Our Latest Industry Blogs

Today’s #TBT blog post goes back nine years to May 2015.  But it might feel even longer ago than that to you.   Its central characters – Howard Stern and David Letterman – have taken very different paths than what they were doing when this post originally published. Letterman was walking away from his Late Show…

In our doom-scrolling world, it’s not difficult to run across headlines warning about the impending death of SOMETHING. And that happened when one of the most outspoken rockers came out with one of those earth-shattering predictions about the demise of a beloved music genre that’s enjoyed unprecedented success the last few decades. But rather than panic, let’s take a deep breath, collect ourselves, and click “READ MORE” below. Because everything is gonna be alright.

In what proved to be a fateful decision, a well-known corporate entity instituted personnel budget cuts that proved to be a catalyst for motivating their loyal customer base to revolt. Ultimately, the company reversed course and welcomed some of the pink-slipped workers back into the fold. But the incident raises the question of how these judgment calls are made. And BTW, did I mention those cut by the company in question were bots? Click on “READ MORE” below to get the jaw-dropping story.

To start the holiday weekend, a brief blog post today about the Memorial Weekend holiday, anad how its meaning overshadows 3-day mattress sales, concerts,, festivals, and countdowns.

Well, that was quick.  The hype over last week’s new AI demos by OpenAI and Google has already metamorphosed into fears of deepfakes and IP ownership. The claims from Scarlett Johansson’s lawyers are big tabloid fare. They claim that, at best, OpenAI mimicked her voice for their new AI assistant, and, at worst, they trained their models using her voice. Although OpenAI removed…

Today’s #TBT post takes us back eight years to 2016, a time when social media was in ful swing. In our Techsurveys, it was often the leading topic in our data decks. By that time, many broadcasters were adding social media specialists to their staffs, determined to “make money on Facebook.” Back then, we were still arguing about what to post. Come to think of it, we still are today.

By now, we all know about vinyl’s comeback. Consumers are buying physical records again, and the music industry is vibratinig with the renewed sales of albums. The most innovative of the music makers are leaning into their most fanatical fans – the collectors who have to own every vinyl variant they can get their hands on.from their favorite artists. Colored vinyl, picture discs, and other innovations are changing the economics of the music game. Can radio benefit from this phenomenon? Click on “READ MORE” to check it out.

Imagine a 4 minute playoff that would pit all 32 NFL teams against each other in head-to-head combat. Well, that happened last week – but not on any football field. Instead, every NFL team competed hard on social media to produce the funniest, cleverest, and most viral video short to highlight the 2024-25 schedule. It’s a case study in creativity, celebrity, and humor. And there are great lessons here for radio stations and their personality shows. Are you ready for the “2024 NFL Schedule Debut Bake-Off?”

The restaurant business is littered with eateries that started with great promise, only to fizzle out. Kind of like radio station formats. For today’s blog, it’s a look at consumer food products and the lengths they now go to in order to stand out and grab attention – without compromising the essence of their brands. I hope that deep into my many analogies, you’ll walk away with a different way to think about the radio stations you program and market.

As research budgets continue to dwindle, broadcasters should recognize just how much free data is available. That’s what our Techsurveys have been all about over the past 20 years. And now a new research study focused on female radio consumers is out, and it’s loaded with timely and actionable insights. One of its conclusions? Radio could do a much better job with its mobile app efforts. That’s the topic of today’s blog post, along with some easy and free techniques any station can use to market its app.