Brand Amnesia

We forget...

Seems a rare week when Spotify or some other streaming music service doesn't show up in a PR piece about one of their great, new advantages over radio.

Meanwhile, broadcast radio's announcements are usually about someone moving from overseeing one station to two or three in a different market. Or, the latest medium-market show now being syndicated throughout the company in what is a naked example of cost-cutting. Or, leaks about future mass firings and moves to cut benefits.

We must have amnesia.

We forget that creativity is what has kept Radio vital for generations.

We, in the business of communication, forget that if we don't tell our own story in a compelling and believable way, then those outside our business have no alternative but to believe the stories being told about us by those desperate for our share of audio listening.

Either that, or the guys running our largest radio groups really don't believe radio is better.

We don't bang our own drum because deep down, we know we're over-commercialized to the point of pushing listening to Pandora and Spotify.

We don't send out press notices about our great new advantages because...well...we don't really have any, do we?

We're suffering from amnesia, believing there is only one way to growth, only one way to make the number we must make this week to keep our job, only one way to capture imagination and attention.

Yes, some listeners want a music box and nothing more, but I don't think those people are radio listeners anymore. Our commercial load alone has driven them into Spotify's arms.

We forget that some listeners, perhaps even most listeners, want to be entertained and informed and inspired. Some listeners want to laugh on their way to work. Some need to cry about the loss in their lives. Some desperately need a sense of companionship, of belonging to this exclusive club your talent has created on-air.

Truth is, one of radio's great strengths has always been its adaptability, its creativity, its willingness to try something new and different to see if it works.

It's past time to remind ourselves that we can be more than we are, we can be everything we need to be, if we unleash our most creative minds and unchain our talent from the anxiety of judgment and dismissal.

Remember that?

Remember when Stern and Greaseman and Landecker and Robert W. Morgan were on the radio?

We need to.