Our Latest Industry Blogs

Are you feeling the stress as we head into the end of an already tough year? You can cut the pressure with a knife. For millions of Americans, stress levels are off the charts. And if there’s any good news in the data, it’s that many still turn to the radio for relief and escape. But who’s tending to the pros on the air, tasked with making us laugh, informing us, entertaining us, or simply helping us get away from our problems during their commutes? That’s the question in today’s JacoBLOG as we approach Peak Stress.

In little more than 100 days from now, we will have welcomed in a new year – and we will be jetting off to Las Vegas to experience CES 2025. The Consumer Electronic Show (as this amazing event is often known as) is the table-setter for the year in tech and media ahead. COVID aside, Paul and I have made the trip every year since 2009. This year, we hope you’ll be joining us. Why do we go each year? As broadcaster extraordinaire Jerry Lee once explained to me, we “don’t want to miss the future.”

The leaps and bounds that AI platforms have made in the last year is breathtaking. Generative text and generative voice are crossing the “uncanny valley” and close to becoming indistinguishable from non-AI-assisted work. Take for instance a new tool from Google Labs, Notebook LM. This tool, tagged as a virtual research assistant, is designed to help students…

In just 45 days, America votes (of course, vote by mail has already started), but how will your radio station fare in the heat of this historic moment? If you run a news station, especially in the pubic radio space, you’re probably walking a razor’s edge between attracting audience and repelling them. Today, JacoBLOG is here to help, with exclusive new data from our yet-to-be-released PRTS 2024 study. There are insights here for everyone in radio. Dig in.

As our world becomes overrun by millions and millions of brand names, simplicity and clarity matter. How you spell and pronounce a brand name – especially a new one – matters in a world of search engines, bots, and app stores. I’ve got examples, including a couple that are close to home.

Everybody knows the radio business is the most competitive of them all. Except it’s not. They’re ALL competitive. And in today’s post, we take a walk down the grocery aisle to provide a great object lesson about what profitability and sustainability look like. Just watch that spill on aisle 7.

Launching a new brand or format in radio has become a risky business. But what about figuring out how to successfully extend the brand of an existing show or station? One of the most famous network TV shows is right now in the middle of this process. And it provides great lessons and “best practices” for radio stations and companies. Click READ MORE and let’s take a look.

Now more than ever, consumers love a great story. Whether rooted in sports, music, pop culture, or the news of the day, great stories – and the people with the talent and the cred to tell them – are at a premium. In radio, how companies utilize their beet storytellers may indeed determine whether they thrive….or survive. It all comes down to that person telling the story: do you trust them, are they the genuine article, do they make you care?

On Monday, James Earl Jones died. Among the many roles he played over a six-decade career, his voice became synonymous with Darth Vader from the Star Wars franchise. But Jones’ voice as Darth Vader will live on. Several years ago, the EGOT winner made an agreement with Skywalker Studios to recreate his baritone for future Star Wars…

For publicly traded companies, there is a lot riding on CEOs to make the right calls. So when a brand loses its way and a new CEO walks in the door, she had better get it right. And that means assessing the environment and making the right moves out of the box. Whether you’re selling gourmet coffee or radio air time, the fix is in. And hopefully they’re fixing the right things.