Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

National Radio Day

August 20 is National Radio Day.  You probably didn’t know that.

August 20 is National Radio Day.

You probably didn’t know that.

There is no group organizing National Radio Day, at least as far as we can determine. There is no National Radio Day Foundation. There is no www.nationalradioday.org website. Are there any radio stations noting this? Any trade groups noting this?

The best thing is NPR’s salute … from 2011.

For Edwin Howard Armstrong’s sake, even the United Nations does a better job with World Radio Day (Feb. 13, if you’re interested). World Radio Day has its own (very boring) Web page replete with international bureaucrats saying how wonderful radio is and a proclamation boiling radio down to an internationally recognized and approved of activity similar to cheese eating and clog dancing.

These are things that our industry could and should do something about. The radio industry is being outorganized and outhustled here.

People debate whether radio is important anymore; whether listening is up or down; if the AM band has a future, etc. How about making sure that radio is important to the radio industry? It apparently has a day, National Radio Day. Make sure everyone knows it.

Just a little spitballing here: Perhaps the NAB might hold a contest for best National Radio Day PSA? It could host and make available all of the entrants on its website. After a few years there might be quite a time-capsule collection. Wouldn’t some PAMS-style bumpers be great?

Perhaps the big boys, Beasley, Clear Channel, Cumulus, Entercom, Hubbard, et al, could put some heft behind the effort. You certainly can’t listen to a CC station for five minutes without hearing about the iHeartRadio Festival; let’s put some of these serious promotional skills to work.

And the little guys could join in as well. Anyone with any production chops can write a script, grab a voice and cut a PSA.

Program syndicators such as Dial Global and talkers like Rush Limbaugh could put in their two cents.

Imagine an effort beginning every August with 15- and 30-second PSAs mentioning National Radio Day and a theme — radio’s history, entertainment value, information/news value and more, airing once an hour. Just to remind the listeners.

If people don’t know about National Radio Day, we need only look in the mirror to cast blame.

Close