Forget “Monster Mash” and haunted house ticket giveaways. Halloween 2025 is radio’s chance to prove it’s still the master of immersive sound. This year, the monsters can talk back and I’m going to show you how.
Your Imagination Has New Production Values
For decades, radio has claimed to be “theater of the mind.”
Too many stations traded imagination for efficiency: more logs, fewer ideas.
Halloween 2025 is the moment to flip that script. Not by adding a moan and chains before “Thriller,” but by re-embracing what makes this medium electric in the first place: its ability to create worlds from sound.
Generative tools like ElevenLabs, Suno, and Fish Audio aren’t novelties anymore. They’re instruments. They can voice, score, and sculpt experiences in real time. For the first time, one creator can be an entire creative department, writer, director, voice actor, cast, and producer in a single login.
Imagine this: Dracula and the Wicked Witch hosting morning drive (The Boo Crew), Beetlejuice bringing liners to life (a daunting task given that he’s technically dead), Freddy Krueger owning nights (naturally).
That’s not a ghoulish gimmick; that’s remarkable audio you can make in minutes.
I know, because I built it, alongside Bo Matthews and Rameen Madani at Super Hi-Fi and Mark Long at Camel Creative. We’ll show you how. Dun dun dah!
How We Built a Haunted Station in 24 Hours (and Lived to Tell It)
In less than a day, we conceptualized, wrote, prompted, voice-acted, and produced an entire haunted radio station. Freddy, Beetlejuice, Dracula, Ghostface, Frankenstein, Igor, and a very judgmental witch formed our on-air staff (HR is still investigating the witch – broomstick metaphors).
The result wasn’t a playlist with sound effects. It was an audio film. Every segue felt cinematic. Each stopset had a storyline. Every element delivered the same reminder: radio can still make you feel something.
Hear the Haunting
Below are a few favorites, voiced entirely by AI:
- Beetlejuice — https://on.soundcloud.com/kZSEtyZKxPXO1iyQf6
- Commercial Break — https://on.soundcloud.com/oOc957dZYHx9azBcxN
- Freddy — https://on.soundcloud.com/GNVwK5So6DowZBjHbU
Not Just Spooky Season. Story Season
This isn’t about themed logs or slapping your logo on a pumpkin. It’s about immersive world-building.
A news station could have Frankenstein deliver headlines:
“BREAKING: Villagers report another torchlight protest.”
(Which, if we’re honest, sounds a lot like modern life).
A sports host could debate Dracula:
“He’s got bite, but no daylight performance.”
Your Second Date Updates can go seasonal:
Caller: “We met at a haunted corn maze. Great chemistry. I texted her after… and nothing.”
Host: “Maybe she ghosted you.”
Aside: “Ghosted” is a better name than Second Date Update. It isn’t a second date update at all. It’s a phone call about the first date. Radio and its obsession with rhyming… woof, or maybe howl, more on brand.
When AI is prompted with intention, every format, music, news, sports, has a doorway into storytelling. And in a moment, I’ll give you the exact prompts I used to create this sound from my basement. (Scarier in name than reality, it’s just where the home office lives).
Meet the New Creative Department: You
When I launched AI Ashley on KBFF in Portland, the industry asked the same predictable question: “Who owns the voice?”
That was then.
Today, the smarter question is: “Who’s writing the prompts?”
The advantage no longer belongs to whoever has the best voice or the biggest staff. It belongs to whoever can imagine, write, and produce at scale. With the right writer and toolkit, one person can now sound like a station of dozens.
The tools don’t close positions. They open possibilities for your most talented people. Reward your creatives. Empower your most gifted. Give them the resources that turn imagination into airtime.
When the Commercial Breaks Become Part of the Story
Advertisers can join the séance, too.
With a few well-aimed prompts, a local tire shop becomes Transylvania Treads, with Dracula upselling snow tires:
“They grip the road… even when you’re fleeing Van Helsing’s prying eyes.”
A pumpkin patch ad can feature Ghostface whispering, “do you like scary carvings?”
These aren’t gimmicks. They’re localized theater built in minutes instead of meetings. Generative AI lets clients perform instead of merely announce.
Summon Your Own Monsters
Try these prompts in the AI platform of your choice. Use them as-is, or twist them to fit your format.
- Beetlejuice: “Create a male voice in a deep, lower register with a gravelly, raspy texture and no accent. The pacing should be fast and animated with playful energy, using wide pitch swings up and down for comedic effect. The personality is mischievous, sly, and unpredictable. A charismatic trickster who sounds bass-heavy, lively, and fun.”
- Freddy: “Create a male voice in a deep, gravelly register with a burned, gritty texture and no accent. The pacing should be slow to medium with taunting rhythm, dripping with menace and dark humor. The personality is cruel, sarcastic, and sadistic. A nightmare trickster who sounds amused by fear, confident, and always in control.”
- Ghost Face: “Create a male voice in a mid-to-low register with a smooth, menacing tone and no accent. The pacing should start calm and conversational, then shift to quick and intense when threatening and playful but dangerous. The voice should sound as if it’s coming through a phone line, with a subtle compressed, filtered quality like a horror movie call. The personality is taunting, intelligent, and sadistic. A manipulative killer who enjoys the game and sounds amused by fear.”
The Sequel Starts Now
This Halloween, radio can sound seasonal or supernatural. While others spin “Thriller,” your station could be inside one.
We’ve spent years equipping sales teams with every advantage under the howling moon: Analytic Owl, Veritone, Efficio, attribution dashboards, one day sales, cold-call software, AI lead gen, and every other shiny tool that promises another tenth of a point in yield. Meanwhile, the creative teams? They’re left holding a Google Doc and a dream.
If we expect innovation, we have to start funding it. Let’s give the people who imagine for us the same resources we give the ones who invoice for us. Content isn’t an expense line, it’s the reason the rest of the lines exist.
The Real Ghost Haunting Radio Isn’t AI It’s Apathy
The real ghosts haunting radio aren’t digital. They’re old habits.
If your Halloween plan is still just hitting the stop set on time and saying “Happy Halloween” between songs, it’s time to exorcise your approach.
Hire writers. Hire thinkers. Add those who see audio not as a schedule, but as a story engine.
This Halloween, AI won’t ‘kill’ radio. It’ll hand you the keys to the crypt and whisper, “Go make some noise, boo.” (Said lovingly, not seasonally).
Phil Becker is a weekly music columnist for Barrett Media who has built his career at the intersection of creativity, strategy, and operations leading brands, marketing, and content teams across more than 200 radio stations worldwide.
Known for being ahead of the curve, he was the first to integrate social influencers into broadcast brands, launch station apps years before his peers, and pioneer AI air personalities before anyone else in the world.
With leadership roles at Clear Channel, Citadel, Cox Media Group, Alpha Media, and international ventures—as well as owning and operating stations—Phil blends entrepreneurial vision with operational discipline in the messaging and marketing space. He also hosts the Phil-Osophy podcast.
