Monday Memo: When Anyone Can Make Content, Why Should Anyone Listen to Yours?
By Holland Cooke
Consultant
The 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
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. 
About 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.
Bill 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 TV is touting its coming attractions, take a step back. We – inside the box – live-and-breathe radio.
In 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.
Radio stations used to announce the present temperature at the end of the weather forecast, empowering listeners who are heading out to dress accordingly. It’s the ultimate live-N-local information.
“Globalization and the deconstruction of community and country, an addictive media system that runs on algorithms we don’t understand and can’t escape, the unpredictability of climate change, Gilded Age-level inequality, and the worry that generative AI will control rather than be controlled by us.”
If your station is outside the top 50 markets, you already know the pressure points. A mature workforce stretched thin. Fewer applicants for on air and production roles – specifically the younger creators who don’t see radio as their first creative outlet. And a competitive landscape where streaming, satellite, and podcasts divert attention with the gravitational pull of a black hole.
No two summers have been alike since the pandemic upended listeners’ lives and retailers’ businesses. So, we’ve seen this movie before. To sound relevant and relatable and helpful, connect the dots:
The stations I work with make big money with live endorsement spots delivered by familiar local on-air personalities. Remember them? With most AM/FM broadcast hours now robotic or non-local, your relationship with the listener is precious and can be leveraged… carefully.
“Baseball is back!” was welcome in April (especially after a rough winter in many places). But it sounds embarrassingly old by now.
…I’m sharing promo copy now airing on my client stations, which addresses listeners’ – and advertisers’ — 2026 apprehensions:
If you are doing talk radio, much of your programming is syndicated. If you do music radio, your most formidable competitors are robotic streams that live in the cloud. Either way, YOU, being local, can make friends — and money — if you plan now to exploit these occasions.
Although I don’t have a machine to play it, I have saved the cart. December 9, 1980, the sad morning-after John Lennon died, Charles Osgood, doleful: “I read the news today. Oh boy.” That morning’s CBS World News Roundup – and on-hour newscasts throughout that day – delivered more moments that would keep you sitting in a parked car at your destination. As they would 3 months later when President Reagan was shot. Then soon again when Pope John Paul II was severely wounded in St. Peter’s Square. And five years yonder, when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds into its flight.
Jason Reddick’s The Complete Guide to AI Side Hustles is aimed at beginners trying to build passive income. But read it through a broadcaster’s lens and it suggests a blueprint for how radio talent and podcasters can leverage AI to expand their influence, diversify revenue, and stay indispensable in a media economy that rewards relevance and speed.
May the Fourth be with you today, as DJs and talk hosts are bumping with Star Wars music. And with Mother’s Day looming, 
My notes from a real useful session with Amazon’s Andy Slater, Audacy’s Michael Biemolt, and YouTube’s Neha Taleja, moderated by WTOP’S John Wardock.
with the station across town anymore. It’s competing with 50,000 news brands, nearly half a million podcasts, and an infinite scroll of feeds that never sleep.
As a newly minted program director (remember them?), I found the 1980 “NAB Radio Programming Conference” downright enchanting. New-tech cart machines (remember them?) would FIND the splice! And after the cart played, a flashing light saved careless DJs from accidentally playing it again.