Radio's Moonshot

Fifty years ago this summer, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. No other nation over all these years has made the attempt.

The reason the United States is the only nation on earth to have landed men on the moon and returned them safely to earth is because we had a leader who chose to challenge us to do so.

President Kennedy didn't know it could be done. His risk was in the challenge. He might have been "blamed" if we had failed.

But we never would have done it without that challenge.

Radio will not become what it must become without moonshot thinking.

We don't need incremental improvement. Playing six-unit sets rather than 10-unit sets isn't going to change anyone's perception or loyalty.

Letting air talent replace liners and actually talk to listeners once or even twice an hour isn't going to light anyone's fire.

And if you're a VP/Programming and even that thought scares you, how can transformation ever happen under you?

How many times do I need to say this? Radio needs the very people NOT working in radio right now, the people who were fired and marginalized and who stopped caring; the people who aren't locked into your way of making money.

I realize we can't just flip every commercial radio signal in America and let a mad genius try to find his or her way.

But isn't there room in almost every one of the top-100 markets in America for a station with the cojones to experiment a little? To see what might be?

That fifth signal that has less than a 1-share, that fourth Country station in your market, that signal you're using to "share" NASH with your town's listeners?

Seriously?

We need moonshot thinking, and with fewer 'mom and pop' operators, with huge, impossible debt and greed running our largest groups, from whence will it come?

Who has the clout and the courage to challenge us?