My social feeds spent Thursday (aka National Radio Day) full of old studio photos, career throwbacks and heartfelt posts about why radio matters. Stations, personalities and companies all joined in. Honestly, it was nice to see.
But the day is over now. And I keep coming back to one question: how can we make sure we’re still celebrating for many years to come?
We celebrated the right things. Now we have to prove them.
Scroll through enough National Radio Day posts, and you’ll see the same words again and again: local, personality, community, immediacy. Those aren’t just nice sentiments. They’re radio’s real advantages over Spotify, podcasts and every algorithm competing for the same ears.
Still, those words only mean something if they show up on a random Tuesday in October, not just one day in August.
Is your station actually local?
Radio loves to say “we’re local” like it’s automatic. It isn’t. After all, broadcasting from a tower in a city doesn’t make a station part of that city.
So ask the harder questions. Does your afternoon host know what’s happening around town this weekend? Does your station show up at community events, or just promote them? When something big happens locally, does your programming actually change?
I have been commuting lately as I’m back in an in-person 9-5 role for the first time since before the pandemic. Even with Google maps going, I still find myself looking for local traffic updates on the radio. On Thursday there was a massive accident during my commute home. I was impressed that Cat Country 98.1 WCTK/Providence was all over it on-air. Is it a sad world that I’m impressed with a jock immediately addressing something in the market live on-air? Maybe. But it felt SO local in that moment, that my radio nerd heart grew three sizes.
Here’s a test worth sitting with: if someone listened to your station for an hour without hearing the call letters, would they know what city they were in?
Having announcers isn’t the same as having personalities.
Radio also claims personality as an edge over streaming. Fair enough, but only if we’re actually developing personalities, not filling airtime between songs.
Do your listeners know anything real about the people on air? Do they know their opinions, their stories, their recurring bits? Is there an actual relationship with the audience? Or is it just liners and legal IDs with a name attached?
Last week I interviewed Kennedy of Mix 104.1 in Boston. She and her morning show co-host Karson have such a deep relationship with their listeners. It is really worth giving them a listen and hearing their authenticity come through on-air.
If personality really is one of our best advantages, then talent development can’t be the first line item cut when budgets tighten. Instead, it has to be treated like an investment.
Community isn’t a slogan. It’s a collective effervescence.
This is where radio can do something almost nothing else can. It can take an audience that normally exists separately in cars, kitchens and dentist’s offices, and physically bring them together in one place.
You don’t need a stadium-sized event for that, though. A small-market station at the town festival creates the same kind of connection as a massive concert. What matters most is that people show up because of your station. They felt driven to do so by a sense of community orchestrated by you.
If we’re the immediate medium, we need to act like it.
Radio’s oldest bragging right is being live and immediate. But does a station still have permission to break format when something actually happens? Breaking local news, a weather emergency, a hometown team winning it all, a beloved artist’s death… these are the moments radio was built for.
If we don’t sound live and immediate when it counts, then we’re handing away one of our biggest advantages for free.
We need to stop defending radio and start making it worth defending.
Here’s the part I think about most. Radio people spend a lot of energy insisting radio isn’t dead, that people still listen, that we still matter. All of that is true. Even so, the more we defend radio, the more we accidentally suggest it needs defending.
I asked this in a recent column, and I still think it’s the only question that matters: would anyone notice if your station disappeared tomorrow? Would listeners miss the morning show? Would the community miss the charity drive? Would a local business miss the partnership? Would an artist miss the platform?
In the end, that’s relevance. Not a slogan. A real answer to a real question.
Earning the next one
National Radio Day deserves to be celebrated. This industry has built careers, friendships and memories most of us never expected. But the best way to honor radio isn’t posting an old studio photo every August 20th.
The posts are done. Now let’s make something worth posting about.
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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.