Is It Time for Radio to Win Back the Youth?

The Battle for Attention: The First Step Before Building an Audience

Capturing the public’s attention is the first challenge, even before thinking about building a loyal audience. Targeting young listeners is no easy task. When you offer music, they often respond that they already have it, in the exact order they want, wherever they are. Spotify is constantly praised for allowing anyone to create playlists with hundreds of their favorite songs, in any sequence they prefer! How can traditional radio compete with a personalized playlist for every individual on the planet? Even offline listening has become standard.

Which Audiences Still Keep Radio Breathing?

Radio has become, in many cases, the choice for those looking for something beyond music. Just take a look at the top audience numbers in the city of Natal, Brazil: the most listened-to programs are those hosted by strong communicators, like Miguel Weber, whose background in Psychology enhances his already well-established talent for engaging listeners. Another example is Father Reginaldo Manzotti, who is a nationwide phenomenon, not only in Natal, with impressive numbers even on global streaming platforms.

News talk shows also lead the ratings. Ironically or not, the one with the largest audience openly states its political stance and far surpasses others that, despite having clear biases, prefer to pretend they’re neutral.

Soccer (football), even during poor seasons for local teams, still drives good numbers. And finally, religious programs with well-defined niches and a focus on spiritual counseling maintain strong appeal. Emotional vulnerability seems to push many listeners toward formats that offer a sense of comfort, almost like a sonic embrace in response to the emotional neglect many feel.

Young People Must Not Lose the Habit of Listening to Radio!

Being just about music is no longer enough to win back young audiences. Radio needs to offer additional features. Digital radio already comes with tools and possibilities that require activation or else they’ll be wasted if we don’t cultivate an audience capable of using them.

Radio Must Become Multitasking

Radio receivers need to evolve: they must display both dynamic and static images, download, store, and send files transmitted by the stations, allow listeners to revisit past news segments, and become a two-way communication tool between the station and the audience. Radio must incorporate features that currently belong to smartphones—or else the smartphone will fully replace radio, and that will be that.

Today’s Receivers Don’t Attract Young Brazilians

I’ve been looking for receiver designs that align with the aesthetic taste of today’s Brazilians, especially younger audiences, who are fans of sound systems like JBL’s Party Box. But radio devices tend to go in the opposite direction of what this generation loves. We are pushing future listeners away and for what? Their decline is already a result of past neglect in cultivating younger audiences.

Let me reinforce this: the car is the ideal environment to “train” young people to enjoy radio and discover its pleasures.

What Do I Personally Look For in Radio?

I won’t lie, music has taken a back seat for me. Still, from time to time, I tune in to stations like Magia FM (Floripa), Hits FM (Macaé), Z100 (New York), and the fantastic audio quality of NRJ (Paris), all via streaming. This doesn’t mean streaming has defeated radio; it simply means I chose to listen to distant stations with high-quality audio, something DRM could bring us, but unfortunately, we still don’t have it in Brazil.

Beyond music, I consume a lot of journalism, but not from GloboNews or similar outlets. I prefer in-depth, analytical journalism that doesn’t try to manipulate me. I could spend hours listening to radio programs hosted by William Waack, Eduardo Oinegue, or Joel Pinheiro, rare journalists committed to realism rather than wrapping their narratives to steer the audience in the direction the station wants.

How Can We Not Notice That Winning Over Young People Has Become Difficult When What Attracts Me Most to Radio Are Topics of Adult Life?

Let’s be honest: radio receivers are wearing old, unattractive “clothes.” Radio Needs to Become a True Tool—a Swiss Army Knife, It must be built on an open architecture—flexible enough to escape the control of its own creators, much like the internet once did.

Whether we like it or not, radio needs to integrate deeply with the internet while also becoming a complementary network. Only then will it become truly extraordinary.