Category: Industry Views

Industry Views

Monday Memo: When Anyone Can Make Content, Why Should Anyone Listen to Yours?

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

imgThe Wall Street Journal recently described what it calls, “The Trillion Dollar Race to Automate Our Entire Lives.” Artificial Intelligence is rapidly evolving from something that answers questions into something that does things – researching, writing, analyzing, organizing and creating. WSJ describes a coming world of personal AI concierges capable of everything from executive presentations to filling out March Madness brackets. For podcasters, there’s opportunity here. And a warning.

Podcasting already had a low barrier to entry 

AI is lowering it to almost zero. Research a topic? AI. Outline the episode? AI. Suggest questions? AI. Write show notes? AI. Create social posts? AI. Identify clips? AI.

Result: Even. More. Podcasts. So merely having one becomes less impressive. More consequential is how AI changes the value of information. The Journal quotes one Silicon Valley investor saying how travel, vacation research, newspapers, email, grocery shopping, music recommendations – essentially everything he wants to know – now goes through AI. That should make anyone producing an information-only podcast squirm. Why listen for 37 minutes to “Five Ways to Save Money on Your Next Vacation” when I can ask an AI and get the answer in 10 seconds?

As information becomes abundant, perspective becomes valuable

“Here’s what you need to know” becomes less compelling than “Here’s what happened to me.” Or “Here’s what I think everyone else is missing.” Or “You won’t believe what my guest just told me.”

And interviews may actually appreciate in value. AI can synthesize what thousands of people have already said. But if you get someone to say something new, you have created primary-source content. Which makes the skilled interviewer more valuable. Not “Tell us about your new book.” Rather, “Something you wrote on page 173 surprised me…”

There’s another implication for authority podcasts – those hosted by lawyers, financial advisers, realtors and other professionals hoping listeners eventually become clients. AI can dispense enormous amounts of expertise. So simply demonstrating “I know stuff” won’t differentiate you. Instead, the podcast lets prospects audition YOU. Do I trust this person? Does she explain things clearly? Does she understand people like me? Would I want to work with her? That makes personality, empathy, storytelling and point-of-view more valuable, not less.

AI should make podcasts shorter 

If it saves hours of research, preparation, editing and repurposing, spend those savings creating 10 compelling minutes instead of 45 windy ones. Because the scarce commodity is no longer content. It’s the listener’s time.

So, use AI aggressively behind the microphone. Let it research, transcribe, organize, summarize and repurpose.

But protect what happens to the microphone. Let AI do everything that listeners don’t care who-did. Protect everything they listen to because YOU did it. 

“And thanks…”

…for all the feedback for this month’s series on optimizing commercial copy, the finishing touch on the work that pays for us all. If you missed any-or-all, I have assembled these columns as a free E-book, “The Outcome Method: A Storytelling Framework for More Effective Local Advertising,” which you may download and share: https://getonthenet.com/TheOutcomeMethod.pdf 

Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn

Industry Views

Sabo Sez: Processing is Important

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Walter Sabo
A.K.A. Walter Sterling
Host, The Other Side of Midnight
WABC, New York / Red Apple Audio Networks

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As digital equipment and content replaces analog radio’s audio capabilities and innovations increase, never has a production director had more options, remarkable equipment or creative opportunities.

Robert Clotworthy is the narrator of “Ancient Aliens” and “The Curse of Oak Island Gold.” Robert appears regularly on my radio show, “The Other Side of Midnight,” to discuss aliens, UFOs and how the U.S. Government hides stuff! He is a world class story narrator.

Being geeks, I had to ask him about his work. Do you do the VO work from home, how much time do you have to prep, were you ever in radio? Answers: works in the studio, loves to interact with the director and tech. A one-hour show takes them two to voice. Nope, never in radio.  Then we stepped into serious geekdom – what kind of mic do you use?

“We use four different mics,” depending on the scene and tone of the script. Clotworthy explained that the audio is so precise that the History Channel had a custom made Neuman just for him – about $8,000.

Certainly, that’s fascinating but then he told me a final fact about the audio procedures at the History Channel:

“You understand that when I do the show, they are recording off all four mics at the same time.” Today digital TV video simultaneously records off multiple cameras. The “Ancient Aliens” production staff records audio from multiple narrator mics and carefully matches audio with the right video.

I’ve had to sit with that for a while!

Radio’s audio challenge has evolved in the past decade. In the 60s radio and music were processed for tiny transistor radio speakers. The 70s introduced giant, on-the-floor speakers with woofers and tweeters.

Today we are heard in the car, earphones and ear pods. Has our processing evolved to those new stages?

Walter Sabo has been a C-Suite action partner for companies such as SiriusXM, Hearst, Press Broadcasting, Gannett, RKO General, and many other leading media outlets. His nightly show “The Other Side of Midnight” is heard on WABC, New York and the Red Apple Audio Network 1:00 am – 5:00 am. His syndicated show, “Sterling On Sunday,” from Talk Media Network, airs 10:00 pm-1:00 am ET, and is now in its 10th year of success. He can be reached by email at sabowalter@gmail.com.  He can be phoned at 646-678-1110.

Industry Views

In Support of the First Amendment

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

TALKERS publisher Michael Harrison has issued the following statement in response to the White House press ban on CNN, MSNOW and Politico:

img“Throughout its 36-year history of service to the talk radio and associated talk media industries, TALKERS has maintained a strict policy of non-partisanship in its coverage of the field and its players. However, the single ideological orthodoxy practiced by TALKERS through this period has been uncompromising support of the First Amendment – the prime principle and foundation upon which all American freedoms and values are built. Over the years, we have bestowed our prestigious Freedom of Speech Award upon a wide variety of broadcasters from all ends of the political spectrum, and we have gone to bat in support of hosts, stations and networks – popular and otherwise, Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative – when under fire from presidents and other governmental forces determined to quell that fundamental right.  For the sake of our industry and our country, we stand in protest of the current White House press ban imposed against our colleagues and strongly encourage all practitioners of American talk media, regardless of political persuasion, to unify in opposition to this egregious aggression against our fundamental right to fulfill our core duty and promise to the people of our nation.”

Industry Views

Monday Memo: Sell the Outcome, Not the Product

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

imgAll this month, I am outlining revenue-producing strategies and tactics, proven by advertisers’ results (which pay us all). If you missed our first two installments, here are “So what?” and “Stop Sounding Like Commercials.”

Listen to a stopset of local radio commercials and you’ll hear lots of stuff for sale.

Cars. Mattresses. Furnaces. Checking accounts. Replacement windows. Legal services. Appliances. But consumers don’t really want any of those things. They want what happens next.

  • Nobody wakes up yearning for a new HVAC system. They want the house warm when it’s 12 degrees outside.
  • Nobody dreams about replacement windows. They want lower heating bills, less street noise, and a living room that isn’t drafty.
  • Nobody wants a mattress. They want to wake up without a backache.

Great salespeople sell outcomes. Great commercials should too.

But too often, advertising gets bogged down explaining what something is. Instead, demonstrate what it does for me.

  • Don’t tell me your auto shop provides complimentary loaner cars. Assure me that I’ll get to work even when my car can’t.
  • Don’t tell me your landscaper offers weekly maintenance. Let me spend Saturday enjoying my yard instead of working in it.
  • Don’t tell me your restaurant makes everything from scratch. Make me hungry.

Consumers need clues

Help them picture themselves after doing business with the advertiser. That’s especially powerful on radio because our medium doesn’t provide the picture… the listener does. And the picture in someone’s imagination can be more persuasive than anything you could put on a screen.

Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn

Industry Views

The Audience Has an Audience

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

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By Matthew B. Harrison
TALKERS, VP/Associate Publisher
Harrison Media Law, Senior Partner
Goodphone Communications, Executive Producer

“Everybody’s a dreamer / And everybody’s a star.”
Ray Davies, “Celluloid Heroes,” 1972

imgMy father recently called my attention to something hiding in plain sight. He was watching YouTube and noticed ads for StreamYard, Riverside, Sprizzy and other companies selling tools and services to people who want to produce, distribute, or promote their own media. “They are advertising on consumer venues!” he told me. That was the part that caught his attention.

It sounds obvious until you think about what it means. These companies are not merely advertising to viewers, listeners, and readers. They are advertising to viewers, listeners, and readers who also make things: podcasts, videos, livestreams, newsletters, books, music, and shows. The consumer audience now contains an enormous population of producers.

My father, TALKERS founder Michael Harrison, has a phrase for this: “The audience has an audience.” In a July interview about the modern media landscape, he put it even more plainly: “Everybody has a show.” That does not mean everybody has a large show, a profitable show, or even a particularly good show. It means that access to the means of publishing and broadcasting, once scarce and expensive, has become ordinary.

That change created an entire business layer around the aspiring and semi-professional media producer. StreamYard and Riverside sell production capability. Podbean sells hosting, distribution, and monetization tools. Sprizzy sells YouTube promotion. Beyond them are editing platforms, newsletter companies, self-publishing services, PR firms, audience-development businesses and companies willing to help almost anyone build, package and promote a media product.

The money moving around this ecosystem is no longer trivial. The Interactive Advertising Bureau reported that U.S. creator-economy advertising grew from $29.5 billion in 2024 and projected it to reach about $43.9 billion in 2026. In its September 2026 advertising outlook update, IAB reported that 54% of buyers said they were increasing their focus on creator and influencer advertising and partnerships.

For traditional broadcasters, that should change how we think about the people on the other side of the microphone. The butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker may still be members of the audience, but now the butcher has a cooking channel, the baker has a podcast, and the candlestick maker has an Etsy store, a newsletter and 14,000 followers. They may be competitors for attention, but they can also be customers, advertisers, guests, sources, affiliates, and future talent.

This does not erase the distinction between professional media and someone experimenting in a spare bedroom. Scale still matters. Skill matters. Editorial judgment matters. Broadcasters also operate under legal and regulatory obligations that do not simply transfer to someone uploading a video from a phone. But the old wall separating “the media” from “the audience” has become remarkably porous.

That may be the bigger lesson behind all those advertisements. Companies that once would have bought trade advertising to reach broadcasters, publishers or recording professionals can now advertise on consumer platforms and find millions of people with, as Michael puts it, “a toe in showbiz.” The consumer venue has become a trade venue because a meaningful portion of the consumers are also in the trade.

So where exactly is the line between our audience, our competition and our customers? Increasingly, there isn’t a very clean one. When the audience has an audience, the media business is no longer just about reaching consumers. It is about reaching people who are themselves trying to reach somebody else.

Matthew B. Harrison is a media and intellectual property attorney who advises radio hosts, content creators, and creative entrepreneurs. He has written extensively on fair use, AI law, and the future of digital rights. Reach him at Matthew@HarrisonMediaLaw.com or read more at TALKERS.com.

Industry Views

Monday Memo: Stop Sounding Like Commercials

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant 

imgTHANKS to all who offered feedback about my most recent column. ICYMI: “So what?” Prompted by your interest – and because we all get paid based on our advertisers’ results – I am declaring “September For Sales,” a month-long series of proven revenue-producing strategies and tactics, right here each Monday.

This week: Why – the instant a listener recognizes the typical commercial formula – they can stop listening.

There’s a peculiar voice heard only in radio commercials. You’ve heard it.

  • “For all your _____ needs…”
  • “Conveniently located at…”
  • “Serving the community for over __ years…”
  • “Your one-stop shop for…”

Nobody talks that way.

  • You don’t tell a friend: “For all your casual dining needs, conveniently located on Route 6…”
  • You say: “We found this cool place last weekend. Ya gotta try the ribs.”

Yet turn on the radio and the voices are speaking fluent Commercial. Ugh. Listeners have heard the language so many thousands of times that they recognize it before they process it. Oh… commercial. 

Don’t Announce. Intrigue.

Compare: “Miller Appliance has proudly served the area for 37 years and carries all major brands of refrigerators…” with: “I wasn’t planning to buy a refrigerator that day.”

The second sentence creates a question: So, what happened? That’s all we need. We’ve earned another few seconds.

Or compare: “Johnson Roofing offers quality workmanship at affordable prices…” with: “I noticed the stain on the ceiling.”

One sounds like advertising. The other sounds like a story. Which would you keep listening to? 

Delete the First Sentence

It’s worth trying with almost any commercial. Maybe delete the second sentence too. You may discover that the commercial doesn’t actually begin until sentence three. Start where something happens.

  • Instead of: “At Wilson Veterinary Clinic, we know your pets are important members of your family.” Try: “Buddy stopped eating Tuesday.”
  • Instead of: “When it comes to choosing the right insurance coverage, you need an experienced professional.” Try: “The tree missed the bedroom by six feet.”
  • Instead of: “For more than three generations, Anderson Jewelers has helped celebrate life’s special moments.” Try: “She said yes before he finished asking.”

That’s radio. We can introduce the advertiser later. First, make the listener wonder what happens next.

Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn

Industry Views

WABC Radio Gala Recognizes 25th Anniversary of 9/11

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

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By Robert Pearl

imgWABC Radio brought together broadcasting legends, entertainers, civic leaders and political figures Friday night at Cipriani 42nd Street for its 9/11 & Freedom 250 Gala, commemorating 25 years since the September 11 attacks while also recognizing America’s 250th anniversary.

Prior to the program, was a live broadcast from Cipriani’s as the room filled with guests. John Catsimatidis, owner/operator of WABC and Red Apple Media, co-hosted with veteran broadcaster Rita Cosby and former Gov. David Paterson, welcoming a stream of high-profile guests.

As attendees entered the landmark venue, the evening quickly became a reunion of New York radio, entertainment, public figures and political candidates, blending remembrance, patriotism and live performance. Among those in attendance were many notables including former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, WOR talk host Mark Simone, and WABC personalities Dominic Carter, Lionel, Joe Concha, Dr. Marc Siegel, Dick Morris, Michael Cohen and Walter Sterling. (Pictured above from l-r are: Simone, Lionel, and Sterling.)

John and Margo Catsimatidis took the stage during the program, joined by Red Apple Media president Chad Lopez, hosting an evening benefiting Tunnel to Towers Foundation, Police Athletic League and the George Pataki Foundation.

Former New York Governor George Pataki, honored for his leadership following the September 11 attacks, received the “Leadership Crisis Award.” Pataki reflected on the loss, resilience and unity that followed one of the darkest days in the city’s history. He recalled New Yorkers and Americans standing “shoulder to shoulder” in the aftermath and urged the country to remember the unity that emerged from the tragedy.

Veteran columnist and New York media icon Cindy Adams received a Lifetime Achievement Award, deadpanning, “It’s about time.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, recognized with the “Guardian of New York Award,” delivered remarks and a prayer, praising the city’s first responders, health care workers, civic leaders and others who have helped New Yorkers through times of crisis.

The gala closed on a powerful patriotic note as Lee Greenwood performed his signature anthem, “God Bless the U.S.A.,” bringing the crowd together for a fitting conclusion to an evening dedicated to remembrance, resilience and freedom.

Robert Pearl is a Brooklyn-based journalist who writes about New York City media, politics, and culture.  He can be emailed at pearlknows@yahoo.com.

Industry Views

Sabo Sez: The Smartest Minds in the Radio Room

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Walter Sabo
A.K.A. Walter Sterling
Host, The Other Side of Midnight
WABC, New York / Red Apple Audio Networks

imgWhen in doubt, I recall smart quotes from people in our business who are successful, well paid, kind, and future oriented. I have always focused on what’s next rather than what’s been. These observations drive good results:

“Citytv of Canada is the model local TV News and has been for 50 years.” – Strategist, John Parikal

“Progress moves in many directions. Imagine if cable came first, then someone invented a way to send shows over the air.” – publisher / broadcaster, Michael Harrison

“The goal is a playlist of one song.” – Al Brady Law, a kind mentor and brilliant programmer.

“An Urban station should sound like music bouncing off the rooftops in Harlem on a July night.” – Frankie Crocker

“Top 40 will always be a successful format because by definition it plays the most popular songs of the day.” – Allen Shaw, former vice chairman of Beasley Broadcasting.

“We have a business plan; our stations have to be number 1.” – Robert McAllan, president emeritus Press Broadcasting / founder of WTKS-FM Real Radio. Orlando / New Jersey 101.5.

“One day all music will be on FM and all talk will be on AM.” – Jean Shepherd, WOR Radio host, 1964.

GM Mickey Luckoff on why number 1 KGO, San Francisco moved like an express train: “I hire hosts who have done Top 40. I can teach them Talk; I can’t teach them Radio.”

“My staff just can’t barge into the studio when I’m on, they have to understand this takes concentration, the job is to get to the next thing.” – Howard Stern

“It’s a simple business; people make it hard.” – Edward F. Mclaughlin president EIB network.

“My business decisions are always based on common sense.” – John Catsimatidis, owner, WABC Radio.

“When we release a movie, I stand outside the theatre on opening night and talk to the audience members as they file out. That’s the best research we do.” – Leonard Goldenson, founding chairman ABC Inc.

“No, I don’t watch many TV shows because I know all the stories.” – Fred Silverman, program chief CBS, ABC, NBC.

About streaming music services: “There has always been a box of records next to the radio.” – Bob Pittman, CEO, IHeart.

Tom O’Neil, founder, RKO General Radio, “Pay whatever you have to for a morning man, a production director, and for equipment to make the loudest signal, the rest you’ll have to beg for.”

Walter Sabo has been a C-Suite action partner for companies such as SiriusXM, Hearst, Press Broadcasting, Gannett, RKO General, and many other leading media outlets. His company, HITVIEWS, in 2007, was the first to identify and monetize video influencers. His nightly show “The Other Side of Midnight” is heard on WABC, New York and the Red Apple Audio Network 1:00 am – 5:00 am. His syndicated show, “Sterling On Sunday,” from Talk Media Network, airs 10:00 pm-1:00 am ET, and is now in its 10th year of success. He can be reached by email at sabowalter@gmail.com.  He can be phoned at 646-678-1110.

Industry Views

Monday Memo: “So What?”

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

imgAbout those commercials… which pay for you. When a prospective client says, “We tried radio. It didn’t work,” I ask to hear the commercial. Within seconds I can tell why.

It opens with the business name. It lists products. It rattles off prices. It stuffs in an address, a website, a phone number, and a slogan. Then it ends. Nothing happened. Nothing memorable. Nothing emotional. Nothing that gave a listener a reason to care. Yet radio gets blamed. Like blaming a fishing rod because you cast with no bait.

The commercial has one job: Make someone care enough to take the next step

That’s it. Not explain everything. Not impress everyone with how many years you’ve been in business.

Its purpose is to create curiosity…confidence…desire…trust…urgency…hope. Any one of those emotions can motivate action. A list of merchandise almost never does.

The listener doesn’t wake up hoping to buy a water heater, or hire a lawyer, or replace a roof. People act when something in their lives creates a need. Good advertising connects with that moment.

A mattress store isn’t selling mattresses. It’s selling better mornings. A financial planner isn’t selling investments. She’s selling confidence. A heating contractor isn’t selling furnaces. He’s selling warmth on the coldest night of the year.

Translate Features into Benefits

Every advertiser has a product. Every customer has a problem. Say it with me: “Successful spots connect the dots.”

Here’s a simple exercise: Every time they mention a feature, ask, “So what?”

  • “We stock thousands of [item].” So what? “You won’t spend your weekend driving from store to store.”
  • “We’ve been serving this community since [year].” So what? “We’ve helped generations of local families buy homes, build businesses, and send kids to college.”
  • “We offer custom designs.” So what? “The ring she’ll wear forever will be unlike anyone else’s.”

If the answer explains how the listener’s life becomes:

  • easier
  • safer
  • faster
  • healthier
  • happier
  • less stressful
  • more convenient
  • more secure
  • more enjoyable

…you’ve found the benefit, and you get paid.

Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn

Industry Views

Radio: Human Reserved

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

imgBill Gates has a useful term for something radio should be thinking about: “Human Reserved.” In an essay about a turbulent AI era, he sketches an unsettling future, and – for broadcasters – has a consequential warning… and an opportunity.

As artificial intelligence performs more and more work traditionally done by humans, he suggests there will be activities we could turn over to machines and deliberately choose not to, because something important would be lost. AI can write a weather forecast, summarize a police report, transcribe a school-board meeting, generate a commercial, voice a liner, research a sales prospect, and assemble an hour of music.

As content gets cheap, human presence becomes more valuable

Search results are AI summaries. Social posts, photos, voices, and videos may be synthetic. Gates warns of AI-powered fraud, disinformation, and deepfakes. Amid all that uncertainty, imagine hearing: “I’m here at the courthouse, where the jury just returned a verdict…”

Could AI manufacture that sentence? Sure. But I know who’s saying it. That’s an asset radio shouldn’t automate away.

Yes, use AI aggressively behind the scenes. Let it transcribe meetings, research prospects, clean up audio, draft proposals, repurpose interviews, and handle routine administrative work. Automate tasks. Protect relationships. Let AI summarize the school-board meeting. Then have your reporter tell me what it means to my kid. Let AI draft ten commercials. Have someone who understands the advertiser decide which idea might actually make the phone ring.

Why advertisers still need us?

Soon every local business owner will be able to generate logos, videos, emails, websites, social posts, and commercial scripts almost instantly. So, “We’ll make your commercial” becomes a nearly worthless sales proposition. The station’s value needs to migrate from selling spots and making ads to: We know this market. We know how to get people here to notice you. And we help make your advertising work.

AI will create an infinite supply of information. What’s scarce will be trust, judgment, relevance, relationships, and recognizable local humans. So, radio’s AI strategy can be surprisingly simple: Use AI to DO more. Use humans to MEAN more.

Here is Bill Gates’ essay: https://www.gatesnotes.com/a-turbulent-ai-era-and-critical-choices-to-make

Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn

Industry Views

Rock Promotion Legend Paul “Rap” Rappaport Guests on Harrison Podcast

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

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The new installment of the TALKERS MEDIA channel video podcast, “Up Close Far Out,” features a blockbuster conversation between two album rock “golden age” media pioneers – TALKERS founder Michael Harrison and legendary music industry executive, Paul “Rap” Rappaport.

img“Rap” was senior vice president of rock promotion at Columbia Records where he served for 33-years during album rock’s golden era, playing a pivotal role in the careers of some of the biggest stars in the business. These included everyone from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd to the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello to Billy Joel, Judas Priest to Alice In Chains, Journey and many, many more.

His recently released memoir, Gliders Over Hollywood: Airships, Airplay, and the Art of Rock Promotion (Jawbone Press, 2025), tells the exhilarating true story of a blue-collar kid nicknamed “Rap” who grew up enthralled by rock ’n’ roll and then found himself right in the middle of many of his heroes’ lives as he became one of the most renowned rock promotion reps in the nation.

Harrison states, “The book is excellent. I particularly found it fascinating and fun talking with Rap because I was also there during one of pop culture’s most colorful chapters and knew him quite well.” Harrison coined the term Album Oriented Rock (AOR) and was the first programmer to specifically develop and promote it as an official format while serving as program director of KPRI in San Diego in the early seventies and as managing editor of the trade publication Radio & Records though the mid-seventies. From 1970 to 1990, he worked in various roles as DJ and/or program director, at major album rock outlets including WLIR, Long Island; WNEW-FM, New York; KPRI, San Diego; KMET, Los Angeles; and WZLX, Boston in addition to being a syndicated personality on hundreds of AOR stations.

Don’t miss this engaging conversation between two media heavyweights who share their firsthand experiences and memories of a truly special era and connect the dots to today’s very different music and pop cultural scene.

To connect to the podcast, please click here.

Industry Views

Monday Memo: AI Does More with Less. Radio Must, Too

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

imgThe most important sentence in Sharon Gai’s How to Do More With Less: Future-Proofing Yourself in an AI Economy (Wiley) isn’t about technology at all. It’s about leverage. She writes that the goal is to stop being “the busy bee” and instead become “the beekeeper… someone that controls the ‘bees’ to get what you want.” That’s the wakeup call radio needs right now.

Because while our industry debates whether AI is a threat, the rest of the world has already moved on. Gai describes watching Alibaba engineers generate hundreds of thousands of ad banners in seconds – work that once required “thousands of designers” and weeks of back and forth. That moment, she says, was when she realized “the next era of work had already started.” Radio is still acting like it hasn’t. 

AI won’t replace radio. But it will replace radio people who don’t use it.

Gai is blunt: “Will AI replace workers? Absolutely.” But she adds the part radio needs to hear: it replaces tasks first, not people. The winners are the ones who learn to orchestrate the tools. For radio, that means:

  • Sellers using AI to prebuild spec spots, proposals, and category insights
  • Programmers using AI to audit clutter, analyze rotations, and tighten imaging
  • Production using AI to version spots, clean audio, and accelerate turnaround
  • Managers using AI to summarize meetings, draft memos, and model revenue scenarios

This isn’t theory. It’s survival. 

The OnePerson BillionDollar Company — and The OnePerson Radio Station

Gai cites Sam Altman’s prediction that AI will enable “one-person billion-dollar companies.” Radio should hear a different version: the one-person radio station. Not as a cost cutting fantasy — as a competitive necessity.

A single operator, armed with AI tools, can now:

  • Build a full digital presence
  • Produce daily content
  • Generate sales materials
  • Analyze audience behavior
  • Maintain advertiser relationships

Small market owners — the ones already stretched thin — stand to gain the most. 

The Real Message for Radio

Gai’s book isn’t about replacing humans. It’s about reclaiming agency in an AI-driven economy. Radio needs that mindset more than any legacy medium. Because the question isn’t whether AI will change radio.

It’s whether radio chooses to be the bee… or the beekeeper.

To read 2 sample chapters, free, click here.

Holland Cooke is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn

Industry Views

After Warning Talk Radio, ABC Sues the FCC

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Matthew B. Harrison
TALKERS, VP/Associate Publisher
Harrison Legal Group, Senior Partner
Goodphone Communications, Executive Producer

 

imgABC warned that the FCC’s scrutiny of “The View” could reach talk radio. Now the eight ABC-owned television station licensees have taken the agency to court. But the immediate lawsuit is not asking a judge to decide whether “The View” qualifies as news.

Rather, it challenges the FCC’s decision to force those local stations into license renewal years ahead of schedule. On April 28, the FCC’s Media Bureau invoked a rule allowing early renewal when it considers that step essential to an investigation. The stations filed under protest, and on August 18 asked a federal court to halt the proceeding before the FCC can designate it for a hearing.

The FCC says it is investigating possible unlawful discrimination in ABC’s employment practices and whether the stations have served the public interest. ABC calls that explanation a pretext, pointing to public demands that it fires Jimmy Kimmel, threats against its licenses, criticism of its editorial decisions, and the separate proceeding involving “The View.” No license has been denied, and the FCC has not yet answered the lawsuit.

The ABC network does not hold one national broadcast license. Its local stations hold the licenses, and the same federal licensing structure covers terrestrial radio. An online-only show has no FCC broadcast license for the agency to call in.

ABC’s legal argument is that the process itself can punish speech. A costly, open-ended license proceeding may chill hosts, producers and programmers before a regulator ever issues a censorship order. For talk radio, the question is not whether you like ABC; it is whether the government may use threats to a station’s license to influence who gets booked, what gets asked, or which opinions reach the air.

Matthew B. Harrison is a media and intellectual property attorney who advises radio hosts, content creators, and creative entrepreneurs. He has written extensively on fair use, AI law, and the future of digital rights. Reach him at Matthew@HarrisonLegalGroup.com or read more at TALKERS.com.

Industry Views

Who talks like THAT???

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

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At the end of the day, when all is said and done, broadcasters and podcasters should avoid clichés like the plague. And redundancies, “Period, full stop.”

Consultant, longtime TALKERS columnist – and, yes, long, long-ago English teacher – Holland Cooke has been collecting verbal misdemeanors for decades. His new quick-read e-book Who Talks Like That??? skewers broadcast-ese, bloated wording, antique vocabulary, redundancies, mispronunciations and other ways we accidentally make listeners notice how we’re talking instead of what we’re saying.

“Because radio and podcasts are intimate media, and unforgiving,” Cooke urges, “sound human.” Especially now that every word is competing for attention with SO many audio competitors. FREE download to TALKERS readers: https://getonthenet.com/OOPS.pdf

Industry Views

Monday Memo: Prospect Retailers Who Are Podcasting

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

They’re low-hanging fruit. They “get” audio, and they crave the listeners radio can bring. We train station sales reps to ask, “If we don’t tell our listeners about your podcast, how will they know you’re doing one?” Incorporate sound bites from their podcasts into their spots.

Holland Cooke is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn

Industry Views

Is the Algorithm Your New Program Director?

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

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By Matthew B. Harrison
TALKERS, VP/Associate Publisher
Harrison Legal Group, Senior Partner
Goodphone Communications, Executive Producer

 

imgYou post five clips from yesterday’s program. Four do fine. The fifth, an argument with a caller, explodes. It gets more views, more comments, more shares and more click time than anything else you posted.

So tomorrow you post another argument.

That one performs too. Before long, you are clipping more confrontations because confrontation travels. Then maybe the show itself begins to change. You stay on the angry topic a little longer. You take the provocative call you might once have dumped. You learn what gets rewarded.

Nobody at YouTube, Facebook or TikTok called and told you to make an angrier show. The algorithm did not order you to do anything. It simply showed you what produced a reaction, and you reacted to the reward.

Radio people have seen versions of this forever. The phones light up, so we stay with the topic. A feature appears to perform well in PPM, so it gets another quarter hour. Ratings rise, so management asks for more of whatever seems to be working.

Digital distribution makes that feedback faster, more visible and harder to ignore. It also adds another wrinkle: the platform may use strong engagement to give the next clip more distribution. The reward is not just a good number on a report. It may be a bigger audience tomorrow.

That makes analytics tremendously useful. They can show what attracts attention, what holds audience and what helps people discover your program. But a measurement tool can become a programming influence if you start chasing every spike.

A good host learns from the audience without becoming a hostage to it. A good programmer knows what works without assuming that whatever gets the biggest reaction is automatically the best show.

Use the algorithm to distribute your work. Learn from what it tells you. Make money wherever the audience finds you.

Just don’t appoint it the role of program director.

For the larger discussion of ratings, PPM and digital distribution, read The Algorithm Is Listening at TALKERS.com here.

Matthew B. Harrison, associate publisher of TALKERS, is a media and intellectual property attorney who advises radio hosts, content creators, and creative entrepreneurs. He has written extensively on fair use, AI law, and the future of digital rights. Reach him at Matthew@HarrisonLegalGroup.com or read more at TALKERS.com.

Industry Views

The Algorithm Knows What You Did But It Doesn’t Know Why

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

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By Matthew B. Harrison
TALKERS, VP/Associate Publisher
Harrison Legal Group, Senior Partner
Goodphone Communications, Executive Producer

 

imgA viewer watches the same political clip three times. The platform sees a powerful signal: this person stopped, stayed, and came back. What it cannot reliably know is whether the viewer loved the argument, hated it, was factchecking it, or was showing it to someone else in disbelief. The algorithm knows a viewer watched. It does not necessarily know why. That is why YouTube looks beyond viewing itself to other signals of appeal, engagement, and satisfaction.

That distinction matters to broadcasters because digital analytics can look much more intelligent than they really are. An algorithm can measure behavior with extraordinary precision, but behavior is not motive. PPM taught radio a version of the same lesson. Nielsen’s meter can passively detect exposure to encoded audio, but the resulting audience measurement cannot tell a programmer why someone listened or why audience levels changed.

Livestreaming creates the opposite problem. Instead of too little explanation, the host suddenly gets too much of it. The chat is moving. People are demanding another topic, praising a guest, attacking a caller, or announcing that the segment is dying.

That feedback is valuable, but the people typing are not necessarily representative of the people listening. Radio hosts should already understand this because callers have never represented the entire audience. They represent the portion motivated enough to pick up the telephone. Livestream chat is the same phenomenon at digital speed.

The danger comes when these two imperfect signals reinforce each other. The dashboard says engagement jumped. The chat says, “More of this.” A host can easily conclude that the audience has spoken when what actually happened is that a particularly active portion of the audience became particularly visible.

Good broadcasters have always listened to the audience without surrendering the show to it. Digital tools make that listening faster and more detailed, but they do not eliminate the need for judgment.

The algorithm knows what people did. The chat tells you what some people said. The programmer still has to decide what either one means.

For the larger discussion of ratings, PPM, algorithms and digital distribution, read The Algorithm Is Listening here: https://talkers.com/category/industry-views/

Matthew B. Harrison is a media and intellectual property attorney who advises radio hosts, content creators, and creative entrepreneurs. He has written extensively on fair use, AI law, and the future of digital rights. Reach him at Matthew@HarrisonLegalGroup.com or read more at TALKERS.com.

Industry Views

Monday Memo: Radio’s New Fall Season

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

imgAs TV is touting its coming attractions, take a step back. We – inside the box – live-and-breathe radio.

Listeners have their hands full just living and breathing. Their day is time-crunched and financially-challenged, and we want to be its soundtrack. But listening is free, unlike umpteen other purchase decisions they agonize. So what’s high-stakes to us is low-stakes to them.

We only matter if we matter, and we’ve never had so much audio competition.

  • This month, as the school year begins in so many places, the listeners local retailers want as customers revert to “normal.” Their tempo changes, and builds to a holiday season climax. Do they know who you are and how you can help?
  • Off-air promotion (remember that?) merely says give-us-a-try. When they do, does what they hear deliver? Even with scant (or no) off-air promotion, much of what you can do to become more habit-forming costs nothing. As consultants do, I’m talking about “the fundamentals,” the blocking-and-tackling stuff. For starters, think: recognition and relevance.

Who are you?

  • Are call letters or station nickname delivered frequently? PPM myth: call letters matter less. Baloney. Awareness drives use. Ditto your dial position(s) and how to listen via smartphone, smart speaker, and streams. Name-and-address.
  • As your listeners cume 3 stations this week, help ’em remember yours more than the other 2 (not to mention streams and satellite radio and podcasts). And are you selling — or merely reciting — call letters, dial position, and slogans? This is often an issue with veteran talent, creatures of habit.

“Who cares?”

Or as my WTOP successor Jim Farley (RIP) asked: “W.G.A.S.?” He hung a sign in the newsroom there, meaning “Who Gives A Shit?”

  • Are topics relatable and useful? Enable listeners with helpful information, and they’ll keep coming back.
  • Do you say “you” and “your,” a lot? It’s a litmus test for relevance.
  • Do you keep setting the stage as audience tunes in? Someone JUST got in the car.
  • Are you teasing the next quarter hour? And what you’ll offer same-time-tomorrow?
  • Even with apps in the dashboard, weather and traffic are super-local and can be super-impactful.
  • Is your on-air imaging about the station? Or about listeners’ lives? “Because ONE traffic jam can jam-up your whole day…”

There’s more from radio’s right-now To-Do list at HollandCooke.com

Holland Cooke is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn

Industry Views

The Algorithm is Listening

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

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By Matthew B. Harrison
TALKERS, VP/Associate Publisher
Harrison Legal Group, Senior Partner
Goodphone Communications, Executive Producer

Radio once measured the audience… now digital platforms use the audience to decide what happens next

Radio programmers have always watched the audience. The difference for programmers today is that the audience can now watch back, respond instantly, influence the show, and determine whether the next person ever receives it.

That is the practical meaning of an algorithm for a broadcaster. It is not a mysterious robot hiding inside the black box of an enigmatic social platform. It is a set of instructions used to make decisions. On YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Spotify, Twitch, and other services, those instructions help determine which content gets shown, to whom, in what order, and under what circumstances.

Radio has used simpler forms of algorithmic thinking for decades. A music clock is a set of instructions. So is a rule prohibiting two songs by the same artist within a specified period. Or two female vocals in a row. A programmer who schedules news at the top of the hour, traffic twice an hour, and the strongest feature before a commercial break has created a decision system.

Digital algorithms do something more consequential. They do not merely organize the program. They organize the audience around each individual piece of content.

From diaries to PPM

The traditional radio diary asked selected listeners to record what they heard and when they heard it. Nielsen defines the diary as a measurement method in which respondents manually record their listening habits. Those reported habits are then used to estimate listening across a larger market.

The system was necessarily crude. A diary could show that someone reported listening to a station during morning drive. It could not reliably establish whether that person loved the program, ignored it, hated it, stayed because the station was playing in a waiting room, or simply remembered the call letters incorrectly.

Still, the diary produced an enormously valuable number. Ratings influenced advertising rates, station formats, talent contracts, syndication opportunities, and management decisions. The ratings service measured the audience, but the station still controlled the programming and the transmitter.

The Portable People Meter changed the speed and granularity of that feedback. PPM panelists carry a small device that detects inaudible identification codes embedded in participating broadcasts. Instead of relying entirely on a listener’s memory and written entry, the meter passively detects exposure to encoded audio.

That gave programmers something closer to immediate feedback. They could study audience movement within smaller portions of a show, identify apparent tune-out points, compare features, evaluate commercial breaks, and make changes much more quickly.

PPM therefore became the bridge between traditional ratings and algorithmic distribution. The diary remembered the audience. PPM observed the audience more closely. Both still produced information for human beings to interpret.

A programmer could see a decline and decide to shorten a segment. The meter did not shorten it. A consultant could conclude that a feature hurt retention. The PPM system did not prevent tomorrow’s listeners from hearing it.

The algorithm closes that gap.

(more…)

Industry Views

Monday Memo: Trust is the New Currency

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

Holland Cooke

It is now the ultimate competitive advantage, and for broadcasters it’s a survival strategy. In The Five-Year Century: Bold Leadership and Accelerated Outcomes in the Age of AI, Mihir Shukla and Nancy Hauge explain how—as artificial intelligence accelerates change and demographics reshape the audience—trust becomes the only durable asset radio and television can bank on.

The book describes a 2026 world where the “twin engines” of growth—population and productivity—have stalled. Birth rates are plunging, workforces are shrinking, and productivity has flatlined across most industries. Meanwhile, AI is compressing decades of innovation into months. This collision creates what the authors call “The Five-Year Century,” in which the pace of change overwhelms institutions built for slower times—broadcasting, for instance.

Radio and television were built on industrial-era assumptions: mass audiences, standardized programming, rigid schedules, and hierarchical decision-making. Those assumptions worked when the audience was broad, predictable, and captive. On February 9, 1964, the Beatles tripled Ed Sullivan’s ratings. Back to the future…

AI is rewriting the rules of content creation, distribution, and consumption. Personalized news feeds, customized ad loads, and algorithmic programming are expectations. Younger audiences don’t wait for a newscast; they expect a feed. They don’t tune in; they scroll. They don’t accept one-size-fits-all; they demand one-size-fits-me.

In this environment, trust becomes the new currency because it’s the one thing AI cannot manufacture.

Broadcasting’s advantage has always been credibility. When a storm hits, people still turn to local radio. When a shelter-in-place alert hits their phone, they still switch on local TV. That instinct is powerful, but it’s not permanent. Trust must be earned continuously, especially as AI-generated misinformation floods the ecosystem.

The book’s chapter on the “Trust Economy” makes a critical point: trust accelerates outcomes. High-trust organizations move faster, innovate more boldly, and adapt more effectively. For broadcasters, trust accelerates audience loyalty, advertiser confidence, and community relevance. But trust now requires new behaviors.

It requires transparency about how AI is used in newsrooms. It requires clarity about what is human judgment and what is machine assistance. It requires authenticity as AI-generated talent becomes increasingly commonplace—and increasingly convincing.

Trust requires broadcasters to lean into what humans do best: context, empathy, moral reasoning, and community connection. The book reminds us that “work worthy of human potential” is work that machines cannot replicate. For broadcasters, that means storytelling, accountability journalism, and the human presence that makes local media local.

By all means, assign AI the routine tasks: editing, logging, transcription, versioning, and production. Then reinvest the human time you save in the relationship between a station and its community. In The Five-Year Century, trust isn’t just a virtue. It’s a conspicuous differentiator. It’s the currency that will determine which broadcasters thrive and which fade into the noise of an algorithmic world. As our industry suffers workforce cutbacks, we risk downsizing trust.

To read two sample chapters and watch a short video interview with the authors, click here.

Holland Cooke is a consultant working at the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn.

Industry Views

The Advertiser Gave Us an AI Commercial… Isn’t that Enough?

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

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imgBy Matthew B. Harrison
TALKERS, VP/Associate Publisher
Harrison Legal Group, Senior Partner
Goodphone Communications, Executive Producer

Synthetic audio can turn one clearance problem into two
An advertiser sends a finished commercial to a station. The script came from one AI platform, the announcer’s voice from another, and the music arrived inside the final audio file. The production value is surprisingly good for a dental office. Then someone notices that the announcer sounds remarkably like Matthew McConaughey. He does not say “alright, alright, alright,” exactly, but he says something close enough to make the association obvious.

A conventional infringing commercial may misuse a song, recording, photograph, or written copy. An AI commercial can create the same copyright problem while adding another: the unauthorized commercial use of a recognizable person’s identity. One file can therefore produce two entirely different claims.

Copyright protects original expression, including scripts, music, and sound recordings. It generally does not give anyone a copyright in the sound of a natural voice. That does not make a distinctive voice free for advertisers to imitate.

Tom Waits established the distinction decades before generative AI. After Waits declined to participate in a Frito-Lay campaign, the company used a singer who imitated him in a radio commercial. Waits successfully pursued claims for voice misappropriation and false endorsement. AI now makes that imitation faster, cheaper, and potentially more convincing. Waits v. Frito-Lay⁠

The rights do not travel together 

Clearing the script or music does not clear the voice. Permission from the person whose voice was cloned does not clear protected material that the system may have reproduced. The station needs to ask two questions: Who owns everything in this commercial, and whose identity is doing the selling?

There is another wrinkle. The AI company may possess defenses that do not travel with the finished audio. In Walters v. OpenAI, ChatGPT falsely accused radio host Mark Walters of embezzlement. OpenAI defeated the defamation claim because the recipient encountered warnings that the system could be inaccurate, did not believe the accusation, verified that it was false, and did not republish it. Walters also failed to prove the necessary fault or damages. Walters v. OpenAI⁠ case summary⁠

That ruling did not grant AI companies blanket immunity. It does suggest an uncomfortable result for broadcasters. A provider’s warning that its output requires verification may help protect the provider while making it harder for a station to argue that airing the output without checking was reasonable. The company that generated the problem may have a better defense than the broadcaster that delivered it to the public.

California’s AI Transparency Act, operative August 2, 2026, now requires certain large AI providers to offer detection tools and place provenance disclosures in generated audio, images, and video. Those tools may help identify origin. They do not establish copyright clearance, consent, accuracy, or authority to imitate someone. California AI Transparency Act⁠

Stations should require advertisers to warrant both ownership and permission for identifiable voices or likenesses, backed by indemnification. AI has not replaced the old clearance problem. It can place a second problem beside it, then leave the broadcaster holding both.

Matthew B. Harrison is a media and intellectual property attorney who advises radio hosts, content creators, and creative entrepreneurs. He has written extensively on fair use, AI law, and the future of digital rights. Reach him at Matthew@HarrisonLegalGroup.com or read more at TALKERS.com.

Industry Views

Sabo Sez: It’s All Media

By TALKERS | by TALKERS
Sabo Sez:  It’s All Media
By Walter Sabo
A.K.A. Walter Sterling
Host, The Other Side of Midnight
WABC, New York / Red Apple Audio Networks
img“It’s all media,” declared accomplished media executive Jack Griffin when confronted with brand new definitions of content and content distribution. Jack, for years, was president of Meredith Publishing, Time Inc., and The Tribune Company. I met Jack when he was publisher of PARADE magazine. Jack is pragmatic, won’t waste your time and spots BS faster than most humans. We were listening to discussions of the impact of online media versus traditional media, and his line was running out. Jack declared “It’s all media” and the meeting blessedly ended. The phrase haunts me and it is being proven true every second of every day.
Steve Goldstein, CEO of Podcast consultancy, AMPLIFI, published a white paper on the growing acceptance of podcasts in the dashboards of media buyers. The paper tackles the challenge industry committees have had defining a podcast! [link]

Answer: It defines a podcast as an on-demand, spoken-word show intelligible with your eyes closed – video and RSS are both allowed, neither required.
 
The definition of a podcast is simple, broad, and can be met by any podcaster! And every person and entity is making a podcast. Follow that through to what Griffin declared.
VOGUE magazine puts out podcasts constantly. By most definitions they are really good and brand appropriate. Pretty, gossipy, urgent and current. Much more entertaining than the magazine. The New York Times has more podcast viewers than newspaper readers.
The ever-prescient Michael Harrison was right on the money more than two decades ago when he coined the term “media station” to describe the multi-media platform potential of ANY then-traditional venue such as radio and TV stations, newspapers, magazines, books, and cinema.  The media station has since become a reality and the podcast is one of its main engines.
NPR leads the top 20 lists of podcasters, and they can sell advertising in their podcasts without violating their prime directive.
It’s all media
 
When brands evolve from their original product and mission to a podcast, their methodology for success changes but not their definition of success. Brands want revenue and profit. If a brand’s assets can generate the most profit through podcasts, then podcasts will become their business.
 Audience time with media is the target. Capturing their time. Not viewership, listenership, readership, attention: T I M E because it’s ALL MEDIA.
Ultimately a corporate entity’s starter business could be shuttered in order to grow its podcast.  Good to note that every single newspaper and magazine publisher has one fantasy: Get rid of the paper.  Your competition isn’t WXXX it is becoming the VOGUE podcast.
Walter Sabo has been a C-Suite action partner for companies such as SiriusXM, Hearst, Press Broadcasting, Gannett, RKO General, and many other leading media outlets. His company, HITVIEWS, in 2007, was the first to identify and monetize video influencers. His nightly show “The Other Side of Midnight” is heard on WABC, New York and the Red Apple Audio Network 1:00 am – 5:00 am. His syndicated show, “Sterling On Sunday,” from Talk Media Network, airs 10:00 pm-1:00 am ET, and is now in its 10th year of success. He can be reached by email at sabowalter@gmail.com.  He can be phoned at 646-678-1110.
Industry Views

When AI Speaks, Who’s Accountable?

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

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By Matthew B. Harrison
TALKERS, VP/Associate Publisher
Harrison Legal Group, Senior Partner
Goodphone Communications, Executive Producer

 

imgNew laws may hold AI companies responsible, but regulating machine-generated speech presents risks of its own.

Florida recently sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging that they marketed ChatGPT while concealing known safety risks. California has taken a different approach: a company accused of causing harm cannot defend itself simply by saying the AI acted autonomously. Neither development guarantees liability, but both signal that “the AI did it” may no longer work as a legal escape hatch.  

That sounds sensible. An AI model cannot pay damages, carry insurance, exercise professional judgment, or go to jail. If a company releases a system, profits from it, and markets it as useful or reliable, the law should at least ask what the company knew, promised, and reasonably could have prevented.

Mark Walters – host of Armed America Radio – learned how difficult that can be. ChatGPT falsely reported that he had been accused of embezzling money from a gun-rights organization. Walters sued OpenAI for defamation, but a Georgia court granted the company summary judgment in 2025, finding insufficient evidence that OpenAI knew the output was probably false. The machine was wrong; the legal remedy failed.

The harder question involves speech. Colorado adopted requirements intended to prevent discriminatory automated decisions, prompting AI to sue on First Amendment and equal-protection grounds. The Federal Trade Commission has now suggested that secretly steering a model away from the accurate or objective answers users expect could itself constitute consumer deception.

This presents a genuine slippery slope. Government should protect people from fraud, defamation, discrimination, dangerous products, and nonconsensual deepfakes. It should not acquire a broad power to decide what an AI system must identify as “truth,” particularly in areas involving politics, history, public policy, or contested scientific opinion.

For broadcasters and content creators, the immediate lesson remains familiar. AI may assist with research, writing, editing, and production, but it does not inherit responsibility for the finished product. The person or company that publishes the words still needs to verify them, while the companies building the machines should not escape scrutiny merely because no human typed the final sentence.

Accountability should follow control, knowledge, and profit. The challenge will be imposing that accountability without turning AI regulation into government supervision of lawful speech.

Matthew B. Harrison is a media and intellectual property attorney who advises radio hosts, content creators, and creative entrepreneurs. He has written extensively on fair use, AI law, and the future of digital rights. Reach him at Matthew@HarrisonLegalGroup.com or read more at TALKERS.com.

Industry Views

Monday Memo: AI Can’t Fake Real

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

imgIn Full Stack Human: The Mindset Upgrade You Need to Stay Human in a World Ruled by Technology (2026, Wiley Books) Dara Simkin and Tane Hunter describe a 2026 media landscape where people face information overload, shrinking attention spans, negativity fatigue, algorithmic manipulation, and constant distraction.

The irony is that radio may win the future not by becoming more like technology, but by becoming more human. In an age of artificial everything, that’s the sustainable competitive advantage local radio has. And the more crowded the media landscape becomes, the more valuable radio’s unique strengths become.

Consider what today’s digital platforms do best. They personalize content as algorithms learn what users like and deliver more of it. Streaming services can build custom playlists. Social media feeds are tailored to individual interests. AI can generate content instantly.

What those platforms cannot do is belong to a community. Spotify doesn’t know why I-95 is jammed. TikTok doesn’t care that the town council just approved a controversial zoning change. An AI-generated playlist can’t tell listeners where to find shelter during a storm or why Friday night’s high school football game matters. Local radio can. And as media becomes increasingly global, local content becomes increasingly scarce. And scarcity creates value.

Citing research, the book points to another opportunity: Digital platforms are optimized to trigger emotion, especially outrage and conflict – the 1990s talk radio caricature on steroids. The result is a public that often feels overwhelmed, exhausted, and anxious.

Listeners want information, and are looking for context, usefulness, connection, and (dare we?) a reason to smile. Stations willing to do more than simply amplify the argument du jour become indispensable. Winners deliver local information, from trusted voices, a genuine connection that answers the listener’s constant question: “What’s in this for me?”

Click here to read a free sample chapter of “Full Stack Human: The Mindset Upgrade You Need to Stay Human in a World Ruled by Technology.”

Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn

Industry Views

Harrison: Don’t Believe that AI Lacks “Heart”

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

imgTALKERS founder Michael Harrison is this week’s guest on the National Press Club’s official podcast, Update-1, in which he tackles the topic “Predicting the Future of Media Following the Shutdown of CBS News Radio.” Interviewed by noted American University media professor Gemma Puglisi, Harrison addresses such issues as changes in the tenets of journalism and the general shrinkage of radio news. Along the way, he offers his insights into a variety of media and societal topics including the impact of clickbait and what he describes as “the daily dance of affirmation” resulting imgfrom the trend toward news platforms “targeting” audiences for purely marketing purposes. Harrison defends AI from critics who claim the technology lacks “heart” and that audiences will swing back to the “authenticity” being destroyed by AI slop. Harrison makes the case that what counts is the humanity behind the operation of AI which is “only a tool.” He says, “Blaming AI for shallow content is like attributing shoddy novels to the invention of the word processor.” Harrison boldly predicts that AI and modern technology will hasten the “death of Hollywood” as we know it among other insights into the future of news, entertainment, and communications.  Don’t miss this!  To listen to the podcast in its entirety, please click here.