There is an election coming up next week. Perhaps you’ve heard something about it. It’s been in all the papers.

Perhaps you’ve heard from a listener wondering why you’re talking about Donald Trump or Joe Biden. Maybe you’ve received a friendly e-mail from someone questioning your personal salvation because your station aired political commercials for You-Know-Who!

Maybe its even more personal that than. Maybe you’ve unfriended “friends” on Facebook for their political rants. (I know I have). Maybe there have even been conversations at your dinner table that have resulted in awkward pauses, or worse, name-calling-finger-pointing-and-gnashing-of-teeth.

What’s going on here?

When I was growing up we actually had a favorite gas station. I can only imagine the reaction from Gen Xers and Millennials.

It was Obie and Doc’s and we had “traded” (as my dad would say) with them for years. Friendly. Full service. Check the oil. Check with wiper fluid. No cash? No problem; put in on my tab. We never considered going to another gas station unless we went out of town.

That sounds so foreign today with gas stations and oil company brands seemingly racing for the generic. What’s the difference between a Shell and a Mobil? Sorry, Exxon/Mobil. The ubiquitous nature of gas stations makes even location (“closest to me”) no longer as significant as is which side of the intersection is it on. (There is a Shell station near me that recently went out of business because its NE corner was not as convenient to traffic flow as the NW corner where the BP now thrives).

While Shell, BP and Exxon/Mobil all arm wrestle for low price and convenience, there is another company that has embraced a different strategy. It is described in “Blue Ocean Shift” by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, as “shifting away from the red ocean of competition to a blue ocean of differentiation and low cost.”

When I first heard these words I was stunned.

As an old radio dog who has been a part of launching several new formats I wondered how could this really smart guy say something so implausible?

The speaker elaborated on his point for those of us trying to catch up.

“Successful formats are based upon consensus. Consensus is created through familiarity.

No familiarity? No consensus. No format.”

Several of us began to squirm awkwardly in our chairs. Either our expert is off his rocker, or we’re feeling like freshman students in a graduate class.

“Think of the last new format that has come along,” the group was challenged. After an awkward pause someone guessed, “The Jack format?”

The Frosts were big on hand-me-downs. Sigh!

I was often dressed in my two older brothers’ slacks and shirts. Fortunately, that didn’t happen with my older sister’s clothes, although I do remember the pre-adolescent embarrassment of having to wear my sister’s white sweater in the Christmas parade because I didn’t have a white sweater, and my parents sure weren’t going to buy me a white sweater that I’d never be caught dead in again. (That’s when I learned the coming-of-age reality of girl’s sweaters buttoning on the wrong side.)

On my 16th birthday and the day I received my Texas driver’s license, I received a hand-me-down of my mother’s Oldsmobile Cutless. I was thrilled that I had my own wheels and that it had an awesome Delco radio! (Yep! Radio geek even then). What wasn’t great was that it burned oil like an Arab sheik in a cranky mood. And the wheel alignment consistently pulled right after a few thousand miles.

So I learned.

I had to carry several quarts of oil in the trunk for when the thingamajig ran low. I knew I had to be on alert for when the steering wheel would start pulling after a few thousand miles.

Your station is like that.

“But what do I talk about?” a struggling air talent asks while clutching the front page of the local newspaper or “This Day in History” with the dreaded celebrity birthdays.

“Burl Ives would have been 111 today.” (I really heard this!)

Air talent have to be reminded that their content needs to add value to the station’s music design. Non-music elements will either push listeners away or bring them closer. It’s not filler, it has to add value.

Here are some ideas: