I saw an Instagram reel this weekend from Gaby O’Connor who works for Audacy in Miami, currently hosting mornings on 102.7 The Beach but was formerly a major part of 104.3 The Shark. It’s been a full year since radio station 104.3 The Shark in Miami flipped from Alternative to Sports and O’Connor says she’s still being asked what happened to the station.
It got me thinking. If your station went dark tonight, flipped formats, ceased to exist – what would the market actually lose? Not what would go quiet. What would really be missed?
The Replaceability Test
Try this exercise. Pull up Spotify, Apple Music, SiriusXM, a podcast app and Instagram. Then ask how much of your station’s experience a listener could recreate using only those five tools. If the honest answer is 90% or more, the remaining 10% is the only thing you’re actually selling. Everything else is inventory a listener already owns.
This isn’t a “radio is dying” argument. Plenty of stations pass this test easily. The ones that don’t tend to share a pattern. They’ve outsourced their personality to a streaming algorithm or downsized enough staff to no longer have a physical presence in the community, keeping only the FCC license as proof they existed.
Saying the City’s Name Isn’t Local
A local station reads a weather liner, files a traffic report and mentions the hometown team before kickoff. None of that makes a station feel rooted. It makes a station sound like it read a script about the city, instead of showing up in it.
Real local means participation. Did the station’s tent show up at the summer festival? Did a local charity gain a partner it can count on, not just a PSA slot? Would a small business owner recognize your morning host if they walked in for coffee? That’s a different scorecard than AQH, and it’s a much harder one to fake. Some reading this may say it doesn’t matter anymore. That we live and die by PPM. But with community connection being one of the main things that sets radio apart from the streaming platforms, I vote it still matters.
What Belongs to You
Every format now has access to the same music catalog. So what separates a station that matters from one that’s merely available? The list of things a listener associates with that station alone. A morning show with a real point of view. A benchmark bit. An annual concert. A charity drive with its own history. A contest people still talk about. A personality some listeners have grown up with.
Strip away the music, the imaging package and the syndicated programming. Those are the parts every competitor can license too. Then ask what’s left. If the answer is “not much,” that’s the real diagnosis, and no amount of tighter rotation fixes it.
Would the Personalities Be Missed?
If every jock at your station vanished tomorrow, would the audience notice within a week? That’s not necessarily a knock on the talent. Often, it’s a sign of how little room they get. They rarely have the freedom to build a real relationship with listeners, one segment at a time. That matters more than hitting marks between songs.
I recently interviewed Annie Camp, who is currently the only live personality on her station. That’s not a small detail. Every other daypart on her station is, by definition, replaceable by any streaming service. And I’m not knocking the syndicated jocks on her station, because I know they provide great content. But I’m just not sure it’s enough for the future nostalgia we’re talking about here. Camp is the one variable a listener can’t get anywhere else.
That’s the sharpest version of the replaceability test there is. One person, carrying the entire argument for why the station still needs to exist.
Heritage Isn’t a Free Pass
A station can carry 40 years of history and still be irrelevant today. Heritage only counts as an asset when a station keeps creating things worth remembering. Otherwise, it’s just a longer resume attached to a station nobody would miss.
I saw this up close. In the mid 2000’s, I worked for WWKX Providence, known at the time as Hot 106. It was a Hip-Hop leaning Rhythm station that had built its identity in Southern New England since 1988. In November 2024, Cumulus flipped it to Classic Rock as 106.3 The Wolf. Thirty-plus years of brand equity, and the format was gone in a weekend of stunting. Even so, heritage didn’t save it, because heritage was never the thing keeping it alive. What mattered was what the station did with that heritage, year over year.
Create Future Nostalgia
Here’s the challenge that matters most, and it’s not about defending radio’s past. It’s about building radio’s future memories.
Let’s go back to Gaby O’Connor’s Instagram post about The Shark in Miami. Yes, a year later and people still ask her what happened to the station. Most of them find her at alternative concerts, which makes sense, since that’s the audience the format built. What shocked her was a sixth grader asking the same question. A kid too young to have been a longtime listener still knew something was gone.
Her read on why people keep asking: “because it meant something to people.” Her reflection 365 days later on the flip itself: “sad that it ended, happy that it happened.”
That’s the whole argument in one sentence. A station doesn’t earn that kind of attention by playing a well-researched playlist. Instead, it earns that by being the kind of thing a sixth grader notices is missing.
The Actual Assignment
Pull your music out of the equation. Pull the imaging package out. Pull the syndicated programming out. What’s left that’s uniquely yours?
If the list is short, that’s not a ratings problem. That’s the whole problem.
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Bethany Kent is a Music Radio Editor for Barrett Media. She spent nearly 20 years bringing radio to life on stages, across the airwaves, and through unforgettable listener experiences. Her career spans local markets including Providence, Philadelphia, and New York City, most recently serving as National Director of Music Initiatives for Audacy. From producing major live events like HOT 97’s Summer Jam to leading strategic national marketing initiatives, she has built a career at the intersection of music, media, and culture. She can be reached at bethany@barrettmedia.com.