Radio broadcasters and Podcasters often get caught up in the numbers their platforms deliver and hang their hat on those figures for a measurement of success.
If that’s you I want to challenge that way of thinking for a moment.
A number of years ago now I hosted the drive show for 89.9 The Light (previously known as Light FM) I remember one afternoon being very real with my listeners and opening up about the struggles that I had been going through with some health concerns. I remember thinking at the time that “who is going to care? Sure it’s big for me but people have got thier own issues, no one needs to know about what’s going on with me. I couldn’t have been any more wrong if I tried…
I told the listeners that soon I would be having some time off from the drive show as I was facing open heart surgery. It was a condition that I was born with and it had finally caught up to me. It was a huge deal for me and I was struggling to come to terms that this was happening to me.
As I turned the microphone off with tears rolling down my face the phones lit up! I couldn’t believe it, the drive audience wanted too offer prayers and wish me good luck with the surgery. It was probably one of my more humbling moments I’ve ever been apart of in my radio career.
It was one caller though that stood out from the rest. A lady by the name of Vicki called into the show and thanked me for sharing my story as her husband was going through the exact same thing at the exact same time. If there was ever a moment to validate my thoughts for sharing my story that day it was that very moment.
If that afternoon she was my only caller I would have been happy with that. Vicki was supposed too hear that radio break that day… why? She needed to hear that her husband wasn’t alone and that afternoon she found comfort as she was preparing to walk the same journey as me and my family. That’s the power of your platform!
Podcasting and radio is not about the numbers. If you have connection with your audience then that’s when you win in broadcasting. You achieve connection then the numbers will take care of themselves.
LB
