Urban Funk In The Fast Lane Everyone in Urban radio agrees that things are not the same as they used to be. People are smarter, technologies are faster and competition is fiercer. It's really "life in the fast lane -- everything all the time." The road to better ratings ...

We're living in a time when one of the most important skills Urban radio programmers can develop is the ability to stay abreast of change. Trend-watching, information gathering and looking ahead are critical survival skills. One of those skills is part of a new concept ...

A lot of what inspires new listeners and encourages old listeners to continue to listen is reinvention. Reinvention is the art of relishing the idea of looking for a new way of doing something. It's presenting something fresh. Exercising our creative abilities is one of ...

While They're Trying To Figure Out The Answers ... Come Up With The Questions With all the demands on their time, it's easy for today's programmers to focus so much on not messing up that they wind up losing listeners because they're afraid to make the necessary changes ...

As we prepare for the 2013 Spring Arbitron sweeps, perhaps we should take time to reflect on the biggest challenges we face. This year promises to be a pivotal one in building the future of traditional local radio as we know it. That said, a few of you got so busy you ...

Relating to Audience Lifestyle With Genre-Based Sound Increasingly today, every market is becoming unique in terms of how stations have to niche themselves in order to hopefully maximize their P1 position and force a few more fickle fingers to their frequencies. It's ...

Urban AC stations are bleeding, some of them badly. So what should we do? First, we have to stop the bleeding begin with a band-aid - skin colored, of course. In some cases, we may not be able to stop the bleeding, but we should be able to cover the wound. It's a wound ...

In this, the final chapter for our current series on Black History Month, I wanted to re-position myself as a participant observer, not a detached observer. In other words, "come and tell your people about our people." The Movement Many in my generation grew up ...

This is the third chapter in our current series for Black History Month 2013. Before we get into what has changed and what hasn't, we wanted to review the reason for and answer some questions about why we celebrate Black History Month. First of all, why February? February ...