It’s a new year, and with a new year often comes new goals, new ideas, and new plans for your radio show or radio station.
That’s great. We should all have them and be challenging ourselves to continue to improve our products and brands in 2024. No excuses. Maybe your ideas can’t be as grandiose as you would like them to be, but don’t let perfect be the enemy of good this year.
That event, fundraiser, or remote (with a purpose) you wanted to get on the calendar in 2023, but never came to fruition, start planning it now. I’ll drop one more cliche, which I hate, in a second straight paragraph: The days go slow, but the years fly by. We are all going to blink and be thinking about summer vacations.
So are you already mapping out a couple of new ideas that drive listener engagement and loyalty to set you up for a strong 2024? If not, now is the time to do it, when everyone else is just trying to get through the darkness of January, think about the brighter days ahead when listeners are going to be itching to go to one of your station’s gatherings.
Now enough of the rah-rah, it’s also set to be a critical year because it’s a Presidential election year. That means we are currently in the calm before the storm (unless you host or run a station in Iowa or New Hampshire).
Election years are great, but they can be a blessing and a curse. (Is this my third cliche of the column? Are you keeping track?).
Talk radio finds itself at a fascinating inflection point. We’re in a time when local talk is producing big wins in markets all over the country. Talk radio, led by those stations with the most local talk, are leading markets in billing, streaming success, and social engagement, all categories that matter for the future health and success of any media brand.
And now, we’re heading into an election year, which should lead to incredible storylines and conversations on your radio stations. The station may see an increase in cume as casual talk radio listeners might give your station more occasions to keep tabs on what’s happening in the Presidential election. However, it doesn’t do a local talk show well to pretend to be a national show by spending 3-4 hours per day on Presidential politics.
That doesn’t mean you downplay or bury the top stories in a given week or day, but it’s a fine line between playing the national hits and serving your audience with the local topics and issues of the day that separates you from the national content they can get from any syndicated show or national podcast. There’s no perfect balance, but at least being aware of it is the first step as we get set for a roller coaster ride these next 12 months.
So as we gear up for these 12 months, take advantage in every way possible, with your content, your off-site events, your social media engagement, and more. Yes, radio has its challenges. But right now, every media platform has its challenges, including linear television, podcasts, streaming, and every other sexy, new, shiny object that gets promoted on an hourly basis.
In many ways, radio is stable, or at least, arguably, more stable than some of its competitors. And with talk radio leading the way in listener engagement, time spent listening, streaming, podcast downloads and more, it’s time to remain prideful in what we do and go full steam ahead into 2024. And with that, I’ve reached four cliches, and I’m out. Talk to you next week.
Pete Mundo is a weekly columnist for Barrett Media, and the morning show host and program director for KCMO in Kansas City. Previously, he was a fill-in host nationally on FOX News Radio and CBS Sports Radio, while anchoring for WFAN, WCBS News Radio 880, and Bloomberg Radio. Pete was also the sports and news director for Omni Media Group at K-1O1/Z-92 in Woodward, Oklahoma. He’s also the owner of the Big 12-focused digital media outlet Heartland College Sports. To interact, find him on Twitter @PeteMundo.
