In a world before computers, my classmates and I would gather by a bulletin board in the school hallway to find out our class assignment.

Did we get the good teacher or the one nobody liked? Did we get the teacher that would allow you to have some fun or the one that was strict? (My fifth grade teacher Mrs. Lay actually invited us to her house to watch the World Series. Those were different times, don’tcha know).

Seeing which teacher we got wasn’t the real goal of checking the bulletin board. No, we wanted to see if we’d be with our friends. I wanted to be with Rodney, David, Buddy, and Julian. And just maybe that pretty girl Marlene.

Great radio stations are like friends. You have things in common. You enjoy being with them. They make you smile and laugh. They talk about things that are interesting. You look forward to the next time together.

“It’s like being in a room with friends,” is often said about the voices on their favorite station.

“I feel like I’ve known you for years.”

Frank Reed recently retired from a remarkable 50-year career in radio, more than 31 of those years at one station – KLTY in Dallas-Fort Worth. Those are the kinds of comments Frank heard during the Christmas Wish remote broadcasts at numerous DFW Chick-fil-A locations where hundreds of listeners literally went out of their way to thank Frank for being a friend in the morning. Many shared stories of how his voice was a soundtrack for them during happy times and COVID lockdowns, through hard times, and in their celebrations.

Not every radio station is fortunate enough to have Frank Reed, but your station has someone. And if you don’t you should. Listeners can get the music, traffic and weather many places, but TALENT is the one non-preemptable value that radio stations still have. But the clock is ticking.

“We are not providing music to people. We are providing companionship to people. If you go into this thing our job is to put music on, you’ll miss the point.”

Bob Pittman, CEO iHeartMedia

Yes, every radio station needs a strong foundation of structure, music quantity, and information elements, but none of those things will matter very much if your listeners don’t care. And people care about people.

“Friendship … is born at the moment when one man says to another ‘What! You too? I thought that no one but myself'”

C.S. Lewis

*Inspired by a conversation with my friend Randy Fox of KSBJ in Houston