What are the keys to great radio? I believe there are three. This first came up in a discussion had at Gospel Music Week sometime in the mid 2000s. Eric Rhodes, publisher of Radio Ink, was leading an open-mic discussion on the future of radio.

At the time, there was little to hear on the internet, so Sirius and XM were the big bugaboos. What was to keep everyone from subscribing and putting terrestrial radio out of business? — As an aside, I wonder what will kill radio? If you listen to the “experts” talking movies would, TV would, satellite radio would, the internet and streaming will. It seems that the experts are always predicting the demise of the medium, and the only consistency is their fallibility.

As Eric told it, he said that there had been some strong research done on what makes a website popular. The three main attributes to a great website with lots of repeat traffic are: Personality, Entertainment and a Sense of Community. His addition was that the same seemed to hold true for radio.

In my next posts, I will begin to flesh out what these mean and how to bring them to the fore at your station. However, let me add this: there is a fourth key that will help you dominate, and I will reveal that next time.