Every time a heritage radio station removes the personalities who made it special, it feels like watching a unicorn die. I know that sounds dramatic, particularly when the station itself is still technically alive. The tower is still transmitting. The call letters are still there. The logo may have changed. The music continues to play. But something rare — and increasingly difficult to replace — has disappeared.
That’s exactly what happened when KCAL 96.7 Rocks dismissed its on-air personalities and shifted to a jockless classic-rock presentation. KCAL will still play the Scorpions, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and the rest of the library. From a distance, it may sound like the same station. However, anyone who believes the personalities were merely interruptions between the songs never understood why people formed a relationship with KCAL in the first place.
The Promise of “More Music”
Let’s be clear: “More music” is not a new radio strategy. We have been promising fewer interruptions, longer music sweeps and commercial-free hours for as long as I have been in the business. Somewhere along the way, every programmer has sat in a meeting and discussed whether eliminating one more talk break might produce another quarter-hour of listening.
The problem is that radio no longer operates in a world where access to music is scarce. Today, listeners have Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and countless other places where they can hear nearly any song ever recorded. Furthermore, they can skip what they don’t like, build their own playlists and listen without waiting for a disc jockey to stop talking.
If the product is simply an uninterrupted collection of familiar rock songs, why wouldn’t listeners choose one of those services? Here’s the truth: Rock radio can’t win on catalog alone.
What Research Actually Tells Us
The research supports that distinction. Jacobs Media’s Techsurvey found that, for the seventh consecutive year, core radio fans were more likely to identify personalities than music as a primary reason they listen. Consider what radio’s own most loyal customers are telling us. They are saying the people matter — and the industry continues responding by removing them.
A great personality does more than announce the artist and title. Instead, personalities create familiarity, companionship and community. They understand the market. They know the concert venues, the local frustrations and the inside jokes. Additionally, they show up at charity events, introduce bands, talk about what happened in town over the weekend and occasionally say something wonderfully unpredictable.
That is the connective tissue that turns a sequence of songs into a radio station.
Technology Cannot Replace Human Connection
An algorithm can determine that people who enjoy Van Halen may also enjoy Def Leppard. It cannot replicate the feeling that the person on the radio lives where you live, understands the culture of your city and is experiencing the same day you are. An algorithm can assemble a playlist. Yet it cannot build a community like radio does.
I understand the business argument. Eliminating personalities reduces expenses. It makes the station easier to operate and allows the company to devote resources somewhere else. Undoubtedly, radio companies face real financial pressure, and pretending otherwise would make this argument too easy.
But here’s the larger strategic problem: A company can make a radio station less expensive to operate while also making it less necessary to hear. When the people disappear, radio voluntarily surrenders the thing Spotify cannot duplicate. The station may become more efficient, but it also becomes less distinctive. Eventually, all that remains is a playlist interrupted by commercials — and there are already better places to find a playlist.
The Unicorns Among Us
This is not another “radio is dead” column. Radio is not dead. There are still vibrant stations doing extraordinary local work, building communities and developing personalities who matter deeply to their listeners. In fact, the stations that continue investing in people may become even more valuable because they are becoming so unusual.
That’s why the loss of KCAL’s personalities feels bigger than another round of budget cuts or another change in programming philosophy. Truly local, personality-driven rock stations have become radio’s unicorns. Every time we lose one, a little more of the industry’s magic disappears with it.
KCAL will continue playing rock. Its call letters, and music library will survive. But whether the thing listeners loved as “KCAL” survives is a different question. A playlist can survive without people. However, a radio station cannot — not in any form that matters.
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David Hill serves as a Music Radio Editor, Columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. A radio lifer with more than 30 years behind the mic, in the control room, and in the program director’s chair, David’s career spans influential stops at brands such as WIYY 98 Rock, WBAL-AM, and 99X. He has worked across multiple formats and ownership groups, including iHeartMedia and Cumulus Media, developing talent, breaking music, and navigating every major industry shift from diary to PPM and terrestrial dominance to streaming disruption. When he’s not writing or analyzing the industry, Dave runs The Tune Farm, a marketing firm built to help artists and brands grow audience the same way great radio always has—by creating connection, not just impressions. He can be reached at David@BarrettMedia.com.