Forty years of radio creative. A lot of blank pages, a lot of last-minute rewrites, a lot of briefs that arrive at 4:55pm on a Friday with notes from three different stakeholders. I still love this business the way I loved it on day one sitting in a production room at \u201cPower 99 FM\u201d in Philly. But if I\u2019m being honest, love at year forty is a different animal than love at year one. Quieter. More confident. Less likely to make my pulse jump on a Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not a complaint. That\u2019s just what happens when you get really, really good at something you adore. The fireworks settle into a steady flame. You stop noticing the magic because you\u2019re too busy making it.<\/p>\n
Then something very unexpected happened; my daughter got hired as a junior AE at iHeartMedia. (Yes, of course, I gently pushed her into it.)<\/p>\n
You should have seen her the night before her first day. She laid out her outfit like it was prom. She practiced her presentation skills in the kitchen, which were equal parts adorable and scary. She asked me questions I hadn\u2019t heard out loud in three decades. \u201cDad, what\u2019s a make-good?\u201d \u201cDad, how do I explain attribution to a client who only cares about reach?\u201d \u201cDad, what is KPI?\u201d She was thrilled and a little terrified and absolutely lit up from the inside.<\/p>\n
And something funny happened to her old man. I caught it.<\/p>\n
Watching her, I started remembering things I hadn\u2019t thought about in years. The first script I ever wrote that made a client tear up. The afternoon I heard one of my spots pouring out of a stranger\u2019s car window at a red light on Chestnut Street in Philly and got goose bumps. The first time a host-read ad I\u2019d shaped landed in a podcast and gave me that same old electricity. The particular magic of audio: that we still get to paint pictures using a voice, a sound, a mood, and the few inches between someone\u2019s headphones and their imagination.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t realize how much of that I\u2019d quietly tucked away until she handed it back to me.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s going to learn a lot this year. About dynamic ad insertion and first-party data and cross-platform packages and reading a room. I\u2019ve been learning right alongside her. Or relearning, really. She\u2019s making me new again.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the takeaway, for the purpose of this column we call \u201cLearn & Earn.\u201d The new hires around you carry something the rest of us have quietly misplaced. Curiosity without armor. Excitement without filter. Questions without the ego of pretending we already know the answer. Pay attention to that energy. Let it land. In my experience, it is the cheapest and most reliable form of professional rejuvenation we have access to in this business.<\/p>\n
And thank you to my sweet girl, who has no idea she rejuvenated her old man as she begins her maiden radio journey. For two decades I\u2019ve worked to support, inspire, and equip thousands of radio sellers across the country. These days my focus has narrowed to just one rookie. The one who doesn\u2019t simply occupy a cubicle. She occupies my heart. Just like radio has.<\/p>\n
Whether radio lands through a dashboard, a smart speaker, a podcast feed, or a pair of earbuds on the morning commute, it goes where eyes can\u2019t follow. My daughter just reminded me why that still matters.<\/p>\n
It was then, and is today, love at first frequency.<\/p>\n
Yaman Coskun has served the radio industry with strategic creative since 1983 and now spearheads Yaman Media Group, a DC creative shop and media consulting firm. Learn more at yamanmediagroup.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n