In this “Future in Focus” series, we’re asking industry thought leaders, executives and engineers to comment on top trends of the past year and what they expect for radio in 2026.
William Harrison is chief engineer for WETA-FM in Arlington, Va., outside of Washington, D.C.
Radio World: William, what do you consider the most important thing that happened in the world of radio in the past year?
William Harrison: As a public broadcaster, I personally believe the most important event, which affects radio and television, is the elimination of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Politics aside, many public stations depended on money distributed by CPB for their operations, and they’ve had to scale back significantly. For some stations, that meant eliminating positions or local productions, or severing their relationship with other content providers.
It’s going to be very interesting to see how this affects the industry in a few years’ time, particularly with respect to EAS. I think a lot of LP-1 and LP-2 stations are public stations and they take on that added duty out of a sense of responsibility to the public.
With stations looking to save money everywhere they can, I can easily see a scenario where they decide not to do it.
RW: What technology trend do you think is going to have the greatest impact in radio?
Harrison: I think that 2026 is truly going to be the year of AI. Broadcasters are already experimenting with it to make programming choices, and I’ve seen some AI DJs now, but these are just a few of the use cases I can envision. And while somewhat scary, there are others that could potentially be beneficial to both stations and talent.
Let’s say, for example, that an on-air host takes the time to train an AI model of their own voice. While I don’t think a lot of hosts would be too crazy about the possibility of someone else putting words into their voice, it could just as easily be used in cases where the host is sick and cannot use their voice.
The host could type in what they want to say, and have AI convert that into audio in their own voice — a simple, easy way to simultaneously have laryngitis and still be able to do your show.
There are ethical and legal issues to work out, but it’s just a matter of time. Any new disruptive technology causes both excitement and terror, and while there are a lot of things we can do, we still need to ask if we should do them.
RW: What will be your main professional goal or project?
Harrison: I’d have to say continued virtualization and standardization. The days of elaborate control rooms and lots of pieces of hardware dedicated to a specific task are gone. We’ve realized that most gear is really a computer in a fancy box with buttons, faders or small LCD screens on it.
Sure, back in the days of multiple satellite receivers, cart decks and CD players, you may have needed a console with 24 faders, but these days most things can be accomplished with four: host, guest, automation and network. Do we really still need the physical faders and all the expense of having spares, or can we use an off-the-shelf touchscreen or a mouse?
I’d much rather have the backup system for a studio be the laptop you are already carrying with you — just open a browser and go.
A colleague recently was complaining about the lack of physical buttons in their car, making it difficult to change anything without taking their eyes off the road. That was their reason to maintain physical consoles in a radio studio. But it’s just not an apples-to-apples comparison. In the studio, you are looking at the screen to read copy or see what might be coming up next, and the button is on that very same screen.
Don’t get me wrong, there are situations where you really need those physical controls, like sound reinforcement or recording a symphony. But for the average on-air host? It’s just overkill.
RW: How will our industry be different in 10 years?
Harrison: Obviously it’s hard to gaze into the crystal ball and see the future, but there are some things I feel pretty confident about. I think we’ll end up with fewer stations overall, both AM and FM. Broadcasting is an expensive business, and some are going to fold.
We’ll probably end up with fewer manufacturers as well. Be it through higher tariffs, less specialization or just people retiring, it’s easy to see some consolidation of the number of companies actually making broadcast gear, from antennas and transmission lines to audio systems.
The average age of an engineer will continue to rise — as an industry we haven’t done very well attracting new, younger talent to train and take our place. I see a lot of discussion about this and how to attract them, but I still haven’t seen many positive results. We’ll always get some folks who do it for the love of broadcasting, but it’s hard to compete with “9 to 5, work from home, your weekends are your own” careers.
I think that as ATSC3.0 becomes more readily available, more radio stations will end up putting audio-only channels up in that spectrum. Consumption of media via alternate methods (video streaming as opposed to over-the-air TV) is already very popular, so it’s a natural fit.
And speaking of streaming, I expect to see a lot more radio streams made available on video streaming platforms like Roku. The average household has a lot more TVs in it than radios at this point, and I can’t tell you how many people I know who think nothing of turning on the TV for background noise, but never think to turn on a radio.
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