Imagine if RockTernative radio was run like the Premier League. Where bottom-ranked stations didn’t just have lower ratings, they were fighting to avoid being kicked out of the market. Ok, let’s be more realistic. What if RockTernative were run like the NFL or NBA: built around a draft?
It’s NFL Draft week, so let’s play it out.
- Salary caps to (somewhat) even the playing field.
- Average career-length windows for leadership and talent.
- Each year there’s a Combine, followed by a Draft.
- Talent, coaches, executives, and AEs are all tradeable assets.
- Every book, up or down, would have even more economic impact and turnover.
The competition would instantly get more intense.
The real winners would be listeners and advertisers. Outcomes would be determined by the best talent, smartest coaches, and sharpest strategies. That’s not always the case at radio.
Formatting the Draft
Radio surely has its Yankees and Dodgers — teams that creatively find ways to outspend. Every market also has its Cleveland Browns — sorry, Browns fans — but a station that hasn’t updated its imaging or held a strategy meeting since Obama was in office.
That’s a problem that isn’t talked about much because there’s no real pressure for The Browns of Radio to get better. It is what it is, they’re not going to get bigger — so why bother trying new things or investing?
But add this context: There are a limited number of signals to begin with, half are stagnant, some are flankers or static boxes, not all are locally focused, and only a handful of different music formats are being programmed.
I’m not asking for fairness, just more competitive intensity across the whole dial. That’s all.
For such a fantastic industry, filled with talent, generating billions in revenue, there’s far less competition at radio than in many sectors. The NFL and NBA have 30+ teams facing 30+ head-on competitors each season. RockTernative won’t see more than one or two locally. The Premier League has 20 clubs and the worst gets kicked out each season.
So what would happen if RockTernative — or all of radio — really operated like a sports league?
The Combine
Every young programmer, on-air talent, AE, or digital talent with a dream would walk into a room and get evaluated against each other.
They’d be graded based on performance and potential, then sent to the Draft.
The Draft
Stations get to — and are forced to — choose new voices coming from podcasting, social, streaming, college radio, anywhere and everywhere. A constant crop of young programmers and talent who see formats and radio differently, and an army of AEs that grew up on experiential, digital, deeper data, and even qualitative selling.
Some veterans would still go in the first round. Some wouldn’t. Now we have real competition for brand excellence.
The Trading Deadline
Stations that have been flat or stumbling don’t just ride it out and settle for being ranked 18th — they can make big moves to make a big difference.
Yes, I’ll trade for your morning show — you can have our promising night jock and our first and second round picks next year.
The Salary Cap & Term Limits
The biggest companies can’t just use powerful credit lines to annually grow expenses and push debt down the line to get anything they want.
And not unlike a point guard aging out of the NBA, even great on-air talent and executives will eventually have to bow out to make room for new, more competitive blood.
Relegation
We may as well continue this fever dream and include relegation. If a brand chronically underperforms, refuses to invest, or doesn’t fiercely compete — they’re not allowed to just exist. They’re demoted to compete against suburbia’s pirate stations until they’re fit to come back.
Or worse — they must sell the signal to an owner who will noticeably fight.
Back to Reality
None of that will ever be radio’s reality, but it’s how sports leagues stay healthy and competitive.
Radio has structure, but not all individual brands face intense pressure to grow, and consequences for underperformance aren’t a lock. For clarity, there may be pressure from investors to make Q3 inch above last year, and every PD wants ratings to go up — but I’m talking about white-knuckle, sweat on the brow, local pressure on a consistent basis to be highly rated, the most competitive, the best in the market — or else.
Pressure creates champions. And when pressure also means consequences, it’s amazing what can happen. The Browns of Radio are not bad people; the model just means that continually being last place is survivable and acceptable.
Radio doesn’t need an NFL Draft. But it could use the draft mindset. Compete, evolve, or get replaced. The winners won’t just be the brands and talent — it will also be the fans and advertisers.
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Keith Cunningham is a music industry and Rock/Alternative columnist for Barrett Media and the founder of Black Box Group, a modern-modeled creative & strategic consultancy built for brands that need strategies with teeth. He’s the former Master of Mayhem at 95.5 KLOS-FM in Los Angeles for over a decade, a nationwide consultant, and has been repeatedly voted one of America’s top Program Directors and strategic thinkers. Keith has built his career by taking multi-million-dollar brands from worst to first and leading Marconi & Gracie award winners along the way. A data nerd with a rock-and-roll heart, he is an advisory council member for St. Jude fundraising, a fantasy football champion, and lover of his daughters & dogs. Reach him at keithblackboxgroup@gmail.com or on LinkedIn or X.
