Marconi Awards season is supposed to feel like radio’s own version of the Oscars. It’s a night when the industry celebrates the people who make radio formats work. So it’s worth asking why, in the 2026 Personality of the Year nominations, news/talk radio barely shows up.
25 nominees fill out the five Personality of the Year categories this year. That list stretches from Network/Syndicated talent all the way down to small market hosts. Only one of them — the host of West Virginia Morning News on WCHS 580, Chris Lawrence — comes from the news/talk format. Sports talk fares even worse. Not a single host from that format made the cut.
It’s a stark gap for two formats that generate some of the most consistent local ratings performance in the industry. It also raises a real question about what’s happening between the hosts, the stations, and the NAB.
Did the Format Simply Not Apply?
The simplest explanation is that qualified hosts didn’t fill out the nomination forms. It happens every year in every category, and it’s entirely possible. But I have a hard time believing that’s the whole story here.
News/talk has produced Marconi winners and finalists for years. Hosts who’ve been recognized before — or who’ve built shows around exactly the kind of local connection and audience loyalty the Marconis are meant to honor — don’t typically forget to apply. Neither do their programmers, who usually handle much of that legwork anyway. If anything, this format tends to take awards season seriously. That’s because recognition translates directly into leverage at the negotiating table and credibility with skeptical ownership groups.
So while a lack of applications probably explains part of the shortfall, it doesn’t explain all of it. Something else seems to be going on, and it’s worth looking at the voting side of the process too.
Does the Voting Panel Understand the Format?
Another possibility is that whoever’s voting on these awards doesn’t have a news/talk or sports talk background. Therefore, they don’t fully grasp what separates a great show in those formats from an average one. Talk radio lives and dies on things that don’t always translate well on paper — chemistry, timing, the ability to hold an audience through a three-hour show without a hook or a beat drop. Consequently, a panel more attuned to music radio’s rhythms might undervalue what talk hosts actually do.
Still, I’ll give the NAB the benefit of the doubt here. It’s a respected organization, and I doubt anyone’s intentionally shutting out entire formats. But intent and outcome aren’t the same thing, and the outcome this year speaks for itself.
My best guess is that it’s a combination of both problems: a format that’s grown a little complacent about entering, paired with a voting process that may not fully appreciate what it’s looking at when talk radio does show up. Neither excuse holds up particularly well on its own. Together, they point to a fixable issue rather than an unsolvable one.
That’s a problem for the news/talk and sports talk industries just as much as it is for the NAB. Hosts, programmers, producers, operations managers, general managers, market presidents, and everyone else who builds these shows should want the recognition a Marconi nomination brings, let alone a win. Meanwhile, the NAB should take note of a gap this wide and figure out how to close it before next year’s nominations open.
If the NAB really wants the Marconis to be “Radio’s Biggest Night,” that title has to mean something. It has to include the formats that keep local radio relevant. I think news/talk and sports talk radio fit that bill. But the list of nominees proves otherwise.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.