What’s in a brand name? For radio, it’s everything – the outward facing way listeners, advertisers, and the community refer to your station. Coming up with a new brand – or tougher yet, a rebrand – can be a tough challenge. Here’s a guide that will remind you of the stations that got it right, as well as those that perhaps should have gone back to the drawing board.

On the heels of yesterday’s post about radio’s faded reputation for new music discovery comes an apt bookend – what to do about Gen Z. If you’ve ever said, “My teen doesn’t know what a radio is,” this post’s for you.

Years ago, those wizards from the Research Group taught radio programmers the value of “owning hills” – images that can set a radio station or even a company apart in a positive, unique way. These days, there’s a rush to “own” podcasts, streaming, event marketing and other desirable “hills.” But what about new music? It’s been slipping away from broadcast radio for some time now. And there are growing signs radio’s predators are more than happy to swoop in and grab up this once highly contested turf. Here’s what that looks like over the next handful of years.

Our JacoBLOG “junk drawer” today features three fascinating media/marketing stories – M&M’s is now rebranding around album covers, and you won’t guess which classic LP they chose. New innovations in text-to-speech could make radio searchable. And if we ever get back to the office, listening at work may take on a whole new customized, personalized model.

Oftentimes in radio, the difference between winning and losing is a diary here or a meter there. Just like in football, a so-called “game of inches.” There are lots of variables that separate the champs from the also-rans, but it often comes down to one simple thing that just about everyone in the radio industry has control over. That’s where we’re headed in today’s JacoBLOG post.

Howard Hesseman, the guy who played Dr. Johnny Fever, the patron saint of rock radio DJs on the “WKRP in Cincinnati” sitcom, passed away. Fever wasn’t just a sitcom character or a laugh track. He was a caricature of the real thing – cool rock radio DJs who rules the airwaves back then. Today’s blog post looks at radio’s “cool factor” – where it went, why it matters, and maybe how to get it back.

The JacoBLOG junk drawer is back, and today we’re getting you away from it all with three great stories about radio in faraway places. Bon voyage!

Another day and another blaring headline about the demise of new music. But when it comes from a respected author and writer, it’s worthy of our attention. And because the state of music – especially the new stuff – is important to radio’s present and future, there are implications worth noting. Today’s blog post brings the data, some of it disturbing, but an unvarnished look at how our culture is changing. And with it, the radio broadcasting business, and several of its most important and profitable formats.

Every radio company is different, of course. But whether you’re talking about the biggest public companies with thousands of employees or those mom & pop operations, the one complaint they all share is this: not enough bandwidth. How can organizations make the most of their resources, while optimizing results. That’s the heavy lift of today’s blog post, along with 8 common sense suggestions to help you get there.

After a few years where we did not see much in the way of tech advancement in the automotive world, CES 2022 turned out to be a fork in the road. Yes, there has been innovation in both autonomous and electrification. But much progress has been made in visual displays. They’re bigger, they’re personalized, and there are more of them. For an audio medium like radio, there are challenges, but also opportunities in the cars of the future, as well as vehicles rolling off the assembly line today. How’s your station’s video strategy?

An ongoing debate in U.S. radio circles revolves around the value proposition and even the definition of “local.” Commercial, public, and Christian music operators are all grappling with this issue, especially because of its dependence on resources, human and financial. Today’s blog post offers up real-life examples of why the local ethos matters now more than ever, as well as my test to measure a station’s “local-ness.” Can yours pass the test?