Disappearing Act

Would anyone miss you if you were gone?

Calm down, I'm not talking about your mortality. Your radio show. Your station. Your podcast. Would anyone be upset at your absence, or would they move on to something else? This week, Canada's Bell Media pulled the plug on six AM stations, and I wonder how many people outside the industry would even notice. (Maybe the Edmonton sports station would qualify as an exception.) One moment, the programming was there, and the next, silence. What happens to the listeners? Where did they go? And, yes, there weren't enough listeners to change Bell's mind about shutting down the stations, but, still, even if we're talking tens of listeners, they gotta go someplace, right?

They do, but not necessarily to another radio station. Or a podcast, or streaming. There is so much content out there in all forms, accessible everywhere on devices in your home, your car, and your pocket, that you can't assume they'll go to any particular place the way you used to assume that if the number two Top 40 in town changed format, the other Top 40 would pick up most of the listeners. Today, they can go to that other station, or Spotify, or podcasts, or YouTube, or TikTok. And they surely will.

I can remember (redacted) years ago, as a newbie in the business, being told in no uncertain terms not to think of the competition as just our format competitor. Every radio station, we were told, is a competitor. TV is a competitor. Newspapers, billboards, work, traffic, dinner, crying babies... everything competes for your audience's attention. It's even more competitive now, of course. So, again, if you're taken out of the equation, would anyone miss you?

Here's another part of the equation: Your bosses don't care, because they don't look at the business the way you do. It's a career to you, maybe even an art form or creative outlet. It's a pile of assets meant to generate cash for shareholders or be sold for parts at this point. They will sell or shut down stations if it makes sense on a business level, just like Bell Media did. That's their prerogative, and if you were them, you might just do it, too.

You're not them. You're still doing radio. You're hosting a show, or running a station, and you want to succeed. How do you avoid the fate of Funny 1040 or the other silent Bell stations? I wish I had a foolproof answer for you, but if there's anything in your power, producing something unique and engaging is really the only answer. Do things that people would miss if it was gone, from programming to promotions. If a station goes off the air and it wasn't doing something irreplaceable in people's lives, the audience will not miss a beat in finding alternatives. If a station truly connects with its audience, if a host is really entertaining and engaging, their absence will be noticed, which makes finding the next gig way more likely.

Maybe the way to look at it is that you have to leave a mark, something for people to remember when you're gone, except that you don't want to go in the first place and you do want to keep making that mark. Kind of like life itself.

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Perry Michael Simon
Senior Vice President/Editor-in-Chief and News-Talk-Sports-Podcasting Editor
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
Twitter @pmsimon
Mastodon @pmsimon@c.im