One of the featured panels at this year’s BNM Summit will focus on community involvement and its impact on the success of a show. Jeff Katz, host of The Jeff Katz Show, will be on this panel bringing a lot of insight from his own personal experience. “I’m excited about that,” Katz said, “Our focus is taking community involvement and translating it into on air activities.”
Community involvement is not just showing you are a good person off the air. More importantly, it’s a way to connect with both listeners/viewers and your advertisers. “The reality is your listeners have charities they’re involved with. Your advertisers have charities they are involved with. They love to see the cooperation. They want to be involved. They support you. From a programing point of view, this can help you translate into better ratings, increased revenue, and all of that good industry stuff that we like to talk about and at the same time do some really important work in the community.”
Katz has seen this effect firsthand with his own audience. “I have a very large number of listeners who are in law enforcement. So, the fact that I speak to that issue, supporting those in that space is very important. It also serves as a magnifier, because when that one law enforcement officer hears you talk about issue A, B, and C, or you’re supporting [a specific] activity, law enforcement officers then go out and tell others [about you].”
His own beginnings of charitable endeavors started from his own personal experience. “I have a daughter who is severely disabled,” Katz said. “Julia is 21 years old chronologically, but developmentally she’s about 18 months old. I really came to see how difficult it was, not just for folks like Julia, but for families who have members like Julia. That’s driven a lot of the charity work to help families to navigate the system because the whole system seems designed to just push people away at every point.”
Today he is involved with many charities which he holds in high regard. “The Friendship Fircle pairs typically developing kids with special needs kids, and it’s all over the world. We’ve raised a lot of money for our Friendship Circle of Virginia, and they do great work. Other charities involve law enforcement officers. That’s near and dear to my heart. So, making sure that the officers [and] their families are taken care of and are helped at any stage where they might need it.”
Another passion for Katz is also the Fatherhood Foundation of Virginia. “Our mission is to help guys to become better dads. It’s really just that simple. There are a million books that are out there for moms, and there are a lot of programs for moms but dads in many cases are kind of just the plus one. The Fatherhood Foundation focuses on what some of the guys need to know.
The Fatherhood Foundation is getting ready to launch a program with Katz. “I’m really, really excited about this,” he said. “I’m going to jail and not as a guest, but as a visitor. We have a program designed to help men who are locked up be decent dads when they get out. It’s taken me probably the better part of two years to convince the administration at the local jail and a bunch of other stakeholders and get some funding but we’re getting ready to launch that.”
Another way Katz connects with his audience is by sharing his personal experience as a former police officer. “I had every intention of being an attorney at some point. My father, who never had the greatest timing in the world, had a heart attack and I wound up going to work. There was a job that I could secure as a police officer in Philadelphia, and I went in that direction to pay some bills and to take care of the family.”
The radio host spent five years as a police officer calling it a “useful detour.” Perhaps most importantly, his time serving the Philadelphia community gave him a “tremendous B.S. detector. It doesn’t take long to figure out when somebody is weaving a tale as opposed to telling you the truth. So, it’s a vital skill.”
Katz noted giving advice to those looking to follow him in the industry is difficult because, “I have told each of my sons that if they ever thought about going into radio, I would staple their tongues to the floor. [I told them] that they absolutely, positively should not go into radio.”
With the business rapidly changing there are so many more different ways to connect with your audience. “We have to remember people consume what we put out there,” Katz said. “They may watch it, they may listen to it, they may read it. It might be on X, it could be on Instagram. It could be any one of a thousand different platforms. So, I don’t know that I have the advice for someone looking to go into this business, because I don’t think this business, as it’s constituted now, is going to be around in the same way.”
The two important things Katz believes youngsters must do is follow their passion and don’t wait.
“This is the other thing,” Katz explained. “They don’t have to wait for the big gatekeepers, right? There’s not the same barrier to entry that there was 30 years ago. [Back then] you wrote for a newspaper, you spoke on a radio station or appeared on a television station, and that was it. Nobody has to wait for that anymore. You can put your YouTube channel up today. You can launch your own podcast. Now you have the material to go get the consumers. That’s going to be your challenge. But I think folks should absolutely go for it, follow that passion. And then if they can figure out a way to monetize it and have it become their actual business that pays their bills, God bless them. Have at it.”
Krystina Alarcon Carroll contributes features and columns for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
