Five Years Later: How To Save Top 40 Radio in 2026
By Jason Kidd – President/CEO of New Generation Radio, home of VirtualJock.com and LocalFirst
Introduction
Almost exactly five years ago — February of 2021. I wrote an article called “How To Save Top 40 and Reignite the Flame. Innovate… Differentiate… or Disintegrate”
The premise was simple. I laid out what I believed were the biggest problems facing CHR radio at the time: weak stop-sets, too much Hollywood fluff, stations sounding identical, not enough personality, and a format that had lost some of the showbiz energy that once made it the most exciting thing on the dial.
A lot has happened since then.
TikTok has become the biggest driver of music discovery for young listeners. Streaming now dominates passive listening. And AI has started creeping into just about every corner of radio operations.
So five years later it felt like the right time to revisit the conversation. The industry is supposed to evolve. The only question is whether we’re evolving with it. Because the reality for Top 40 is still the same: innovate, differentiate, or you’ll get left behind.
Some things have improved. Some haven’t. And a few entirely new challenges have emerged. But the core question remains the same:
What does Top 40 need to do to stay relevant in 2026?
1. Stop-Sets Still Matter More Than We Admit
Five years ago I wrote that stop-sets were too long and too boring. Unfortunately, in some places not much has changed. There are still stations running nine, ten, even twelve minutes of commercials in a break. That’s not just bad for listeners, it’s bad for advertisers.
Think about it from a client’s perspective. If you’re paying real money for a schedule, do you really want your message buried in the middle of a ten-minute commercial block? Especially today, when digital platforms can geo-target your message directly to the people most likely to walk through your door.
A business can now make sure their message is hitting potential customers within a five- or ten-mile radius of their location. They don’t have to pay for an entire metro if they don’t need it. If you’re a business in Pflugerville, Texas, do you really care whether someone in Kyle hears your commercial too? Probably not. Yet traditional radio buying often forces advertisers into those kinds of broad purchases.
That’s where digital and streaming have an advantage right now. The technology exists to target more precisely, and advertisers know it.
But the bigger issue inside radio is still the structure of the stop-set itself. When commercial breaks get too long, everybody loses. The listener tunes out, and the advertiser’s message gets diluted.
The smarter path forward is thinking about advertising differently. Shorter stop-sets. Cleaner breaks. More creative ways to blend branding with programming so the listener never feels like the station just hit a wall of commercials.
When done right, those messages don’t feel like interruptions. They feel like part of the experience.
And in an era where listeners have more choices than ever, that difference matters.
2. Imaging Has To Live In The Now
Another area where Top 40 hasn’t evolved nearly enough is imaging.
I still hear stations producing imaging the same way we did twenty or even thirty years ago. Back in the 90s the industry made a big move away from the huge “big voice guy” sound that dominated radio. The problem is we never really replaced it with anything better. In many cases we just softened everything and have been sitting in that same place ever since.
A lot of imaging today tries too hard to be funny or cute. Nine times out of ten it backfires. And even when a line does hit, it burns out quickly. Those types of pieces shouldn’t live on the air for months. A week or two at most. After that they start sounding stale fast.
Your talent should be the funny. Your personalities are the entertainment. Imaging isn’t there to outshine them. Its job is to brand the station and give the whole product energy and identity.
When imaging tries too hard to become the show, it usually loses.
What it should do instead is create a sound that feels modern, confident, and unmistakably tied to the station.
There are still a few stations out there that understand this. Q102/Cincinnati has some of the most forward-thinking imaging in the country right now. It feels current. It feels big. And it sounds like something built for today’s listener, not something recycled from a production library in 2002.
Z100/New York is another great example. That station has managed to keep its signature big sound for decades, but it continues to evolve it. The energy is still there, the attitude is still there, but the production never feels stuck in another era.
Too often I’m hearing stations rely on cheesy one-liners, imaging that tries to be the joke, or production that feels like it hasn’t changed in twenty years.
Imaging should sound like it belongs right now.
Because if the station itself doesn’t sound current, the rest of the format won’t feel current either.
3. Hollywood Gossip Is Even Less Relevant Today
Five years ago a lot of jocks were leaning heavily on celebrity gossip as filler content. Even then it felt a little stale. In 2026 it’s practically useless.
Your audience has already seen that story on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube hours earlier. They’ve probably already discussed it with friends before you even hit the air. By the time it shows up in a radio break, it’s yesterday’s news.
If you’re going to talk about pop culture, bring a personality perspective to it. Give listeners a take they can’t get somewhere else. Otherwise, focus on what radio still does better than anyone else: local relevance.
4. Top 40 Lost Some Of Its Showbiz
There was a time when Top 40 felt like the center of pop culture. The biggest songs, the biggest promotions, the biggest personalities.
Today too many CHR stations sound safe. Polished, yes — but safe.
Streaming already owns the jukebox experience. Radio can’t win by simply playing the same songs Spotify has. What radio can own is the spectacle. The energy. The feeling that something is happening.
Big imaging, creative promotions, and personality-driven moments that make listeners want to come back tomorrow are what make Top 40 exciting again. Radio has gotten so focused on being “real” and “safe” that in many cases it has forgotten that Top 40, at its best, was always part showbiz. The stations that still understand that are the ones that still sound alive.
5. Everyone Still Sounds The Same
This problem didn’t get better over the last five years. If anything, it got worse.
Research, national music logs, and now AI-assisted scheduling have pushed CHR playlists closer together than ever. Drive between markets and sometimes you’ll hear the same songs in nearly the same order.
Top 40 was built on attitude and discovery. It shouldn’t sound like it’s being programmed by spreadsheet alone. Stations still need room to define their identity and sound a little different from everyone else. Historically, that’s what the best Top 40 stations always did. They shared the biggest hits, but they also had a local flavor, and sometimes even a few records that were hits in that market before they were hits everywhere.
6. Personality Still Wins
Radio today often sounds technically excellent. The audio is clean, the imaging is polished, the clocks are tight.
But sometimes it also sounds a little empty.
Voice tracking has expanded over the years and AI voices are starting to appear. Efficiency has improved, but the emotional connection sometimes disappears with it.
Listeners still connect with personalities. A host telling a story, reacting to something happening locally, or simply sounding like a real person instead of a liner machine. That connection is something radio has always done better than any other platform. And the reason it matters more now than ever is simple: twenty years ago music was the star. Today music is everywhere instantly. The thing listeners can’t get everywhere is personality and connection.
7. Promotions Need Energy Again
The $1,000 contest isn’t creating buzz anymore. Listeners have heard every version of it.
What still works are experiences! Backstage access, unique events, and promotions that people want to talk about and share online.
Top 40 promotions used to be legendary. They created excitement around the station and around the brand. That kind of energy is still possible today, but it requires creativity.
8. Social Media Is Now Programming
Five years ago social media was still treated mostly as marketing.
In 2026 it’s content distribution.
The stations winning right now are the ones whose personalities and content live on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube just as much as they live on the radio.
Social creators are talent now, and the smartest stations are embracing that instead of ignoring it.
9. Local Still Matters — But It Isn’t Enough By Itself
Localism has always been one of radio’s biggest advantages.
Spotify can’t talk about your traffic. Apple Music can’t talk about your local concerts. Streaming services can’t react to something happening in your city today.
But there’s an important truth here: local alone isn’t enough.
If it’s not entertaining, the local angle won’t carry you very far. Entertainment has always been the real currency in radio. Local just makes it more meaningful.
10. Morning Shows Still Drive Everything
This hasn’t changed in decades.
If mornings aren’t strong, the station struggles. And today the competition for attention during that daypart is intense. Phones, podcasts, and social media are all fighting for the same audience.
Great morning shows tell stories, build personalities, and create segments that listeners want to come back for the next day.
A playlist alone doesn’t win mornings.
11. The Music Cycle Has Changed
Back when I wrote the original article in 2021, Top 40 was already starting to lose its role as the primary tastemaker for new music.
Today TikTok often breaks songs first. By the time some songs reach radio, audiences already know them.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it means CHR needs to stay closely connected to what’s happening culturally and react faster when something catches fire. It also means we can’t rely on slow, old-school processes to make decisions. When a station is still waiting for the chart to tell them what’s real, the audience has already moved on. Top 40 used to go find the hits. Too many stations today wait for the hits to be handed to them.
12. AI Is Now Part Of The Toolkit
AI is now helping with show prep, production, copywriting, and even music scheduling.
Used correctly, it can make talent better prepared and more efficient. Used incorrectly, it can make stations sound robotic.
The key is simple: use AI behind the scenes to enhance creativity, not replace it.
The connection listeners feel still needs to come from a human voice.
13. The TikTok Opportunity
One of the most interesting developments in the industry right now is the partnership between iHeartRadio and TikTok.
And honestly, this might point to where Top 40 needs to go next.
Young people, especially the 12 to 24 audience, are discovering music on TikTok. That’s just the reality. By the time some songs reach radio, the audience has already been living with them for weeks.
At the same time, some CHR stations seem to be doing the opposite of what the format was built for. Instead of leaning into youth culture, they’re backing away from it and trying to chase older listeners by filling the playlist with songs that are twenty or even thirty years old.
That gets away from the brand.
People who come to a Top 40 station expect what’s happening now. They expect energy, discovery, and the center of pop culture.
When a CHR suddenly loads up on decades-old music, it’s like walking into Ruth’s Chris and finding pizza on the menu. It might be fine, but it’s not why anyone came there in the first place.
Music tweaks might buy you a share point one way or another. Maybe.
But great stations are built on talent, not playlist gymnastics.
That’s why the TikTok partnership is so interesting. Imagine a TikTok Radio format on underperforming signals. A national version using major influencers could certainly work, but there’s also a fascinating local angle.
Instead of traditional radio talent, imagine using local TikTok influencers in each market as personalities on the station. They already have audiences. They already understand the culture. And they already know how to entertain.
This is also where Top 40 has to be careful not to repeat history. The format has made this mistake before — ignoring what’s really happening musically because it didn’t “fit the system.” In the early 90s, a lot of CHR ignored emerging hip-hop, dance, and alternative because programmers were scared of blowing off adults. The audience didn’t ignore those songs. They got them elsewhere. That can happen again in this era, only faster, because the audience has unlimited options.
Because at the end of the day, if it’s not entertaining, the rest of it won’t matter.
14. Proof That Great Radio Still Works
Before anyone reads this and concludes that Top 40 is doomed, it’s worth pointing out something important. There are still stations across the country proving every day that great radio absolutely works.
Look at WKFR in Kalamazoo, Michigan, or WKRZ serving the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area in Pennsylvania. These stations consistently deliver some of the largest audiences for any Top 40 stations in the country.
They’ve been doing it for years because they’ve become staples in their communities.
That’s really the goal for any great radio station, regardless of format. You want to become something more than just another signal on the dial. You want to become part of the identity of the city, almost like a local landmark people expect to be there.
We’ve seen that firsthand recently with the relaunch of WRNR in Annapolis, Maryland.
WRNR blends classic rock, 90s alternative and grunge, and great music from today. The response since bringing it back has been incredible.
And that response didn’t happen because of a playlist tweak.
It happened because of strong talent, an eclectic music mix, and a station that has always been tightly woven into the Annapolis community. No one captures the feel of the Annapolis area the way WRNR does.
Baltimore and Washington stations reach Annapolis just fine signal-wise, but they’re not talking to Annapolis. They don’t sound like Annapolis.
That local culture has been part of the radio history here for decades. WHFS spent many years broadcasting from Annapolis before becoming a bigger, regional Baltimore/DC station, and that music culture never really disappeared.
What’s fascinating now is seeing younger listeners discovering WRNR because their parents grew up listening to it.
That kind of generational connection is something radio used to create all the time.
And it leads to the biggest takeaway of all.
If radio wants to survive, whether it’s Top 40, AAA, Country, Rock, or anything else — the industry has to stop focusing only on music.
Music can be found anywhere now.
Spotify has it.
Apple has it.
TikTok has it.
Radio has to bring something bigger than that.
Connection. Personality. Community. Entertainment.
When a station becomes woven into the life of a city, it stops being just another frequency.
It becomes something people genuinely care about.
And when that happens, radio still wins.