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

By TALKERS | August 10, 2026August 10, 2026 by TALKERS

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

A 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 | August 10, 2026August 10, 2026 by TALKERS

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

As 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