Blog

Radio Is About Communication. So Why Are We Still So Bad At It?

By David Kidd, BPR

Radio is, at its core, a communication business. That’s literally the job.

And yet… how good are we really at it?

There have never been more ways to communicate than there are right now. Phone. Email. Text. WhatsApp. Zoom. Teams. Instagram. Facebook. LinkedIn. And, in a bold retro twist, face-to-face.

In radio, we communicate internally with our teams and externally with listeners and clients. We talk for a living. We write for a living. We sell ideas for a living.

So here’s the uncomfortable question:

Are we actually any better at communicating than we were ten years ago?

Some days, it doesn’t feel like it.

I still hear promos that are clumsy, confusing, and trying to say five things at once — and therefore saying nothing.

I still hear positioning statements that bear only a passing resemblance to what’s actually on air.

I still get emails that require decoding.

I still hear talk hosts deliver opinions in a rambling, circular, meandering way that loses the audience halfway through sentence two.

And I still hear talk breaks on music stations with so many “thoughts” crammed into them that every single one goes missing in action.

The truth is, successful communication is much harder than it looks.

On one side, you have the sender’s ability to express a message clearly and simply.
On the other, you have the receiver’s ability to understand it.

Both matter. And both regularly fail.

Why Do We Communicate So Poorly?

There are some very common reasons:

1. Lack of Skill or Training
   Not everyone has been taught how to communicate clearly — verbally or in writing. Some never learned it formally. Some never saw it modelled well growing up.
2. Lack of Confidence
   If you’re unsure of yourself, your thoughts usually come out that way too — tangled, vague, over-explained or undercooked.
3. Emotional Interference
   Anxiety, anger, stress, fear are all great enemies of clarity. They turn simple messages into complicated ones.
4. Poor Listening
   Communication is not just about talking. It’s about listening.
   And in radio, this one is fatal. If you don’t listen to your audience, you won’t understand what they want, how they want it, or why they’re drifting away.

As the late Sir Michael Parkinson famously demonstrated: the best interviewers are elite listeners.

5. Cognitive Differences and Bias
   Some people struggle to organise thoughts clearly. Others are blinded by their own assumptions. Both make messages harder to land.
6. Lack of Empathy
   If you can’t see the world from the other person’s point of view, your communication will always miss the mark.
7. Lack of Practice
   Like fitness, communication decays without use.
8. The Tyranny of Short-Form Tech
   Texting and social media have trained us to communicate in fragments. Speed has replaced clarity. And misunderstanding has filled the gap.

How Do We Get Better?

None of this is complicated. It just requires discipline:

• Listen. Then listen again.
• Always think about who you’re talking to, not just what you want to say.
• In person, remember: body language does half the talking.
• Re-read that email. Then re-read it again.
• Be concise. Be specific. Be unambiguous.
• Think before you speak. Don’t just release the first thought that escapes.
• And in verbal communication, a positive attitude (and yes, even a smile) actually changes how the message lands.

The Bottom Line

Effective communication is not a “nice to have” skill in radio.
It is the entire business.

And yet, despite having more tools than at any time in human history, we’re still tripping over the same problems people had thousands of years ago.

Different platforms. Same human flaws.

I’ll leave you with a quote from former Intel CEO Andy Grove that should be pinned to every studio wall and every management office:

“How well we communicate is not determined by how well we say things, but by how well we are understood.”

Which, in radio, is a pretty good definition of success.