Piney Woods Business Journal

08/21/2026

Radio remains the most trusted medium in America....

Why Local Listeners Trust Local Voices: The Power of Radio Endorsements In a world flooded with polished ads a...

08/19/2026

When Hurricane Beryl made landfall on the Texas coast at 4 a.m. on July 8, 2024, the KSAM 101.7 morning team was already live — and stayed on the air for the next ten hours as the storm tracked inland and exited the listening area. Real-time, boots-on-the-ground coverage a push notification can't replicate. That's exactly why local radio keeps winning on the metric that matters most: trust.

Local radio isn't a broadcast tower talking at a market — it's a two-way relationship with the community it serves. Emergency management officials rely on stations to get warnings out fast and accurately. City and county government leaders use them to communicate with residents directly. Schools count on them for closing announcements. Churches, civic groups, and local businesses turn to them to reach their own neighbors. And families keep them on because the voices on the other end are the same ones they run into at the grocery store. That's a level of trust national media and social platforms simply can't build — because it isn't built through algorithms. It's built person to person, year after year.

The National Association of Broadcasters calls radio a lifeline during severe weather — stations keep broadcasting through power outages when cell networks and streaming fail. The FCC's Emergency Alert System, which delivers most severe weather warnings, runs through radio and TV broadcasters working directly with FEMA and the National Weather Service.

Katz Radio Group's 2026 Media Trust Study found 85% of Americans call radio "trustworthy" — ahead of newspapers (77%) and TV (73%), and nearly triple the trust level of social media. A November 2025 Hawkeye Poll ranked local news as Americans' single most trusted news category. The reason: familiar, local voices — no algorithm, no anonymous feed. Katz calls this the "halo effect," where listener trust transfers directly to the brands a station's hosts endorse.

Trust isn't a marketing buzzword in this industry. It's the whole business model.



Sources: National Association of Broadcasters (nab.org) · FCC, "The Emergency Alert System" · Katz Radio Group, 2026 Media Trust Study · Hawkeye Poll, Nov. 2025 (Univ. of Iowa)

08/12/2026

Trust: The Currency of Small-Town Business

In Huntsville, New Waverly, Willis, and Trinity, business doesn't run on contracts alone—it runs on trust. When the hardware store owner sponsors the Little League team, or the diner donates coffee for the volunteer fire department's fundraiser, that's not marketing. That's neighbors showing up for neighbors.

This is what makes small-town radio fundamentally different from big-city broadcasting. In a major market, a radio station is a media company. Here, we're your friends with a microphone. We know your name, your kids' names, and what's happening at your business because we're often standing right there with you.

That closeness is why trust matters so much. Small businesses don't need another ad buy—they need a partner who genuinely wants them to succeed, because their success is our community's success. When we promote a local shop, it's not a transaction; it's a reflection of real relationships built over years of covering fish fries, football games, and funeral announcements alike.

Big-city radio sells reach. Small-town radio offers something rarer: trust, earned one handshake at a time.

"The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others." Albert Schweitzer

08/04/2026

"Ever wonder why you can still hum a jingle from years ago? The science of radio memory explains it — cats and taco trucks included."
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-what-you-hear-radio-sticks-bryan-reeder-qyroc

08/04/2026

Radio and digital aren’t competing strategies—they’re stronger together.

Radio builds familiarity, credibility, and trust through consistent voices and storytelling. Digital extends that connection by encouraging action, retargeting interested audiences, and helping measure response.

Industry research reinforces the impact:

• 79% of listeners search for a brand online after hearing an audio ad
• Brand recall and purchase intent can be significantly higher when radio and digital run together
• Retargeting helps keep the message in front of potential customers until they’re ready to act

The strongest campaigns don’t rely on a single channel. They create connection through radio—and continue the conversation through digital.

At Point Broadcasting, we bring the radio people and the digital people together to build integrated strategies that turn listeners into customers. (from Point Broadcasting)


https://lnkd.in/p/g_2PkbDe

08/03/2026

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07/31/2026

Shopping local, hiring local, and advertising local aren't separate acts of goodwill — they're one connected system....

When you choose the shop on Main Street over the chain store off the highway, the ripple effects reach further...

07/28/2026

Radio is still the immediate go-to source of audio information and entertainment. New Edison Research data confirms it: AM/FM radio holds a 62% share of ad-supported audio time among adults 18+, compared to just 6% for ad-supported Spotify. Even more telling, 89% of people listen only to AM/FM radio and never ad-supported Spotify in a typical day. The reach gap is just as stark, with AM/FM lifting daily audio reach from 32% to 74%. Radio's lead isn't perception — it's math.

How strong is AM/FM radio compared to ad-supported Spotify? The actual numbers from Edison Research’s Q2 2026 “Share of Ear” report differ significantly from advertisers’ estimates.According to an analysis in Westwood One’s blog, Edison’s most recent quarterly measure of time spent with ...

07/27/2026

The Ratings Report Radio Advertisers Have Been Waiting For and that the Industry Deserves. Xperi’s DTS AutoStage just changed the game for AM/FM measurement. It’s now tracking in-car listening across 300+ U.S. markets using data from 6 million vehicles. And for the first time ever, every market ...

07/24/2026

A Canadian radio GM sent me a fascinating lead-attribution study that every radio manager, media buyer, and marketer should see. It was done by the marketing director of a Canadian roofing company, who shared how they measure advertising performance. It’s not with last-click attribution. They assi...