You may not expect WJR 760 host Paul W. Smith to be a major policy strategist for the Ford Motor Company.
But, in at least one instance, you’d be wrong.
In April 2023, Ford sent shockwaves through the broadcasting and automotive communities when it announced that it would remove AM Radio from “most new and updated 2024 models”, including all of its electric vehicles and the overwhelming majority of its gas-powered models.
Six weeks later, however, the company reversed course. Ford Motor Company President & CEO Jim Farley announced that the company would keep the band in its 2024 models — and has kept it there in 2025 and 2026 models, too — noting that it had heard about the importance and prominence of the service after announcing its plans.
One of those prominent figures who lobbied for the inclusion of AM Radio? 760 WJR host Paul W. Smith.
In a meeting with Farley, Smith advocated for AM Radio.
“I had my opportunity. I’m sitting there with him — I know him very well, and I knew it wasn’t going to piss him off, so I turned it in kind of into a kind of a self serving joke,” Smith said of the angling to Farley.
Smith added that his approach to interviewing was a major factor in the ability to stump for something he’s passionate about, while simultaneously respecting his interview subject.
“I’m sure people have thought in the past, I’m a softball thrower with questions. What they aren’t doing is really listening and paying attention,” he said. “I ask in a nice way. It was some newspaper many years ago that said I had mastered the art of disagreeing without being disagreeable. And I loved that.
“I have always worked under the assumption that I’d be doing this job a long time, and I want to get the good guests every time, so I’ve never tried to stick anybody or catch them or trip them up or trick them,” he continued.
“When I ask somebody a question and they don’t answer it, and then I ask them that question again, and they don’t answer it, my listeners are smart enough to know that that person isn’t answering the question. I don’t have to beat them up and say, ‘Hey, you’re not answering this thing.’ I don’t need to do that. I’ve always respected the intelligence of my listeners. They are the best and brightest listeners in all of radio.”
That discussion, first with Jim Farley, and then later with William Clay Ford Jr — the current Chairman of the Board and great-grandson of Ford Motor Company founder, Henry Ford I — undeniably worked.
While the automaker originally decided to remove the AM band, it reversed course after the conversation with Smith, with Farley crediting the WJR 760 host with sparking the decision in discussion with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Additionally, the AM Radio For Every Vehicle Act was originally introduced before Ford Motor Company changed its decision, which could also indirectly be attributed to Smith. While the bill has yet to be passed into law, many members of the United States Congress and broadcasting communities — like the National Association of Broadcasters — remain optimistic that it will eventually be adopted.
Paul W. Smith noted that it wasn’t a leap of courage to lobby for the industry with top executives from Ford due to the relationships he’s cultivated with those leaders over the course of his nearly three decades working at WJR 760 in Detroit.
“I spent years building that kind of relationship with the top, top, top people,” Smith shared. “I used to go around the world to every auto show — Geneva, Paris, Japan, China, Frankfurt, I used to go around the world broadcasting. So they all got to know me pretty well and I got to know them well. We had mutual respect.”
In a recent on-air discussion with William Clay Ford Jr., Smith lobbied for a longer-term commitment from the automaker to ensure that AM Radio remains an important part of the infotainment system in new models from the manufacturer.
“I said, ‘This is self-serving, but I’m going to say it anyway: Can I get you to continue to keep AM Radio in your vehicles?’ And he said, ‘Well, let me put it this way, Paul: As long as you’re on the air, we’ll keep AM Radios in the car.’ Which was fun to hear,” Smith said, until joking, “And then I thought, ‘Well, maybe he knows something I don’t.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
