Earlier this month, we began to dig into the findings from our 21st annual Techsurvey comprised of nearly 25,000 core listeners to commercial radio here in the U.S. I continue to be amazed by this study’s incredible “trendability.” Given the ebbs and flows of the hundreds of stakeholder stations that participate year after year, you’d think there’d be more “bounce” to the numbers. To that point, this year’s study may represent the biggest turnover of participating radio stations in years, and yet, the data continues to affirm many of the same stories about radio in America – where it’s been, where it’s going, how people listen, and why they listen.
For the seventh consecutive year, the percentage of core radio fans who listen for personalities over music has held steady in Techsurvey 2025. The line was first crossed in our “Why Radio?” question back in 2019. That was when those who say a main driver behind radio listening flipped from being about the music to being rooted in personality appeal.
Through the pandemic and its aftermath, the gap – admittedly small – between DJs vs. music as contributors of driving radio listening remains. In fact, not much has changed, especially in recent years regarding the power of personality on radio versus the appeal of music. While only narrowly ahead of the thousands of songs heard every day on broadcast radio, the aggregate appeal of hosts and shows has mostly flatlined since the COVID outbreak. But it still ekes out the win over those drawn to radio because of the music stations play.
The chart below has been widely printed and quoted over the past half dozen or so years, a compelling story that reinforces the value of proprietary hosts and shows versus music, which has become highly commoditized over the past couple of decades as playlists comprised of millions of songs became available either for free or for an affordable monthly fee sans commercials. At those relatively low prices, just about anybody can afford to have millions of songs available on their mobile device. Great, timely, funny, moving personalities aren’t nearly as available or common.
And yet, many radio companies and stations seemingly struggle with this consistently strong audience desire for entertaining personalities. While it may be true that talent is generally more expensive, harder to manage, and frequently more problematic than merely building a playlist on a music scheduling system, its long-term growth and ability to build and grow brands is proven and indisputable.
How many times have we seen a dominant station in a market specializing in, say Country, CHR, Classic Rock, or Hip-Hop take a serious hit and in some cases, end up fatally disrupted by the sign-on of a new station across the street playing a similar music format? While it’s no guarantee of sustainability or survivability, incumbent stations armed with solid personalities usually have the best odds of parrying the attack.
Hiring, nurturing, and growing personalities is often expensive, high maintenance, and it doesn’t often “scale,” even with syndication. Just because you have a popular personality in one market doesn’t mean they’ll translate to another…or another. It often takes time to establish a new personality in a different market – with no guarantee it will one day be successful.
And then there’s the heartbreak of an established personality pulling up stakes and moving across the country – or worse, across town. If you’ve been in this business any length of time, you have almost certainly been burned at one juncture or another by one of your key players changing sides. It goes with the territory, but that doesn’t make it less hurtful or expensive.
And yet, personality is still the straw that stirs the radio drink. Even as the industry has morphed and been disrupted by new technology especially in recent years, a solid personality presence has been a consistent piece that tends to stabilize successful performance for stations, not just with the audience but also in the advertising community.
Despite this, those budget cuts in radio, especially in recent years, often revolve around paring talent in spite of their overt and obvious appeal. They drive ratings and build brands, unlike most of the other positions on the org chart. And while many of the RIFs that have taken place involve a wide range of job titles, the departures we hear about most – not surprisingly – are talent cuts.
And here’s a little clue for you all – the audience is figuring out what radio is up to. Another data insight from Techsurvey 2025 is a deeper dive into why more than one in ten members of radio’s core audience are spending less time with the medium in the past year. While nowhere near the top of the list of “unforced errors” is this reason for devoting less listening time spent tuned into broadcast radio:
“A personality or show I enjoyed listening to is no longer on local radio”
This is a relatively new reason we’ve come up for why some consumers are devoting less of their media time on AM/FM radio. While last year, about one in five (22%) pointed to an MIA DJ as the excuse for less TSL, we can see in this year’s study, it’s now up to more than one in four (27%). Men, Millennials, and fans of spoken word radio formats are the most frequent complainers. I looked deeper into the format column and learned it is overwhelmingly made up of sports fans (are you listening Barrett Media readers?):
The audience – especially the more loyal radio listeners – are noticing something’s amiss at many stations. And it is an “explainer” as to why a growing number of the disaffected are none too happy about the state of commercial radio these days.
Working with Don Anthony over the past seven years on our AQ studies made up entirely of commercial radio personalities (and producers), I continue to be alarmed by the huge percentage of hosts who feel taken for granted by their stations and companies. Maybe it’s always been that way, the natural tension between talent and management. Had we fielded these research studies in the ’80s or ’90s, we might have seen this same tenuous relationship. But it is hard to look at this chart and not ponder whether it has to be this way:
Beyond the realm of commercial radio, I often think about the role of talent in public radio, from the network level down to local markets. These days, many stations in this sector are suffering financially, in particular. It also occurs to me personalities are less prevalent in 2025 than they were a decade or more ago. When many listeners think about their favorite shows over the years, they are likely to mention “Click & Clack” (from Car Talk) or Garrison Keillor (A Prairie Home Companion). Back in the day, NPR was staffed with personality from Nina Totenberg to Cokie Roberts to Red Barber.
Whether it’s a fear of losing talent or there’s simply less interest in developing shows around talent, the public radio world has been less enamored with people, and instead gravitates to news coverage. While a strong news product is, of course, critically important, personality often enhances a news show’s ability to attract and hold audience. On American Public Media’s Marketplace, for example, the wildly popular Kai Ryssdal is proof positive of this relationship. Anybody can deliver business news, but Kai’s homey delivery makes it an experience to tune in Marketplace to get a firmer understanding of why the world of finance matters to all of us.
Ultimately, Christian Music Radio may benefit from the same lessons. Its music is very popular right now. Add to that, stations fill an important spiritual need among its growing number of listeners. To that end, a look at the format’s “Why Radio?” results show a very different hierarchy from commercial stations – especially when it comes to personality:
This is worlds away from the pecking order we see typically see in commercial radio where personality as a driver often breaks the 60% threshold. In the Christian study, a connection with “particular DJs/shows/hosts” shows up as a main driver for only about three in ten (29%) of respondents – half the percentage personalities earn in the commercial version of Techsurvey. You might make the case that in Christian Music Radio, Jesus is the #1 personality on these stations – and you’d be right.
But ultimately, Christianity has always enjoyed a strong impact when driven by a compelling person who can deliver a message, whether it’s Billy Graham or Joel Osteen. It isn’t a stretch to conclude that across the radio dial, Christian Music Radio stations would be wise to more aggressively grow, nurture, and market its air staffers.
As I write this, we are in the process of fielding a version of AQ for Christian Music Radio personalities called “On Air Pulse.” While it includes many of the same questions we ask in AQ, it has been customized for the Christian format and its very different environment. We will be excited to see the final results of this groundbreaking study which I’ll present at Christian Music Broadcasters’ wonderful “Momentum” conference in May. As you can imagine, I’ll be comparing and contrasting how personalities in commercial and Christian Music Radio are similar – and different.
A firm understanding of the appeal of radio talent in a changing media environment is fundamental. As broadcasters often struggle in the digital space, continuing to excel on the talent front might end up being radio’s salvation – one of the things you just can’t get anywhere else.
As last Friday’s blog post reinforced, personalities on digital platforms – that is, “influencers” – are the secret sauce that drives online revenue. Just as they have made it happen on the airwaves over the past century, so will they be that definable difference in the digital space.
In this regard, nothing has changed. The power of personality spans analog and digital, movies and television, radio and streaming. Whether it’s Wolfman Jack, Dana Cortez, Rick Dees, or Ellen K, personalities drive loyalty and ratings.
Radio broadcasters might re-evaluate and reassess their prioritization of who stays and who goes the next time a RIF appears to be the next necessary belt-tightening tactic.
Let’s not learn the hard way that radio cannot live by music alone.
If you’re on the air on a Christian music station, take our survey or forward this link to someone who is. On Air Pulse survey
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Curation is the Key. Music, local connection, personality and information go together. Thank you, Fred.
Fred…we just got it wrong. When sat radio and streaming music platforms emerged about 20 years ago, radio thought that the value proposition was music. It wasn’t. The value proposition was the air personalities. So we doubled down on the wrong programming element. More music sweeps…two commercial breaks per hour to play more music…more remote voice-tracking…etc. We can blame it on everything from ineptitude to lousy research to being under cost constraints…but WE GOT IT WRONG. Is it too late to re-invent our business…?