up to you).  Howard can go off on gun control because he is very well-defined.  You probably can’t.  But nowhere is it written you can’t discuss something like that and reflect to listeners the sadness and grief they feel knowing the story.

In the bad weather topic noted here, you have options.  You could default to giving out info.  That’s bland, boring, and everywhere.  Or do what only you can do.  Maybe talk to kids who have an unexpected day off from school, making them promise to clean the house.  Convince a cast member’s kid to shovel driveways for $20.  Or talk to snowplow drivers who are cleaning the streets.  You figure out what fits your brand and create treatments to that big topic that reflects who you are and your sense of humor (if applicable).  The escape is the fun you create.

As a talent coach and someone who wants personalities to be the reason listeners turn on the radio, I need your fans waking up each day wondering what you think about everything.

If great radio is about Conquering Content and Creating Connection, we should be on whatever is big right now.  And if one big topic appears on any given day, it’s paramount to do stuff with it that fits you.  Ignore it at your own peril.

Your fans will not tune in to hear a show completely disconnected to the market or world.  Listeners will search for a show that’s relevant.  Being tone deaf to the moment because “we’re the escape” is a poor excuse that powers the success of a competitor who is.

Trivia Done Right – Dishing Out the Dopamine

In many of the focus groups I conduct or see, a show’s trivia feature usually scores well.  Ever wonder why?

If uniquely presented, they are vicarious.  All game shows on TV are trivia-based yet every one is different – Who Wants to be a Millionaire and The Weakest Link are both trivia games done differently.  A critical item must be noted that helps their popularity.

I’ll often explain a feature’s success from a strategic point-of-view.  Today, let me tackle the success of a trivia feature psychologically.

Every trivia game isn’t about the person on the phone.  That player is a conduit to your having fun and doing content directed at everyone not on the phone.  But its success is about how addictive it can be to those thousands of people in their cars playing along.  What are they looking for?  Fun, yes.  But…

When you ask a player on the air trivia questions in a game and tell them if they’re right or wrong, if the listener in their car gets it right in their head, you give them a hit of dopamine.  You make them feel smarter.  Ask a bunch of trivia questions, every one the listener gets right is another dopamine hit for those in cars who get it right, too.

If they leave the feature feeling smarter, they come back for more the next day for the same reason.  That makes your feature addictive.  (Kinda like if I share a compliment every time I see you, you want to see me more!)

The converse is true, too.  Some trivia features seem to have as a goal to ask hard questions so the person on the phone and those in cars playing along struggle.  Don’t do that!!!  Your fans in cars playing along just woke up and they have limited mental bandwidth.  If you force them to think too hard, they’ll bail, believing your feature is too difficult (hence, no dopamine hits).

Evaluate your trivia feature.  Is it unique in its presentation?  Are you focused on what really makes it successful – people in cars?  And are you dishing out the dopamine, so they get addicted and come back for more?

Be Bold or Get Cold

The BLUF (bottom line up front):  Radio doesn’t have a listening problem.  It has a top-of-mind-awareness problem.  For whatever reasons (and there are many – looking at you corporate lawyers, over-worked brand managers who might be scared to take a chance, and morning talent who enjoy their comfort zones) much of what we do is met with a shrug of the shoulders by listeners.  It shows in our TSL

Why It Matters:  we compete against a zillion other things and when we’re deemed boring by listeners, they go in search of something else to stimulate them and keep their attention.  News flash:  their boredom meter flashes much sooner than ever.

In 2024, I had initiatives at two major market shows.  Our goal was to create big, gigantic, bold, edgy, noticeable radio past the standard fare many programs do every day.  We did this by focusing these efforts in prep.  We inserted ourselves into the topics of the day, and whatever was going on locally.  We took what might have been a banal and boring phone topic and created some larger narrative story arcs that lasted several days and had a conclusion listeners would talk about.  We also designed odd and quirky community service projects so we didn’t always default to just asking listeners for money.  We endeavored to be different and noisier to create intrigue and occasions.  We wanted to be more mischievous and imaginative.  We wanted to become memorable.

In short, we wanted to do epic shit with the right topics to stay top-of-mind with our fans, so they came back for more.

When I did mornings in Raleigh years ago, only one show across the street ever concerned me.  Those guys came in, guns blazing, looking to create talk.  They were quite successful and had an impact.

What was the last thing your show did to create noise?  And no, doing a 5-4-3-2-1 for tickets to see PINK doesn’t count.  Because this is, and always will be, about content and how you do it (it’s really about how you do it).  It’s not about what prize you have to give out (unless how you give it out is highly entertaining to those not trying to win it).  The two shows noted above succeeded.  Both ended 2024 with much higher ratings than they started.  That’s because we did things that captured the imagination of the audience, so they didn’t stray to check out something else.  Our infusion of innovation (in ways that fit both brands) worked because our fans feared missing out on what came next.

This Planet Reynolds’s title is inspired by a blog written recently by Fred Jacobs called Hey Radio:  Go Big or Go Home.  A commenter, Clark Smidt, used the phrase be bold or get cold.  Both are right.  So much radio is exactly like so much radio.  Everything is expected and a lot of it is unmemorable.

In case you’re an “if only” person and are thinking “if only we had the money to do stuff like that”, I’m sad to report that every idea we came up with for these two shows cost us exactly $0.  What it did take was a focus on a new goal, a team with a can-do attitude ready to work differently, an innovative spirit, and a supportive manager who knew where we were going and was ready to be a full partner.  But mostly it was about creating new things that captured the audience so they stayed.

Can you replicate that at your show or station?  If you can, you’ll reap the reward, too.  But if all we do is the same old, same old, we’ll continue to be in trouble.

Because if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll keep getting what we got.  Ain’t you tired of getting the same results?

The only sustainable advantage you’ll ever have over your competition is to out-innovate them.  What’s your game plan to do that?

Steve’s Pet Peeves Volume Two

What’s it like to listen to 7-8 hours of morning radio each day?  Well, you’ll need to sit with me each morning to find out.  Each show gets one hour of listening so I can get a sense of what they’re up to.

The goal for any show and any talent is to conquer content and create connection.  One of the most satisfying aspects of coaching is when I hear talent do that effortlessly.

Many of these shows are mine, some aren’t.  That’s where this list comes in.  There are certain small things shows do that, at the end of the day, have a minimal impact on their perceptions and ratings.  But enough to catch my ear and become a pet peeve.  I released volume one which you can find here.

It’s time for a fresh ten we’ll call volume two:

  1. Reading texts and Facebook posts instead of curating listener phone calls. I know that’s how many listeners interact with shows now, but we still must craft breaks that sparkle with more than chatter. Hearing other listeners voices do that.
  2. Teasing what prizes you have to win. There’s very limited appeal to that tease.  Promoting your content will impact 100% of your audience. They come for content.  Not to win something.
  3. Changing something about your show because you got a few complaints online. Those four people might be wrong.
  4. The phrase “everyone loves it”.  Unless you’ve surveyed 100% of your fans, that could be wrong, too.  Not to discount that those people do love “it” but that doesn’t mean everyone does.  Everyone is not five people.  Another vote for being strategic.
  5. Things like tweaking your processing or getting new jingles or sweepers and believing they will change the perceptions of your show and the ratings will go up. Not that you shouldn’t update your presentation, but doing it doesn’t have the impact some think it does.
  6. Shows that think they should move their benchmarks around so lots of people hear them. That’s a solid mistake to make.  You can’t groom an appointment at a certain time and then take that bowl of ice cream away from those who make that feature part of their daily routine.
  7. Use of first-person words (I, me, mine). I have this to give out; I’m going to do this next; Call me now.  It should be:  We have this to give out.  Call us now.  We’re going to do this next.  Your story or opinion is first person.  All else is collective.  Don’t send the signal to your teammates that it’s your show.  What we do is ours.
  8. Shows that air guests (callers or interviews) and then dominate the conversation. Once the guest or caller comes on, they should be the center-of-the-universe.
  9. Talent who rarely say the name of the show or station on the back side of the break. You just did a great content.  Remind the audience who did it, so you get the credit!
  10. Shows that forget there are tons of people checking them out for the first time every morning. Do resets so they feel a part of the family as a first-time listener.  I recently listened to a show for the first time that had two guys as the co-hosts.  Their names are very similar.  I left a few hours later not knowing who was who.  Not good.  The anchors on Eyewitness News in your market have been there for decades.  They still reset their newscast coming out of commercials.  You’d be shocked at the number of tenured shows that forget this.

I know you’ll be excited to hear I have enough for future collections.  Have one?  Let me know here.

Cleanup on Aisle Four (Part 2)

The BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):  If not tended to strategically, brands can become cluttered, busy, and listening can be less satisfying.  It’s on us to clean that mess up so our fans have a good experience when they tune in.

Why It Matters:  Radio is fighting for every quarter hour.  There’s so much competition for ears and eyes, that if we don’t offer up a clean listening experience, the audience could leave.  Think of it like the backseat of a car.  One where you might find empty water bottles, Cheerios on the floor, empty McDonalds bags, and the jumper cables you used last month.  If that’s yours, clean it up and friends will wanna ride somewhere with you.

Let’s clean things up so listeners have pleasant and easy listening experiences.  In our last Planet Reynolds, we touched on several areas to do that – your plot, character development, the content you choose, and your benchmarks.  Find that here.

Let’s move on with new areas for strategic clean up conversations:

Show Imaging, Teases, and Promos:

  • Is it time to update your show’s imaging? What’s the theme or core message?  Does the production value feel very 1980s?  Or does it reflect the vibe of today’s audience who abhor hype and hyperbole?
  • When was the last time you had a teasing exercise? Find a few stories and write teases.  Wanna extend listening or compel an image there’s something to miss? Elevate your writing skills.
  • Do you run promos outside the show? What’s their focus?  An image?  Or your signature feature so you continue to build equity for it?

Show Prep:

  • Evaluate your entire show prep process. How can it change to get better content and better treatments of that content?  Prep should happen the day before a show when you’re at your most creative and have access to resources.  That’s when you come up with your best stuff.
  • What will you do tomorrow to keep your fans from straying? New treatments to high equity topics help keep your P1s engaged.

Digital Efforts:

  • Look at the last week of social posts. How many are the reason people engage you there?  Hint:  they always, always, always come for content.  Never try to coerce listeners to leave social media and turn you on.  It doesn’t work and you’ll become newsfeed clutter.  You grab them with content.
  • What unique feature(s) can you do on social to accrue images so when they’re in the car (where most radio listening is done), they think of you?
  • Lori Lewis is my go-to on social media. She’s super smart and was just interviewed in Barrett Media.  It’s worth the three minutes.  Read it here.

On the Streets:

  • We don’t get out much any longer, mostly because everyone in radio is doing fourteen jobs. But those that do have an edge.
  • Can you develop a year-long campaign to meet people in your market, so they give you a shot? Can the campaign be monetized by sales (you’ll be a hero)?
  • Finally, go to where there are tons of people. Shaking hands for 30 minutes at places where there a lot of potential listeners has a much higher ROI than sitting at a Jiffy Lube on Saturday for two hours (no disrespect to Jiffy Lube!).

Okay, I’m tired of typing so let’s leave it there.  Hope the last two Planet Reynolds have helped you advance your game.  I’ll leave you with a fresh exercise to hear your content as the audience does.

Aircheck Roulette:

Ask someone not associated with your show to choose one 15-minute segment from any show last week.  Listen to the content done in that quarter hour and honestly answer these ten questions:

Were we local?  Were we on a Hot Topic?  Did we share our honest perspective?  Did we share a story about our lives that connected us to the typical listener?  Did we do something with the topic besides just chatter about it?  Did we leave listeners wishing the break had gone on longer?  Did we provide in the first 15 seconds a hook, so they leaned in to hear the rest?  Was there drama in the break to keep listeners engaged?  Was audio available around the topic and did we use it?  Was it fun?

The more yeses you get to the ten questions above, the more I’ll admire you.  Tell me about it (better yet, send me the audio) so I can revel in your epic-ness!

Doing some or all of this puts you in a growth mindset.  It ends up being addition by subtraction.  Clean stuff up, have strategic conversations in all these areas, and when listeners turn you on, their experience will be so rewarding they won’t leave or if they do, they’ll come back for more.

Go get it.

Cleanup On Aisle Four (Part 1)

The BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):  The new year brings an appropriate moment to re-affirm your content strategy and clean up your show for a better listener experience that results in higher ratings.

Why It Matters:  We are not in the radio business anymore.  We are in the experience business.  Years ago, Best Buy was awful to enter.  Salespeople hovered because they were on commission.  The stores were dingy and old.  They were on the road to becoming the next Circuit City.  Then, they got smart.  They redesigned the stores to be brighter, installed interactive areas, and took the salespeople (who all knew we’d just go to Amazon to buy whatever we were looking for) off commission so they were there to genuinely help.  They improved their in-store experience so we enjoyed going there.  We need to do the same.

Ever open that catch-all drawer in your kitchen looking for the menu to the Chinese restaurant only to wade through zillions of paperclips, pens and rubber bands, scissors and coupons, and 14 other menus?  The start of a new year is a great time to clean it out, so things are streamlined and what’s left matters and stands out.

If you are a Brand Manager or leader of a show, here’s Part 1 of things to work on.  I’ll do half now and the balance in the next Planet Reynolds.

What You’re All About:

  • Everyone might have a different sense of your content strategy. With time we lose focus of things like this.  Affirm it so everyone is on the same page.
  • Do a short listener profile so you know your target audience, discussing, too, how their values match yours.
  • Understand why the audience comes to you. What are they looking for when they turn you on?  How are you at delivering that?

Review Character Development:

  • What are the attributes of each person on the show – the major connection points they offer to develop loyalty with a like-minded group of listeners?
  • How are the cast members different from one another? Especially if you have two people of the same gender, how do you help them create separate personas?
  • How do you generate story-based personal content to drive who you are? How can that be elevated to get more so you become a personality-driven show?

Playing the Hits:

Content must be strategically chosen. Where will you find that?  Planet Reynolds readers know I believe four areas are best:

    • Pop Culture (because pop = popular = familiar).
    • What’s up locally if you are a live and local show?
    • The appropriate parts of your life so the audience can connect with you.
    • Music-based content so you are part of the larger station brand and not siloed.

Benchmarks and Icons:

  • Review your benchmarks and features. If your benchmarks have been on for a while, should you update their presentation, so they have a fresh coat of paint?
  • What new features can you add to the show in 2025, so your fans are always getting a fresh, innovative product?
  • What’s iconic about your brand? If a focus group were done on your show, what 1-2 items would come up unaided by typical listeners in the room?  How do you help make that happen?
  • How do you make your show’s signature feature even bigger? That’s not about the prize you attach to it (if a game) but how do you increase its exposure so more people know about it?

The 15-Second Game:

Let’s play a fun game to wrap up Part 1.  Grab ten random breaks from last week’s shows and listen to only the first 15-seconds of each, then stop the audio.  Is enough done in those 15 seconds that would compel listeners to stay for another fifteen seconds?  In other words, are you doing content by then or forcing the audience to wade through paperclips, pens, and tons of menus?  If the morass of up-front promotion and process chatter stands in the way of getting to actual content (the reason the listeners come), clean it up.

That’s enough for now.

Part 2 comes next where we’ll cover promotion of your show, its imaging, show prep, your digital efforts, and a street campaign.

I do this because I want radio to be an epic, unique choice for listeners.  If you have questions on the above, feel free to reach out here.  Doesn’t matter to me if I work with you or not because I believe in radio.

Steve’s Big Five to Start 2025

The BLUF (bottom line up front): I’m not one for resolutions because I’ll break them before you finish this sentence.  But the beginning of a new year is an appropriate time to reset your strategy and commit to understanding that the growth of your show lies in a game plan to evolve.

Because everything evolves.  Everything.  Any brand we use has changed over time (lettuce in a bag, Windex wipes, Apple Pay, etc.).  You must, too, if you wish to have higher ratings.  Because if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you got.

Here are five things to consider and work on to help grow your show.  The onus is on us to change lest your fans grow fickle and bored and seek out something else in the moment that provides them with connection, entertainment, and fun.

In the quest to be an Outside Thinker:

  1. Inventory your show and compile the list ✅ of things that listeners can only get from you. Now, go grow those points-of-differentiation so you’re even more unique.  I love Frostys and can only get them from Wendy’s.  Develop more Frostys.  Or identify your one big feature and make it even bigger to drive more positive imagery into your program.
  2. Commit to making the other personalities on the station stars 🤩 on your show. Then work with them on how to make you a star on their show.  All boats rise if you help one another.  This isn’t just what promos they can run for your show.  It’s can/how do you involve them in your content and how do they reciprocate?  There are many stations where our morning show does this with the afternoon personality/team.  Both show’s ratings go up when we commit to this.
  3. Accept that listeners really don’t hear small things – and that small things don’t really matter much to your ratings. 📈 Big things cut through so go do big things.  Radio has a top-of-mind awareness problem.  Do content in big, memorable ways and you’ll be top-of-mind.  And remember, this isn’t about having better prizes or what you give out.  It is about content.  Boredom lurks around every corner in life for all of us (that’s why we pick up our phones so often).  We are attention merchants and doing big things with the right topics keeps their attention.
  4. Always stay relevant to the moment for content. What do you do with the “now topics” that keeps your fans coming back every day out of fear of missing something?  Be about today.  Helping your fans stay connected to what’s going on right now in the world and your market makes them feel vibrant – especially when you share your point-of-view and then do something with the topic no one else thinks to do.
  5. Stop looking at social media for usable feedback on your show. 🙉 It’s great to read the positives and a bummer to hear the opposite, but don’t let any of that sway you to change the strategy.  The feedback from the few people who comment (good or bad) could be right and they could be wrong.  It’s just how that person reacted to it in that moment.  A strategy is always adjusted dispassionately.  Don’t believe the highs or lows – just keep working your content strategy.  Whatever you see is from a minute amount of your audience so you have to be careful to not make a strategic content decision from it.

Michel Porter said:  “Strategy is about making choices and trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different. Leadership evolves when we have the courage to change, refine, and lead with clarity.”

Go lead and you’ll continue to be on the road to epic 🔥.

Steve’s Pet Peeves: Volume 1

Just before the holiday break, on a morning when I had some extra time, I decided to check out some shows I’ve been hearing about.  One placed, in a prominent content slot, celebrity birthdays.  Not that I think this could work anywhere, I felt it was time, as we conclude the year, for a list of pet peeves – the things I hear some shows do that I believe ding them.

Great personality radio is about Conquering Content and Creating Connection.  Check out our first installment of Steve’s Pet Peeves (Volume 1).  These are the little things I hear some shows do that I think are minor mistakes that, when added up, could impact their perceptions (and yes, if you’re wondering, there will be other installments!).

The things some shows do that bug me:

  1. Taking the first break of the show and telling the audience what’s coming up on the show that day (doing a rundown of that day’s content). It’s 6:05.  I’m not coming back because you have tickets to give out at 7:20 or are doing that phone topic at 7:50 or have an email from a listener with relationships drama at 8:15.  I’m here now, connect with and entertain me now.
  2. Lists and surveys and National Theme Days. There are lower forms of content, but this is prep service-driven lazy radio.
  3. Birthdays and This Date in History. Now, that’s the lowest form of content.  My goal in radio is to rid every show still doing this, who believe the audience cares.  They don’t.  We can be better.
  4. Talent who answer the phones on-the-air, “Hi, who’s this?” You don’t answer your phone that way when you pick up, right?  It sounds immensely impersonal.  Get their name and then introduce them to the audience.  It’s much more warm and human.
  5. Tie breakers in trivia games. All that does it make the break longer without making it more entertaining.
  6. “What station just made you a winner?”  You know who asks questions like that?  DJs do.  You’re a real person, not a DJ.
  7. Happy Hump Day. See #6.
  8. Social media posts where talent show how wonderful their life is. The perfect meal, the excellent seat at the game, the most wonderful vacation, a first-class seat, your new 65″ flat panel TV.  Your listeners aren’t leading that kind of life, so doing this is a disconnect.
  9. Talking about any TV show is always perilous (most of your audience doesn’t watch that show you’re talking about). But doing it and not running any audio so I have context to your comments puts listeners not watching that show you’re so excited about at a disadvantage.
  10. Breaks where someone makes a simple mistake (like slipping up on a word or accidentally saying it’s 9:13 when it’s really 7:13) and then that mistake becoming the next sixty seconds of the break. Listeners aren’t hanging on your mistake so just move on and get to the real content.

If you do one or two of the above, not fixing them won’t make your ratings go down.  Fixing them won’t make the ratings go up.  But in our quest for excellence, every second counts with the audience.

You got a pet peeve for a future installment?  Email it to me here.

I Wouldn’t Be Here, If They Hadn’t Been There

I ponder lots about how the hell I got here.  Radio’s had its ups and downs for each of us, but on balance the industry’s been good to me.  I’ve found my place.  It’s been quite rewarding to help talent grow.  My favorite part comes when shows I work with have breakthrough moments that change the trajectory of their careers.

Catching up with my friend Greg Strassell from Hubbard the other day, he referenced a gentleman we both know who was having a milestone birthday.  When I met Jay Williams, he was a manager of a station in Boston and the consultant in Springfield, MA where I had my first morning show.  Jay laid the foundation for my love of personality radio.  Jay pushed me a lot.  But that built resilience as he compelled me to reach levels I didn’t know I had by making me uncomfortable. I knew deep inside he liked and respected me.  That vibe compelled his honesty.  Most of his critiques were tough.  I still have all of them, in boxes downstairs, forty years later.

Steve Reynolds, as an original, doesn’t really exist.  He’s a Frankenstein.  Over the years, I’ve been lucky to meet some of the smartest people in radio.  What I am is a little of him and some of her.  So many people have influenced how I look at radio and all have accelerated my belief in talent.  It was Jon Coleman (founder of Coleman Insights), knowing had I not gone into radio that I’d have been a school teacher, who first saw the opportunity for my company with consolidation happening.  When it’s time to wrap all this up, it’ll be Jon I have the most to thank.  Of my Frankenstein composite, I’m more Jon than anyone else.   But lots of folks are on that list.

I bet you’re like that, too.

As Thanksgiving approaches, I’d like to suggest something to each of us, but especially talent.  Who are those people who are always there for you?  Who have believed in you along the way?  The ones who return your messages when you need a friendly voice.  Those who freely gave of themselves when you needed advice or direction, asking for nothing in return?  Who, in the face of the industry’s flux, has always been honest, even when it’s been tough to hear?  Who was there in the beginning?

There is so much we don’t control about the industry’s future.  It’s all being figured out at a pay grade higher than most of us.  As the holidays approach, I’d like to suggest you reach out to those few who you know you can always count on and thank them.  Those who helped you at the start of your career.  And do it old school.  No texts or emails.  Get their home address and write them a note, and send it in the mail.  It’ll blow them away and make you feel good you did it.  You’ll feel like a kid again by putting that positivity out there.

Yea, I know you’re super busy.  But I guarantee you’ll do nothing more important than this as we close out the year.  You’ll change their day when they get it.  Maybe, more importantly, you’ll change yours when you send it.

Besides Jay and Jon, I have an exceptionally long list.  I won’t bore you with it lest the walk off music start from the Academy Awards.

But I’ve got my note cards, addresses, and stamps, and plan on thanking those who’ve given me what I have – those who’ve made me a Frankenstein.

Because I wouldn’t be here, if they hadn’t been there.