Monday Memo: Read The Room
By Holland Cooke
Consultant
This is not about politics. This is about change, and listening to listeners.
The dust is still settling. But, as you might have, I spent election night surfing news channels. I probably landed most often on FOX News, where Karoline Leavitt’s punditry debut was more resigned than her undaunted press secretary persona. Donald Trump had won twice as a change candidate. As the big story was unfolding, MS Now’s Chris Hayes called change FROM Trump “an expression of exhaustion.”
Georgia elected the USA’s first Black woman governor, New Mexico elected the first Native American woman governor, and a Latina will govern Texas; where her fellow Democrat won the most-watched/most-expensive-ever Senate race there. Reliably-red Kansas turned-out an incumbent Republican to send the Senate its first-ever megachurch pastor and Michigan is sending a Muslim. The Senate also gets its first Native American woman and first openly gay member, and Alabama – Alabama! – sends an openly trans woman to Congress. There are dozens of other stories, and two senate races not yet won in which Democrats lead.
In the month before election day, FOX News posted the biggest year-over-year ratings drop any of the three major cable news networks has suffered during a comparable pre-election month in the past decade. Although FOX News still led both, CNN’s primetime adults 25-54 audience was up 40% percent, and MS Now’s grew 30%.
Premiere Networks host Jesse Kelly told The Guardian: “Honestly, it was easy radio, easy podcasting, easy TV to just sit down and just powder Trump’s butt all day long. That’s what the audience wanted to hear. But like any other politician, same for all of them, you don’t stay hot forever. It’s not possible. No matter what, we’re nearing the end of the Trump era because his last term’s almost over and people are going to start looking around for the next guy.”
In that same report, TALKERS publisher Michael Harrison: “Anybody who is in radio and who plans to be in radio for a very long time has got to – or eventually learns – that the carpet is going to be pulled out from you eventually, with switching circumstances and public opinion.”
On Election Day afternoon, we got fresh 6+ numbers from big markets. Often public radio is beating noisier commercial news/talk stations.
Now what? Relevance to listeners’ day-to-day lives is imperative. Talk dollars-and-sense. Own your market’s weather image. Say “you” and “your” more than “I” and “me” – less monologue, more dialogue. Make the audience the show. Stations I work with are inviting voice texts, which don’t ask busy callers to wait on hold.
All-Christmas-music stations will do well.
Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn
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All 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 “
THANKS to all who offered feedback about my most recent column. 
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…I’m sharing promo copy now airing on my client stations, which addresses listeners’ – and advertisers’ — 2026 apprehensions: