Thank you for checking out The Industry According To… Zack Zalon. This series runs each Tuesday and features radio and record industry executives, managers, programmers, talent, artists, and professionals from all areas of the business world. To be considered as a future guest, email me at keithblackboxgroup@gmail.com.
Today we step into the future with a modern-minded entrepreneur who loves radio and is an expert in digital music and consumer experiences, Zack Zalon. He’s the co-founder, CEO and face of Super Hi-Fi, a company that uses its patented technology to create, manage, and scale high-fidelity, fully produced radio experiences for today’s digital landscape, partnering with brands like Peloton, Sonos and more. With Super Hi-Fi now powering some stations across the country — including some inside the biggest ownership groups — Zack is operating in the future, and that is where today’s conversation will largely focus.
*Editor’s Note: Answers have been edited for clarity and length.*
Keith: The economic challenges at radio don’t need a rehash, but you’ve said radio needs to reclaim its margins. What’s the biggest inefficiency in today’s radio infrastructure that needs to be fixed?
Zack Zalon: The entire radio ecosystem is clinging to a reality that ended over a decade ago. If we had to name one inefficiency, it’s the mindset that repeating the same actions will somehow yield different results.
I’ve started asking executives a simple question: if you were designing your radio company from scratch today — with one mandate, high margins — would it look exactly like what you have now? Same people, roles, infrastructure, product? No CEO should be answering yes.
It’s time to rethink radio from the ground up to drive meaningful cashflow, even in a declining market. If you’re not laser focused on that question, you’re on a path straight into the ground.
S.W.O.T.
Keith: As a systems guy and CEO of a large, innovative company, let’s do a basic radio S.W.O.T. Don’t show all your cards, just give me your topline thought for each.
Zack Zalon: Radio’s Strength: Programming, Personality, Production, Context. Radio’s Weakness: A systemic unwillingness to fundamentally change as the facts dictate. Its Opportunity: To recast its value as an “audio entertainment medium” rather than as just a terrestrial broadcaster. Its Threat: Radio’s biggest threat is actually coming from inside the building, not from exogenous sources.
The Remote Revolution
Keith: While it had been possible for a long time, COVID helped jumpstart the urgent need for jocks to be able to seamlessly broadcast live from anywhere. That functionality is only improving. Some say it’s unlocking more creative opportunities. Others say it’s just accelerating downsizing and having fewer bodies in the building. How do you see this?
Zack Zalon: Why do you need a building? What, exactly, are you doing in that building that makes radio any more compelling than, say, Spotify, which has exactly zero broadcast facilities? If having bodies in the building actually mattered, then radio would be throwing off 40-point margins.
Will the Real DJ Please Stand Up
Keith: Four options: 1) Live human DJ. 2) Human DJ that is voicetracked. 3) Human version of a DJ created by AI. 4) AI-created DJ. Ten years from now, which will be most common across the country?
Zack Zalon: I don’t know. Ten years is a long time, and though my gut says human will always matter, we’re starting to see data that indicates that people are building relationships with AI. So maybe AI-generated personalities will resonate with as much force as humans currently do. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the only thing that matters is whether or not we can continue to build compelling, entertaining listening experiences, irrespective of what source the audio originated from.
Where Linear and On-Demand Collide
Keith: Listeners often want two things at once: the personality they love or bond with and the exact music they want, whenever they want it. Streaming solved one of those issues. Radio solves the other. How does radio solve both at once?
Zack Zalon: If that’s a real market need, then the only way to answer that is to move into the digital space, away from broadcast towers, but to keep the same approach to production that’s driven radio for decades. If your radio system were fully modular and completely IP driven, then you’d be able to assemble your radio station uniquely for each listener, for each moment, and deliver highly personalized experiences that transcend the limitations of a broadcast audio stream.
Data and Ads
Keith: Radio has been stuck with the same measurement system for decades. You’re delivering millions of ads a month. Which data points should radio be offering or selling that Nielsen “radio ratings” can’t or won’t do right now?
Zack Zalon: That Nielsen system is just crazy. It’s the currency of radio ad sales, but does anybody actually believe it’s accurate? When I explain PPM methodology to people in ad tech, they look at me like I’m nuts. Whatever — it is what it is.
Personally, I’m pretty psyched about DTS Auto Stage — real, verified listener data every 24 hours. Yes, it’s only in-car, but mapped against streaming data, the stats get compellingly accurate. From there, we can layer in everything else we measure and build insights that actually drive results.
Imagine A/B testing programming choices daily and making real-time adjustments to keep improving listening trends. When have we ever had that kind of control? That’s what’s been missing, and when we figure it out as an industry, it’s going to give us a whole new arsenal of tools to sell better.
Localism
Keith: You’ve talked about making stations feel “more local,” but what does “local” even mean when the DJ might be on a cruise ship and the music and production are stitched together by AI?
Zack Zalon: Local isn’t where a station is run from. Local is the experience that listeners have when they consume the product. Local is the shared context of a radio station’s output — it’s an anchor for listeners. The idea that in order to be “local” you have to actually be local makes no sense anymore. I don’t have to go to a movie theater in order to watch a movie anymore. Why do I have to be in a local studio to drive a local experience? Technology has solved both of those problems.
The Streaming Giants
Keith: Spotify, Apple and even Amazon have taken swings at making radio-like experiences stick, and they’ve largely failed. What do you understand and see that they haven’t?
Zack Zalon: I’d actually argue that Apple has done a really good job at radio. They hand-produce a small number of stations with an Apple-like feel, and offer them right on the main UI of their music app. Sonos Radio too — that’s an incredibly successful product, offering amazing listening experiences designed from the ground up for the Sonos ecosystem. Their TSLs outperform traditional radio by orders of magnitude.
Radio as a “style” works incredibly well in the digital domain, so long as it’s actually good and designed for the medium it’s being consumed on. Spotify isn’t wildly successful at radio simply because they don’t care about it. Amazon took a huge swing at user-generated radio, and it didn’t work because the product wasn’t good. If either of them wake up one day really caring about quality, I’m confident it will do very well commercially.
The 2030 Odds
Keith: If you had to bet your own money: in 2030, is radio unarguably thriving, will it have become more of a niche industry with different revenue and audience growth expectations, or will it continue to be very similar to how it is today?
Zack Zalon: Keith, we’re bootstrapped, so to be clear, we have bet our own money on radio. But we’re not investing with blinders on — we’re investing in the industry we believe radio will become. The FM dial itself will not be thriving in a traditional sense. There will be continued declines in listening, revenue, and relevance. AI will speed this up. It will change behavioral trends, open up countless new experiences to pull listeners away to new things to spend their time on. And it will change advertising and the decision-making that fuels spend.
But there’s still an incredible opportunity for value generation, even as things decline. 36% operating margins — that’s the goal. If you just use that as a baseline, if you work backward from that one metric, there’s a clear path that opens up for how to transform strategy and operations to support it and to keep your equilibrium as things continue to shrink. And for those companies that structure themselves the right way, there’s also a clear path for methodically moving into the digital domain. That way, your company and your brand can survive even if the FM band itself goes away at some point.
The Blank Slate
Keith: Last question — blank slate — say anything you want to any sector of the music or radio industry. What do you want them to hear?
Zack Zalon: The Adizes Corporate Lifecycle Model reminds us that every company follows a predictable arc — from birth to death — and radio is no exception. Ignoring that reality is a choice. A fatal one.
Kodak invented the digital camera and died clinging to film. Blockbuster passed on buying Netflix. But the New York Times? They shed their identity as a paper-printing business and reinvented as a digital brand — 12.2 million of their 12.7 million subscribers are now digital-only. Adobe, Lego, Domino’s, Walmart — all rewrote their own stories before someone else wrote their obituaries.
So the question for radio executives is simple: Which one are you?
Reinvention isn’t optional. It’s the only exit ramp before the dustbin of history. And radio absolutely has the opportunity — if it’s willing to take it.
We want to work with the companies that answer that question the right way. Watch this space.
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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.
I was intrigued by your set up, Keith. But I wish Zack offered specific examples of his vision. Maybe tease one groundbreaking idea rather than generalities.