Kevin Robinson is an award-winning broadcaster, consultant, and coach. He specializes in strategic radio cluster alignment, building lean-forward tactics, and talent coaching – legacy and entry-level – personalities.
As a talent coach, Kevin is the only personality mentor who’s coached three different morning shows on three different brands in the same major market to the #1 position.
His work has been recognized by The World Wide Radio Summit, Radio & Records, and NAB’s Marconi, and he has coached CMA, ACM, and Marconi Award-winning talent.
Kevin is this week’s featured consultant.
Jeff Lynn: What is the current state of the radio industry?
Kevin Robinson: The answer is dependent on market size and company size. It’s widely known that Audacy, iHeart, and Cumulus have suffered various stages of bankruptcy. Their music brands are largely jukeboxes with out-of-market, disconnected voices outside AM Drive. Those brands are in survival mode. There are local, digitally delivered content providers that are beating them daily. They are walking The Green Mile. Just last month, Salem Communications bailed on their music stations. “We survived bankruptcy” is not the best look for advertisers.
Locally owned medium to small-market brands of all formats are thriving. In smaller towns where the local newspaper has diminished circulation or has vanished altogether, broadcasters are making bank. In those smaller villages, you find community broadcasters with robust local news gathering, live local talent hosting events and high school sports coverage. We have a client who delivers a local 24/7 online news TV station based on radio content.
JL: How do we get the next generation interested in radio as an industry?
KR: Give them your radio station.
Seriously, engage students in your community with time on your radio station. Start with the elementary students and middle school students. At a recent career day, student teams wrote, voiced, and produced their own commercials. They were engaged and fascinated.
Why not work with local schools to create a Radio Club? Put interested emerging talent on early Sunday evenings. Nobody is at your radio station at that time. Local interest will follow.
JL: How do you coach radio managers on both the programming and sales sides to be effective in today’s environment?
KR: Let’s get back to face-to-face meetings. In the era of Zoom, they’ve nearly disappeared.
When coaching, do it privately, face-to-face, and one-on-one. Group sessions can potentially turn toxic, as coaching needs to be personalized and custom. Not everyone is in the same growth stage.
The same goes for the sales training. Sellers, stop into your client’s location during the commercial flight of the advertising. Leave behind something to remember you by. If the only time you see the client is renewal time, you’re doing it wrong.
JL: What skillset do you see as most needed to be an effective manager?
KR: Employees crave transparency. I have clients that share Manager Meeting notes with the entire building. Employees need to know where the business is growing and where deficiencies lie.
Transparency requires great listening skills. Be consistent with your employees in your communication, punctuality, and treatment of each team member.
JL: What should talent be doing to broaden their skills so they are ready in case they are RIFFed?
KR: First – hire a professional resume writer. Not one built from AI. As I stated in my November 12th column, a real-person resume builder will spend a few HOURS ‘interviewing’ – you. A great resume writer will be unconcerned with your previous resume or LinkedIn profile. Resume writers want to unearth blind-spot skills you’ve developed that you would never place on a resume.
Learn a new craft or skill. Recession-proof and nationwide, a good side career outside retail is substitute teaching. School substitute coordinators will guide you through the certificate process. You can take it anywhere, and you’ll work every school day if you desire. Holidays, nights, and weekends off – unlike radio!
JL: We have all seen brilliant programmers who lack people management skills. What steps can they take to become more effective talent managers?
KR: Correct! Many programmers DO lack the soft people skills and often hide behind a computer.
Hire a coach for your team – even for a short time – and learn from them. Coaches have different processes, personalities, and fee structures. Find one that has a roster that matches your team or cluster. You’ll learn by hearing an outside coach – coach YOUR team.
JL: What tools do you use to break through to someone who doesn’t think they need coaching or is resistant and hangs on to, “That’s how we’ve always done it?”
KR: A story I share is the history of Smith-Corona. As I wrote in my September 3rd piece, Smith Corona was the clear leader in typewriter technology for over 100 years. Peaking at 600,000 new machines annually in 1985, Smith Corona appeared unstoppable.
Times and conditions changed around them as Apple and Microsoft flooded the market with the Personal Computer, which included a typing program.
Smith-Corona’s answer – word processors instead of typewriters.
Although they led the Personal Word Processor market, they failed to anticipate the speed at which PCs came to market and the rapid decline in PC pricing. They had always made typing machines.
Today, Smith-Corona is a label-making company.
Challenge every aspect of your brand. Gather your team and perform a S.W.O.T. Strengths – Weaknesses – Opportunities – Threats.
Do you need new jingles – or musical IDs at all? Is there an event you’ve done for years that’s providing diminishing fans and funds? Do you need to sell :60 second spots?
Question – everything.
JL: Without names, tell me the biggest coaching challenge you have faced and how you broke through or overcame it.
In my personal history, I’ve had the opportunity to work with personality giants. Talent that had seen multiple – and a few over a dozen – different programmers and coaches. I was just the next guy – to them – in the chair.
First thing to accomplish before starting coaching sessions – build trust. Without trust, the learning process will be met with an unwillingness to adapt to constructive feedback.
Most seasoned talent that have sessioned with me tell tales of abusive coaching styles, uneven periods of feedback and frequent calls to the studio hotline. Don’t do that.
Build trust.
JL: What do you see as the first and most important step in starting a Podcast?
KR: Why.
What motivates you to create a podcast? That’s the first of many questions you need to answer before you crack a mic. If you don’t have the WHY – nothing else matters.
Additional questions for future Podcasters are found in my December 10th missive – here.
JL: What was the best piece of career advice you ever received?
KR: Just Do It.
If you’re an emerging broadcaster, find any way into the doors of a radio station, even if it’s a non-profit. Non-coms are starved for man hours. You will learn more from doing it and assimilation than from a seminar or broadcast school.
My first job was overnights on an automation assist music format, where I was also charged with gathering trash in the building.
Just Do It.
Reach Kevin by email here.
Robinson | Media
(317) 769-0583 O
(314) 882-2148 M
Jeff Lynn serves as Editor of Barrett Media’s Music Radio coverage. Prior to joining Barrett Media, Jeff spent time programming in Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Madison for multiple radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Townsquare Media, NRG Media, and Entercom (now Audacy). He also worked as a Country Format Editor for All Access until the outlet shut down in August 2023.
To get in touch with Jeff by email, reach him at Jeff@BarrettMedia.com.
