Radio’s Forgotten Superpower (Hey NAB – Read This and Give Me a Call?)

Your fans are driving to work, listening to you, and having fun.  In the quiet, darker moments, what feeling might they be experiencing?  We hear much about a loneliness epidemic in society.  It impacts us all, whether we wish to openly acknowledge it or not.  Loneliness is a public health crisis and no longer a fringe issue.  In the quiet spaces of life – the commute, the cubicle, the kitchen at night, we all have pangs of feeling alone in this hyperconnected world.  These are the exact moments where personality radio excels.

Not to be nostalgic, but when I was a kid and found radio, I would often listen alone in my basement bedroom on Sherman Drive in Newburgh, NY.  As an insecure 15-year-old, I left every listening occasion feeling as though I was hearing my best friend on the radio.

One of my unaided goals for any talent is for the audience to leave saying, “They’re just like me.  I feel like I know them.”

Over the years, we’ve leveraged away advantages.  Some of that we did to ourselves:  we’re less local due to syndication, we’re less unpredictable due to the lawyers and corporate control, and we have ceded music images to music-only services like Spotify and Apple Music.  Some of that was done to us:  the algorithm and passive, endless scrolling.  Personalized feeds feel social but aren’t.  Spotify knows what you like but it really doesn’t know you.  It can’t laugh with you, it can’t root for you, and it can’t comfort you when life gets complicated and punches you in the gut.

One attribute we’ve never lost is our intimacy.  What I learned from my early mentors, that radio is just you and me, still holds.  Every one of us on-the-air has received a call from a listener who had a tragedy in their life, and we were what kept them company through it.

I’ve always wanted the NAB to adopt a new slogan that reinforces to listeners and advertisers this immense strength no other medium has.  I want that positioning statement to be Radio – We Make You Feel Less Lonely.

Not to turn this into a Steve therapy session, but all of us have varying degrees of loneliness in our life.  You or I might not admit that to anyone vocally, but deep down inside we do.  Despite how fast life moves and all these devices we’re addicted to, many of us have pangs of loneliness.  Concurrent, we also feel that, regardless of how hard we try at anything, no one is rooting for us.

I know, this is deeper than you’d expect from me this time.  But here’s where radio shines brightly and we need to lean into this if we’re going to stay relevant.  It’s a lesson on how to deepen the bond with listeners, turning them into fans.

Tackling loneliness as an ongoing community service project is powerful.  Acknowledging this, as I have done here with you, is deeply vulnerable.  I ask shows to talk about this, reinforcing that in a world where people don’t think anyone is there for them, especially during tough times, we are if we do radio right.  So, listeners leave knowing they have a friend, even if they’ve only been there for fifteen minutes.  Radio – We Make Listeners Feel Less Lonely.

Great radio is grounded in Conquering Content and Creating Connection.  There’s nothing more powerful than addressing and solving the loneliness problem each of us experience.  That’s connection.

I was captured by this short video shared by the morning talent I work with at 3FM, part of the National Public Radio System in the Netherlands.  A cast member was about to see a friend she’d not visited with in years.  She mused about how long it might be before they’d see each other again.  So, she wrote her a letter, bared her soul, and offered this private, very intimate moment for all the audience to hear.  As you watch, take note of her cast-mate’s faces.  They sit in awe.  You’ll view this and leave with the same thought I had – I feel like I know her, her values, and how she treats people.  And you’ll want a friend just like her in your life, too.  Radio here made their listeners feel less lonely.

It was neither polished nor “radio perfect”.  It was human.  And in that moment, the studio disappeared, like we were eavesdropping on something sacred.

Somewhere in that audience (somewhere in your audience), there’s a listener all alone, like I was when I found radio.  If we do radio right and dig deeper than trivia games and relationships-features, they won’t feel alone when any segment ends.  Just like I didn’t.

Let listeners know that, and you’ll change their life as they become less lonely.  You’ll change your life, too.  And be reminded why you fell in love with radio as a kid.

If radio is going to matter in the years ahead, it won’t be playing the right songs or having the right benchmarks.  It’ll be because we made someone feel seen, heard, and less alone.

What radio does so brilliantly when done right is make listeners feel less lonely.  Maybe radio isn’t in the music business any longer.  Maybe we’re in the companionship business.  You wanna win?  You want legacy stuff?  Make that job #1 and you will.

Our ability to be intimate with listeners is radio’s superpower.  And could be its next great future.