Thank you for checking out The Industry According To. Every Wednesday, we speak with a different expert or leader from somewhere in the vast music industry — label executives, artist managers, programmers, talent, artists, consultants, and beyond. To be considered as a future guest, email me at keithblackboxgroup@gmail.com.
Today we sit down with Jason Garte, Founder and President of The Mix Group, one of the world’s largest custom radio imaging companies, serving more than 1,200 stations. I’ve never met Jason, but I can tell you from experience, his company does great work — and his story is one of my favorites.
Jason got his start in radio when he was only 14, after beating dozens of DJs in a multi-round “Mix-Off” competition held in Miami by Power 96. That earned him a weekly on-air slot, and he eventually developed his chops in both the air studio and the production room. In 2000, he became the first imaging director for Power 96. But that didn’t last long, as earning $10 an hour wasn’t going to keep his talent and ambition inside just one station.
At 21, Jason founded The Mix Group. More than 1,200 stations and a longstanding relationship with Premiere Networks later, The Mix Group has become a dominant force in radio imaging and voiceover.
So, let’s dive in.
A quick note before we begin: I end every edition of The Industry According To with the same question: Blank Slate — say anything you want to any sector of the industry.
Today, we’re putting the last question first.
After answering everything and reading the transcript, Jason recognized how brutally candid, and at times negative, some of his answers sounded — or could come across. His response to the Blank Slate explains where that candor and passion for radio come from.
I wanted you to understand his love for the game before you encounter any of the criticisms he drops. So, this week, the ending is the beginning.
*Editor’s Note: Answers have been edited for clarity and length.*
The Blank Slate
Keith: Last question — blank slate. Say anything you want to any sector of the industry. What do you want them to hear?
Jason: After answering these questions and reading the entire transcript back, my first thought was, “Shit, I sound so negative.” But I owe it to myself, and to everyone I work with and for, to be uncomfortably honest here. I’m not going to fill your time with hopeful fluff and corporate speak; I’ve done that plenty in the past. I want to send a love letter to every single human being who has dedicated their life to radio. From the promotions kid to the GM to the President of Programming at the largest company out there: I love you, as a human being doing all you can, and I thank you for decades of hard work as a broadcasting professional, building what we’ve built together. BUT… it’s time to wake the fuck up and get back to where we used to be. Remember the energy — how your heart exploded and your palms sweated at the first touch of a live fader on a warm Audiotronics console? It’s time to crank those headphones to deafening levels and MANUFACTURE downright EPIC product again. It hurts to see friends send in production for us to knock out on a Wednesday and, when I send it back Thursday, get an auto-reply that they’re no longer with the company. It happens all the time now, and I can’t stand it. I want this industry to thrive again, and I want to be an active part of the renaissance that truly can happen. I’m dead serious. Call me and I’m there.
The Sound of Radio
Keith: You hear stations across virtually every format, market size, and ownership group. What does American radio sound like to you in 2026 — and what are the most common mistakes you hear when stations are self-imaging?
Jason: I won’t mince words: it sounds like forgettable noise wrapped in an audio garbage bag, and that’s me being polite. Most programmers are running a thousand miles an hour just to stay alive, so imaging gets slapped together in-house or ordered as a dry rollover: process the VO, drop it over the intro, done. The art, the wit, the memorable moments have vanished. The people leading the way on this almost “invisible” imaging are dead wrong, and nobody’s pushing back.
Here’s the mistake underneath it: you can’t effectively focus group your imaging. Asking a listener if they like your imaging is like asking if they like the wrapper on a candy bar. Nobody consciously experiences it, so the feedback is useless, and dangerous if you rely on it. Imaging does its job best when it creates cohesion and sets up a vibe. It’s a feeling, not a focus — the music is the focus. You can’t define “it,” and you can’t fake “it.” My staff has it. John Frost has it. Steve Dubbz. Andy Jackson.
Radio used to be a big bet made by people with big egos. You were either right or you were fired, and the next kid got his shot. It should still work that way, now more than ever, with digital as our real competitor. Find the dreamer, the artist, the kid who’s got “it” (that was me at Power 96), and let them tear shit up. The audience will let you know if you got it right. I sincerely hope the days of artistic freedom and TALENT return to radio, but I’m not going to sit here holding my breath waiting for it.
Finding the Right Lane
Keith: Imaging can identify a station, establish its attitude or “stationality,” create emotion, add momentum, and define its position. What is the most important job — and how should a programmer determine the right sound and amount of imaging for the brand?
Jason: Stationality is the key. I’ve been saying it for years. The listener doesn’t care what you have to say; you do. The listener wants to be entertained, rocked, taken on a journey. You win when you can do BOTH. So the question I preach to my guys all day long is: what can we ADD to this? The PD hands us copy that needs communicating. Now, how do we wrap it in a cloak of fun creative so the listener has no idea they’re being branded? It’s getting your dog to swallow a pill by covering it in peanut butter. The best imaging people do this instinctively. Instead, imaging has become mere useless identification. Branding is what’s downright vital to your survival; it just requires effort, thought, and talent.
HOW a programmer does this is simple. You know your P1s, your target demo, your avatar. Every move is made to court them, relate to them, live life side by side with them, and sometimes just be their guilty pleasure. It’s all about THEM. “Seattle’s home for Hits and Hip Hop” accomplishes none of that; it’s clutter, and corporate is right to limit it. But that’s only HALF the story: you also have to go absolutely balls-to-the-wall on the content listeners love — the jocks, the music, and, in my deeply held opinion, the fun, powerful, and entertaining audio experiences surrounding all of it — aka imaging.
Keith: In research, listeners will often classify promos as commercials. Whether a station is giving away water-park tickets or a client is advertising a mattress sale, both interrupt the entertainment to deliver a message. What’s the secret to making a promo a promo that earns extra attention instead of feeling like another commercial?
Jason: The mattress sale and the water park have the same need — OUR need to promote something. The listener finds ANY interruption of their music a tune-out, UNLESS they love what you’re doing. My mentor and PD at Power, Kid Curry, had a very wise rule: if what you’re doing is better than the song you’re about to play, go for it and crush it. Otherwise, shut up and play the damn record. With a promo or a spot, we HAVE to interrupt, so HOW we do it is everything, and about 99% of the time we do it wrong. We’re far too plain-spoken and flat in the copy, which is the foundation of a boring, tune-out promo that genuinely does sound like a spot:
Hot 99.7 and Tidal Cove Water Park are making your summer wetter and wilder. We’re giving away four all-day passes. That’s four people, twelve waterslides, a half-mile lazy river, and a wave pool the size of your neighborhood. (SFX: kid scream-laugh, water whoosh) VO: Pack the towels. Forget the sunscreen — just kidding, bring the sunscreen. Register now on our website at hot997.com. Tidal Cove. Make a splash this summer.
It reads like a commercial, because it basically is a commercial. Here’s how I’d have done it:
We tell a vivid, theater-of-the-mind story of a day where a P1 mom (who had always heard other listeners win) decided on a whim to call the station and actually won a four-pack of tickets to Tidal Cove on the way into work. Moments later, we join the mom as she U-turns in front of the office, calls in sick, and returns home to her boring teens, who have nothing to do all summer but watch Netflix and play games on their iPad. She walks in the door, and they’re all bewildered at why she’s home. Mom says, “you kids go get your bathing suits, today we’re going to Tidal Cove!” Instant hero status. The voiceover comes on and says, “we’re fighting boring summers one family at a time, and today we’re starting with yours.” We join the family now for some theater of the mind inside the water park: the resonant echo inside a tube slide on a large yellow family raft, the splashing, the screaming in the distance, the giggles, and the love. The station’s VO returns for the deadly and memorable sendoff: “a day you’ll never forget; splashing, relaxing, and making life-long memories is just one step away. Log on to Hot997.com and enter for your chance to win.” Then we wrap it creatively with more screaming, more fun, and a little kid saying, “this was the best day EVER! Thanks MOM!!” Then Mom replies, “and thank you Hot 99-7!”
Imaging & Ratings
Keith: Programmers obsess over music, rotations, and talent, but imaging is one of the most frequently heard elements on a station. A VO talent may be heard more often per hour than full-time jocks, and some pieces turn over like powers. Can great imaging affect listening and ratings, and how much damage can bad imaging do?
Jason: Bland station identification is doing real damage at the moment. IDs get buried between the final two spots of the stop-set, rambled in quick, car-dealer-like disclaimer fashion, and it breeds real listener disinterest and DISASSOCIATION. Listeners can get music anywhere, so they’re not listening just for music. They can get witty banter from a million podcasts. They don’t need a human to announce the song title; every app does that, and so does the RDS in the dash. Radio has it half right lately when it talks about companionship on the jock side. Imaging fulfills the other role of the same job.
Imaging must be a feature. A moment. Back at Power 96, listeners would CALL THE STATION to request promos, and pieces I made there more than 20 years ago are going viral on TikTok right now — a custom version of Vitamin C’s “Graduation,” where a comically violent bathroom brawl plays out, set against a sweet song about lifelong memories.
These are the tragedies of radio in 2026. There’s almost nobody left doing this kind of work, and the few who can, us included, are rarely turned loose.
If you think back to when YOU thought radio was simply amazing, I’m hoping you, too, can identify promos or imaging pieces that people still recite to this day. To answer the question directly, a station with a wide catalogue of music that really wows the listener — coupled with both great, empowered jocks (who are endearing and are the kind of people you just want to never stop talking with at a party) and imaging that acts like specialized, custom audio experiences you can only get on that ONE station, rather than boring one-liners — not only CAN, but WILL, own its market. But it’s risky to ignore the science, the research, the way we’re supposed to do it, and just go out there and kill it. If you let the jock who thinks he’s funny on the air — and he’s not — and you put on imaging that is a bunch of over-production to no end, you get an A for effort but an F for execution.
Attention Spans
Keith: Radio has been told it must hook listeners within two or three seconds. Artists are putting hooks first in songs, and even TV and movies now repeatedly reestablish the plot. Has that pressure improved imaging or stripped away some of its creativity and storytelling ability? And does The Mix Group operate with any type of standard operating procedure when it comes to trying to hook listeners quickly?
Jason: I 10,000% agree, and it’s law in every medium now, especially social. Every time you change flow, direction, or audio, it MUST hook the listener. Technology gave everyone permanent A.D.D. No exceptions. If you’re not giving me what I want, I’m gone in seconds. Where programmers and executives go wrong is confusing GOOD content with ALL content. That’s what drove the “less is more” era: they wanted to limit the garbage that turned listeners off in the research and focus groups, but, in doing so, they handcuffed the creatives, who pumped out the stuff listeners were tuning in for. That’s what was lost while they were trying to eliminate the boring clutter. Great intentions and not-so-great execution. At The Mix Group, the SOP is simple: a strong hook up top, a surprise element or two through the body (especially if the copy is long-winded), and a big finish that nails the message and makes it memorable.
Sorry, That’s Lame
Keith: Be honest: you and your team must receive some incredibly LAME COPY to produce. How do you handle that? Do you put your head down because “the client knows best,” or will you push back and save a station from embarrassing itself?
Jason: A bit of both, I’ll admit. We’ve learned which programmers see us as collaborators and welcome our creative input, and which know precisely what they want and find any input to be a delay or a challenge to their mission. We respect both, and we push when we think we can save a station from itself. The copy has gotten worse since AI showed up. I get it — one person is doing eleven jobs, so Claude writes the promos in 2026. Doesn’t make it right, and I’m not happy with it, but it’s what we’re seeing more of. That, plus recycled copy from 15 of the same parent-owned stations; no one’s doing anything special for their market anymore, or in their station’s unique voice. If you’re stretched that thin, that’s exactly when you let us take a swing at the copy and the creative additives, and help enhance your stationality. It’s not just where we shine; it’s truly our core purpose in 2026. That’s the collaboration part.
Who Can We Learn From?
Keith: Point us to the radio station you think has the best imaging for us to hear. Why do you feel that way, and what specifically should we listen for?
Jason: I’ll be honest: it’s a tough ask, as I’d have to admit that most stations are minimizing the amount of creative and art in their imaging. But Power 106 Los Angeles, one of our newest clients, is the closest you’ll get to what great really looks and sounds like. Along with Andrew “DJ A-Smooth” Berger, their Imaging Director, we really kill it for them. Pio and Andrew give us the autonomy and ultimate trust to do our thing, and I think it shows up on the air. They also send a ton of artist and listener drops, which is invaluable in lending credibility and authenticity to the brand.
Identification Overload
Keith: In PPM markets, the meter knows what station is being heard, yet many stations still fill nearly every segue with a sweeper and repeat positioning statements up to 20 times an hour. How much identification and positioning does a station really need before reinforcement becomes noise?
Jason: You get more recall from branding than identification. I’m all for an ID when it’s creative or impactful; I’m strongly against it when it’s empty, dry VO (which the listener hears as a DJ anyway). They don’t know the difference. You gain love by SHOWING who you are, not TELLING people who you are. If you have to say “DFW’s home for Classic Rock,” you’ve already lost them. SHOW them why you’re the only place to hear “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” And if you’re going to open your mouth at all, make it great, even if it takes more than three seconds. I’d rather watch a three-hour Marvel movie that’s epic than a tight 90-minute flick that blows. A station’s identity isn’t its name or positioner; it’s the stationality and how it comes across. Are the jocks doing positioners and back-selling records, or are they the coolest-guy-in-the-room, former-class-clown types with a million followers? That’s an incubation problem, and it hits imaging too. Where’s the young Jason sneaking into the production room after his mix-show shift? 1996, that’s where.
The Cliché Graveyard
Keith: “Commercial free,” “The most music,” “Number one for _____,” “The best mix,” “The most variety” — which radio-imaging cliché needs to be retired immediately?
Jason: All of them. Positioners suck, honestly. You don’t walk up to a beautiful woman you’d like to have fall in love with you and exclaim, “I’m the perfect human being and would make a wonderful life partner!” You appeal to her, you bond with her over time, and you prove yourself worthy of her love. The same goes for the relationship between a station and its listener. It’s a long-term commitment that is nurtured with every great decision or neglected by every bad one. Music Menus show who you are musically. Real, hyped listeners having a blast all over your imaging let ALL of your listeners know you’re in it for THEM. Jocks who shout out random locations or interests that only the real die-hard locals know hit home and form a bond.
The Blind Test
Keith: If you removed the call letters and frequency from most stations’ imaging, could listeners identify which station it belonged to, or have too many stations become sonically interchangeable?
Jason: Keith, you took the words out of my mouth. Sadly, it’s the latter, and it hurts to say it. More imaging is being repurposed right now than ever before — the same piece with different calls in the last three seconds. And I want to elaborate here, because the people making those calls know what they’re doing, and they aren’t the enemy. When the numbers are tight, you have to find the money somewhere, and I’d be doing the same math in their chair. Where I land differently is on what gets shared. Not every piece has to be repurposed. There’s a lot in an imaging library the listener will never know came from three markets away, and then there’s the handful of pieces that ARE the station — the promos, the stationality pieces, the stuff that sounds like that city and nowhere else. Share the first pile all day long as a base. Protect the second pile with your life, because THAT’S the pile the audience is showing up for. Our biggest problem in radio is ad dollars going to Google and Meta instead of us. The money follows the audience, and the audience follows the EPIC! If TikTok feels like the coolest shit out there, that’s where they’ll go. If WE become the coolest shit out there again, the advertisers follow, even if our tech stack and attribution model don’t quite compare. So when the numbers are tight, I’m not saying spend more. I’m saying spend it where the listener can hear and feel the difference.
What Does “Custom” Mean?
Keith: The Mix Group emphasizes that its work is 100% custom, but you’re creating for more than 1,200 stations. How do you deliver at that scale without gradually giving every client a variation of the same sound?
Jason: Custom means every single piece we send out was individually made to order for that PD, based on their station profile and what we know they love hearing. The model was born while I was still in-house at Power in Miami, producing for KZFM Corpus Christi, WPWX Chicago, and KDHT Austin on the side. Power got SUPER Miami: Cuban girls shouting the positioner and random Miami-isms. Hot 93.3 Austin got Baby Bash and West Coast low-rider vibes. Same guy producing, but the station and the market dictated the sound. That’s the foundation of my thinking, and it’s why generic audio can’t work: it can never cater to any one vibe, and it HAS to be generic, or you’re running Mexican slang in Miami and Cuban-isms in McAllen. Both audiences tune out. Custom means giving each order the respect it deserves: the localization, the evidence that you know who the station is, and the PD’s dream for the station in audio form. Generic loses when custom is an option. Every time.
Keith: AI can already write copy, clone voices, and produce finished audio in seconds. Does that commoditize radio imaging or make elite human judgment even more valuable — and what part of the craft will AI never be able to replace?
Jason: I spend 12–15 hours a day using AI. I’m addicted. Beyond addicted. But I use it as my assistant to help ME do what I already do, faster, and to kill repetitive, wasteful work. We redesigned our Mix Production Portal with AI, and it’s coming out in minutes here; our books, contracts, and CRM are all tied together through AI and automation. But creative? I’ve tried. It sucks every time. I have spent hours upon hours prompting the shit out of Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Grok, all of them, and I always end up writing the copy myself. If you see things at the absolute highest level, you’ll never accept AI slop. I’ll give Suno its props: I’ve made some really great music beds there, but as an ingredient inside a human-run composition. You can’t prompt out an AI-written, AI-voiced, AI-produced piece worth airing. Not yet. One day, probably. Today, no way, Jose.
Jason’s Station
Keith: You buy a station tomorrow. Pick any format and think about a normal hour. Are you filling it up with quicks, attitudes, a promo, a few music definers, a massive Legal ID, or something entirely different? With no rules and nobody to answer to, how are you imaging your new station?
Jason: First and foremost, I get big-time excited at the thought of a friggin’ massive TOH ID. When I worked at Power 96 and some random cashier asked what I did, she’d immediately shout the calls at me. Every time. Nobody knew what WPOW MIAMI FORT LAUDERDALE AND THE PALM BEACHES meant, but every citizen of South Florida was basically legally required to know it by heart. It was a disease… annnnnnd now we hide it between the final spots at :58. It’s a crime. Stand on the rooftop and scream your ID as a proclamation of who the hell you are!! Everything else that follows flows from that initial kick-off energy.
Second, my WOW records: huge at the time, didn’t stand the test of time. In Rhythmic CHR, I’m thinking Wyclef “Perfect Gentleman,” 20 Fingers “Short Dick Man,” Roula “Lick It.” Spike ’em. Play today’s staples without overdoing it, take chances on new records again, and blow people’s minds with songs they forgot they loved.
Then the imaging: great copywritten theater-of-the-mind pieces mixed with simpler, bad-as-shit production pieces built to excite a listener right before you drop them into a huge up-tempo record. Two killer promos an hour: one for the station (what’s new this week, what’s happening in the community) and one giveaway. There MUST be a giveaway. Don’t tell me there’s no money; we’re losing more in audience and advertiser attrition than we ever gave away on the air. That’s a damn fact. Thousand Dollar Thursday was legendary. If just one station proved that model in 2026 — $1,000 an hour, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., blasted across social, billboards, even TV — it would literally bring back an industry. The spike would ooze into the rest of the week, because they’d have such an epic time they’d come back Friday. But fix the product first. Don’t try this with the way radio sounds now. Get it together, THEN go for it.
The Jason Imaging Rule
Keith: Pick one rule to give every imaging producer to make them better. What is it?
Jason: At MIX, we have one huge, golden rule: you cannot, under any circumstances, throw a bed and some SFX under a VO and call it imaging. That is not imaging. That is basic bullshit production, and it reeks to high hell of lack of effort and piss-poor judgment. Every time you open a new session and drag in the VO, you paint a new picture. You show what you’re made of; you honor the legacy of the station, the wishes of the PD, and who we are at MIX as a company. If you really respect the craft and your role at this moment in our industry, that’s a lot of responsibility. So: are you going to be great, or are you going to throw it together and attempt to even remotely call it art?
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