The Best Is (Maybe) Yet To Come (I Hope)

Thursday was National Radio Day, or at least one of those hashtag generator companies decided to make it National Radio Day, and it went as it does every year: ignored by the formal industry, embraced by people working in the business, a cavalcade of resumÈs on Facebook, which at times resembled a more enthusiastic LinkedIn with all the call letters and vintage photos on display. Oh, and cynicism, my own included. Radio isn't what it used to be, and while it may seem churlish to say so on or just after National Radio Day, National Radio Day is hardly a sacred holiday. Most actual radio stations don't even mention it.

I admit to having posted something less than reverent on Twitter, but I'm going to brightside things here (you can follow me on Twitter if you want to know what I said. Go ahead, follow me there). In the meantime, here are a couple of things that might offer some hope....

But first, the obvious disclaimer: If you're talking about "radio" and you're defining it purely as AM/FM radio, this whole "National Radio Day" ends up an exercise in nostalgia. The broadcast version of the medium is open to fewer and fewer entrants, the future involves national, uniform programming, voice tracking, "centers of excellence," you know the drill. And that's not to say that this is all bad. "National" isn't synonymous with "bad," some voice tracking is just fine, a well-programmed national playlist can be as, or more, effective than one programmed locally... if that's the kind of radio you like, that is. Something more innovative and creative? Okay, broadcast radio may not be the vehicle for that. The days of hearing something on the radio that strikes the listener as unique, original, and unlike anything before it are probably gone.

Those days are, however, living on with new technology, the best feature of which is that it's open to everyone. Let's look at that through the lens of the National Radio Day nostalgia all over Facebook: If you could tell 15-year-old you that they could do a "radio show" that could instantly be heard, live or on demand, around the world, what would your younger self have said? What if you could tell that kid they could be seen, too, in videos that would become more popular in many cases than television? What if you added that there'd be no programming rules, that they could say anything, do anything, no bosses, no program directors, just whatever they wanted to do with no limit to their imagination or their capability to produce it, even using a device that they can carry around in their pocket? Here we are, and for all the "too much content" and "lower bar for quality" carping, the true result is that a young creative mind now has way, way more opportunity than when we had to snag a rare internship at a local radio station and hope one day someone would let us board op a weekend paid show, or do college radio and send cassette airchecks to hundreds of programmers who'd most likely toss the tape in a pile with hundreds of other unplayed recordings.

That's a good thing.

And it's a good thing that there ARE people who are trying to innovate. Companies like Apple Music and Spotify are tinkering with the definition of "radio show," whether incorporating celebrity DJ segments into customizable playlists or curating and compiling podcast content. Monetization remains somewhat elusive, but someone's going to crack that, too. If the owners of AM and FM radio aren't keen on innovation (I'm gonna just say that playing podcasts on broadcast radio isn't an innovation so much as it's a promotional opportunity), there are other platforms on which generations of great talent will be able to do things nobody else has yet conceived, and this time, there won't be anyone to tell them they can't.

Which is encouraging, and which is the kind of thing I care about way more than posting my resumÈ of call letters and photos from my checkered radio career. I don't even know if I have any of those pictures, the ones in which a grinning teenager with period-appropriate hair and attire is sitting at the mic or mugging with the other street teamers in front of the station van or uncomfortably posing with a celebrity passing through the station on a promotional tour. For me, National Radio Day ought to be National Future Of Audio (And Video) Entertainment Day. I'm not at all against nostalgia, but we can always do that. I'd rather celebrate and encourage great things to come.

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Oh, and if you're in possession of any pictures of me from back in the day, kindly burn them. Nobody needs to see that.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
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