>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections I'm Veronica Volk filling in for Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour is being made this week on World Radio Day.

This year, the official theme for World Radio Day is Artificial Intelligence.

According to Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, this year's theme is all about how radio and artificial intelligence can work together.

And we're going to get into all that voice cloning, algorithmic bias, and other ethical considerations.

But this day also got us thinking a little bit more broadly about radio's past, present and future.

At WXXI, we have multiple radio stations serving many audiences with different kinds of programing, but we're also growing our podcasts.

We're on YouTube, we make more digital first content that's available on demand.

So where does that leave us?

Is radio still relevant in 2026?

Is it like former NPR CEO Jarl Mohn once called it the cockroach of media?

So I've assembled a cast of talented radio folks to guide us through this conversation today, and I want to welcome them all.

Now, first of all, in studio with me is Julio Sáenz.

He's the chief content officer at WXXI, and he also helped launch poder.

Julio.

Julio, thank you for joining me.

Thank you.

Mike Black is our radio program manager and he oversees WXXI 1370 159 FM as well as R.U.R.

the root.

Any other bonafides there?

Mike, that I should be mentioning.

>> I basically oversee iOS and operations, and I don't take out the trash a little bit, a little bit of everything.

>> All kinds of stuff for us here.

Thank you, Mike, for joining me and joining us remotely.

This is very special for me.

Is Randy Gorbman, the former news director at WXXI News and my former boss.

Thank you so much, Randy, for taking the time out of your retirement to talk to us about radio.

>> Yeah, somehow I've managed to stay busy and still doing some freelance, but I'm really honored to be asked back here.

>> Well, you're the gift that keeps on giving, Randy.

We appreciate you so much.

So thank you all for joining me.

And later in the hour, we're also going to talk to Hannah.

Hannah Meyer, she's the music director and afternoon host for The Root because we really want to talk about this full spectrum of radio history and its future.

So, Randy, I want to start with you because you, like you said, you're still freelancing.

You still got a foot in this in this industry.

What's, I think maybe the greatest, sort of advancement that you've seen over the course of your career in radio and sort of.

What does that teach you about where we're going?

>> Yeah, I think for me as a journalist, Veronica, really, it has been the internet, which obviously covers a whole lot of ground.

But just in terms of being able to research stories and get information quickly, it rapidly sped up the way that we could disseminate information to our listeners.

And then later, of course, readers online.

and now viewers on platforms like YouTube.

So that was kind of like the start of it.

I mean, there's and Mike can talk about this too.

And Julio, I mean, obviously we all saw in terms of the technology changing with, what was available digitally, that used to be more analog in terms of how this type of broadcast is disseminated, but really just the information that is available at, at just a fingertips notice is really what did the most, I think to change this business.

>> Yeah.

I mean the internet definitely helped us get more information, at least from a, from a broadcast perspective to tell people you know, you could also see it as maybe cannibalizing some of our audience and more people going to that immediate on demand information instead of tuning in to their local radio station.

What do you what do you know about sort of our listenership and our news audience over the course of your career, and how they may have migrated to that on demand content?

>> Yeah, that's a really good question.

And I think that that word of, you know, cannibalizing what we're doing, I think it's it's it's an unfortunate way that a lot of people who are more, you know, my, my era, you know, legacy journalists looked at it for a long time, and I think that kind of held them back, you know, because you're involved in all the digital platforms or all of the social media platforms.

I mean, these are just tools that are adding to what we're already doing.

I was looking at some stats before the show today, and it was interesting to see that more than half, according to some recent survey, more than half of Gen Z. folks around the country are still listening or using radio over traditional platforms more than once a week.

But that doesn't mean it's the only way.

Obviously, you talked about at the beginning of the broadcast podcasting platforms online, of course.

I know we're doing a lot of vertical video on WXXI now.

There are so many different ways to get that same kind of information.

But I think the important thing is we don't forget that we are a community.

And it's it's really what has made broadcasting, whatever you want to call it, stand out.

Because when we're part of this kind of collective, people who are absorbing all this information we create a brand.

And I think WXXI has been a great brand.

And it's also something that a lot of people have gravitated to.

I know Julio who I've known for a number of years, and I talked to the head of the Iberoamerican Action League a number of years ago.

Angelica there Perez Delgado.

And how important in different cultures, especially in Hispanic Latino cultures, radio is still a driving force, even in its traditional form.

So I think we can't forget the way that we can connect with, with people, with viewers, with listeners.

and don't lose sight of that.

Technology is great.

It can add to what we're doing, but still, it's that 1 to 1 thing that I think has never really gone away.

>> That's a great point.

Let's let's bring Julio into the conversation.

Can you talk a little bit, Julio, about what it is that radio does for its audience and how it how it prevails?

I guess, as a, as a medium?

>> Sure.

I, I think the important thing about radio is that it does provide a local connection versus listening to a stream online, an algorithm that you know, has all this great programing and analytics behind it, but it doesn't replace, that sense of community that listening to a local radio station where you're hearing about the weather, where you're hearing about a show that's coming to town where you're hearing about a new a new bakery that opened.

That just is something that's irreplaceable.

And I think that's why radio still endures.

And and to Randy's point, in the Latino community, that's why when we finally got there, after 30 plus years of trying to get a Latino radio station in Rochester, it had such a massive impact.

and just sent ripples through it, lifted all boats.

That's what I always tell people all of a sudden, all the local events that you maybe heard about two weeks after they happened all the, the community causes that were struggling to get volunteers, all the small businesses that may not have had a chance to get the word out or just depended on word of mouth all of a sudden it raised all the boats in the community.

Everyone got exposure and understanding of what was going on that just didn't exist before.

>> It's interesting that you talk about sort of the local connection there, because there was a part of me last night when I was watching the Super Bowl that I was like, let's scrap the whole first hour and talk about Bad Bunny for an hour, because I'd really like that's a conversation that I want to have, but I'm not sure that that's a conversation that Connections needs to have, or that our Connections listeners need to have, and making sure that we keep that local audience in mind and bring them information that they're not necessarily going to get anywhere else.

I mean, is that how you see sort of WXXI roll?

Is that how you see Poderes roll?

>> Yeah, exactly.

I think, you know, information they're not going to get opinions.

They're not going to get and with that local perspective, even at poder, I remember I was thinking about us doing the show today, and I remember, for example, there's a there's an old merengue artist who was super popular back here in the 90s and early 2000.

So even having the wherewithal to understand when you're mixing the music, even if it's preprogramed music, you're still doing it locally with all that knowledge of these are the top artists I know.

These are who we hear from our local listeners that they want to hear all that, that, all that, just specialized information that you only get with human interaction.

>> Mike, you have a little bit of an interesting behind the scenes view of how people are connecting to radio, particularly WXXI radio.

Can you talk a little bit about where, like our listenership is and where we stand and where you think it's going?

>> So the thing that's interesting, and this is where it gets a little confusing, is when you if you start breaking things apart and saying, well, these are online listeners and you then look at and see that they're listening to the live stream and the way that cars and technology has changed that your car sometimes seamlessly changes from listening over a broadcast radio to the stream.

It's still the same thing.

It's live radio, it's live content.

It's got a usually a live host.

and it's focused in on your community.

So the differentiate that and break it down and say, oh, there's more online listeners than not.

Most of the time that's not the case.

our biggest audiences still, at least in this area, are in the car because it's captive and most the data shows that most people, when they're in the car listen to radio, they aren't listening to podcasts, they aren't listening to, you know Spotify or Pandora.

It's still radio because it connects them to the community.

They find out if there's any news or traffic or things like that that they need to know about.

and also in recent years, the amount of listenership to really looking at, personality driven content, meaning that local in-market hosts that can curate things, that can talk about things that are relevant to the community has grown more interest.

And the nice thing about it is for years they kept on saying, well, younger people aren't listening to the radio anymore.

That trend is changing.

there's more recent data that we've gotten from this market is we're seeing an increase in listenership in Gen Z.

>> X and millennials.

Back to listening to live radio in formats such as classical, which is traditionally a very aging format where the median age may be 70 or 75, you're now seeing a slight increase in younger people turning back in.

So that trend is something that is looking looking across nationwide borders.

People want to hear that interaction.

They want to hear the curation.

They want to know information about the artist.

They just don't want to hear an automated, algorithmic playlist.

And that's what we're we're hearing all the time from our listeners and some of the anecdotal stuff.

So all radio to me is, is, is live.

that that would be my definition of it.

for that anything else if you want to talk about podcasts or on demand content, I don't even want to go down the copyright train of why we don't post our music shows online.

>> It's a whole other.

>> Show, whole another show and that type of thing.

But that's a little bit different because that almost takes that same model that we're now used to with our on demand video services that we have in our homes or in certain in certain cases, things that basically we use in a slightly different way.

TV is now almost, in my opinion, not even a live broadcasting other than like what we saw yesterday with the Super Bowl or live events like that.

In most cases, a lot of TV consumption now is at the consumer's choice of seeing it when they want it, how they want it, more so than oh, if you aren't there, you're not going to get it.

And radio still has that, and it's something very special.

It's very intimate.

And that aspect of being able to talk one on one to somebody is still something I think is the magical about it.

>> Yeah.

You use this word interaction.

I'm wondering if you're talking about the interaction between a host and a guest, or if you're talking about the interaction between, like, the host and the and the audience both.

>> I mean, that is that's really what's there.

I mean anybody, you know, you could really date myself, you can go buy a record or a tape or whatever you want to do, or a song off an MP3 and put it into and have it, and you can be your own DJ.

You can basically own that piece of music and you like it, but when you actually are talking about that music, the the DJ is giving you information about the artist and giving it away and giving some insight into it that you might not have thought about from reading the blurb or the bio of that artist, or how the song was produced.

That works really well.

And then when you actually can have, for example, maybe that artist is in the studio now all of a sudden, wow, this is a whole 'nother level of that you know, intimacy and that that interaction with people.

So I think that's the case.

And I don't want to diminish digital.

Randy talked about the aspect of of the online content and getting it out there.

That to me is a super enhancement that makes things great to be able to access the material that supplements the live content.

But keep in mind, this is something else.

When I talk about how most of all radio listening, at least in this market, a lot of it's in the car.

other forms.

And I'm hoping this is the case that people are not looking at their phones while they're driving.

But the idea is you can't watch YouTube in the car, you can't watch or listen to the internet and or be scrolling in your car.

in fact, it's against the law to do that.

But, I mean, the idea is it's like radio still is there.

It's there, available to you, and you can select what you want to listen to.

You can have it there as a companion.

it is something that's very viable.

And ironically, it's like one of the oldest media formats that's still around.

>> Yeah, the cockroach of media.

Well, and it's also free, which especially, you know, public media, obviously we, we sort of like hang our hat on the free access to information.

But in a world where you have, you know, increasing privatization of the digital space, whether that's on platforms or even through internet access, what is the role of radio that the technology still exists, that you can tap into it at any time?

And I'll, I guess I'll toss that off to you.

Julio.

>> That's a great question.

I mean, it's a great question and it's a great way to think about it, because radio is I was almost going to use the analogy earlier of, of soccer.

Why is soccer so popular?

You just need a ball.

You don't need all this equipment you need.

And radio is not that simple.

But I can tell you that when we got that license, we got Dutch Summers gave us $35,000, and with that, we were able to launch the station.

That is a very low barrier of entry into the market.

And with that, overnight, we were able to connect this entire community.

And you were talking about interaction earlier.

I can't I, I can still remember the day we got a phone in the studio after a few months and people could call in and all the interaction, that it that it brought.

And so.

Yeah.

And then after that, all you need is radio and who doesn't have a radio in their car?

Just about everybody.

Or can't buy a radio for ten bucks at a store.

And so and there's no monthly fees, there's nothing.

You just have free access to all this information that you need.

>> Yeah.

And I want can I piggyback on that because you also mentioned it is the fact that there's a company, Jacobs Media, that does an amazing amount of data research onto radio and other media platforms.

And the they every year they do a tech survey that is really amazing to see where things are and the data is good.

The reason that people listen to the radio or what the appeal is.

The top three things in the survey that completed at the end of 2025.

The first is it's easiest to listen to in the car, the second it's free, and the third is the hosts, the shows, the talent that make it part of the experience.

Those are the top three reasons why people listen to radio.

The free is number two.

>> Number two.

Yeah.

>> And if I could just add on the host, I think that's having those local hosts is just so important.

I I was just telling the story earlier today that we had well, like 23 deejays, many of them Vonn basically all volunteers for the most part.

And, you know, you have all these folks that bring in their tastes, their knowledge of music.

And I had a simple rule.

You had to play 50% of the popular hits.

The other half you could play whatever you wanted.

So you have all this new music coming in and believe it or not, one of our deejays, you know, a few years ago, we launched in 2015, asked if they could bring the singer to the studios, and I had never heard of this person.

This person was Bad Bunny.

And I was like, absolutely not.

I heard I'd never heard his music, but somebody had told me he used a lot of unsavory language.

>> How wrong you were.

>> I was like, nope, don't let Bad Bunny in the studio.

And luckily I was overruled.

And he came and he spoke and was interviewed on our show on a Saturday morning.

And, you know, a few months later, he became this global superstar.

>> And you make a good point, too, that radio is still a platform for sort of emerging artists, or even people who don't already have existing platforms on Instagram or on their social media in order to reach an audience.

And that could be somebody like a local official who's running for office.

Or it could be, you know, an emerging young man who's trying to make his way in the music industry, who ends up in the Super Bowl halftime show.

so and I sort of want to turn the question a little bit back towards news.

And, Randy, one of the things that I've been thinking about as we put together this show was radio's role in as a free news service, but also as an emergency news service.

And you saw this maybe not locally, but especially after September 11th.

Radio was like a a really important source of information for people who couldn't access it in other ways.

You know, how how did you see radio?

How did you see sort of was there a moment in your career where radio became an important emergency information service?

And can you speak to that a little bit?

>> Yeah, and I would say almost all of my career and that was, you know, as you know, more than more than 40 years whether I was not in Rochester for the, the 91 ice storm, I was here for subsequent ice storms and other weather events and worked at you know, commercial station you know, at WAM for part of that time and then at XXI and and really when I saw what we could do for communities in terms of weather, even my early career, I mean, working way up at a little station up in the Adirondacks in Ticonderoga, right out of college and you know, we were the only game in town for any kind of live coverage.

I mean, this is like pre-Internet days.

And people, when they need emergency help and they need is, you know, Julio and Mike have been talking about a quick, accessible way to get a cheap little radio.

Transistor radio station hopefully has access to a generator to keep going during any kind of issue involving, you know, power lines, things like that.

that's when I realized how important it was to as far as what radio could do for community and providing literally life saving information.

I'm not trying to overstate that.

But when, when the you know, what hits the fan if you can't get reliable information from the people that you trust on a daily basis, there's going to be a problem.

And just real quickly, Veronica just mentioned kind of fast forwarding a bit from that to the pandemic in 2000. and I know you were around then as well.

And you know, we did how many hundreds, hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands of stories when we really didn't know what was going on with Covid.

But we tried to to bring live news conferences from from the governor, from other officials, from from Washington, as well as our own analysis that we could provide and talking to people about what was happening to them on a daily basis.

That's when I realized the power of radio, because, again, it's such an accessible way of getting the information, and it's a trusted source in many cases, and that's why it's so important.

And again, I'm always, you know, beating the drum for the importance as, as we do at WXXI, investing in reporters, investing in newsrooms.

Because without that, once you lose that credibility, it's very hard to get it back.

>> Yeah.

That's the weather is such an interesting point, Randy.

And that trusted source is an interesting point, too, that I want to stay on for a minute, because we do have a WXXI an opportunity to give people a more curated experience, whether that's like a musical curated musical experience or a curated news experience.

And what I mean by that is that you have this information as being vetted by our team of journalists so that you know that by the time you're hearing it, it has gone through several filters of editorial process rather than just like the firehose of information that is the internet.

And I want to talk, I want to bring in a caller.

We have Philip from Brighton who wants to talk to us a little bit about the importance of reliable news station for local news.

Philip, are you are you on the line?

Can you hear me?

One second.

>> As a radio listener starting all the way, you know, back in the 70s.

80s, I've been a lifer here in Rochester.

So I remember commercial radio before it was all consolidated and deregulated.

And I was driven away from local radio when the station started to consolidate and the programing became more homogenous, it started finding stations like the CBC and Canada on Am, and they had a lot of interesting informational programing.

And then I found shortwave in the 1980s, and I spent a lot of the years of the Cold War listening to views from all over the world.

And when that ended, shortwave kind of went away, and I found myself kind of wandering back to local radio and I discovered that for me, the most important thing about radio is the content.

And the content that's relevant to me.

And and it's all over the place.

I discovered WXXI-FM and started listening to music from the hearts of space way back in the late 80s.

And I think that show's still going.

And I found the am, you know, station for programs like this one.

It's it's very unique to find a local information that isn't all political and a bunch of hotheads, you know, yelling their heads off about everything.

And at a time when we've seen the local newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle, become a shadow of its former self, and local TV news is under all the pressure of budgets and things, I really have to say, WXXI is now the most important newsroom in town, and it's the vital source for local news and information that we're just not getting anywhere else anymore.

>> Thank you Philip.

That's, that's that's really great to hear.

and I think I speak for all of us here at WXXI when I say that, like our the journalism that we do here is really important to us.

And we are we have a lot of responsibility.

But I think a lot of enthusiasm and optimism for how we plan to continue to cover Rochester and on the radio and online in the future.

So thank you so much, Philip, for your comments.

One of the things that you brought up that, that I'm thinking about is this idea of, you know, the DNC being a shadow of its former self, television news being not as great a source of information anymore.

And a lot of that is due to the funding models being broken for those for those industries.

But the funding model for public radio, we saw a huge hit with the CPB funding going away, and we've had to change the way that we think about money.

So can we talk a little bit about about funding for radio and how we plan to move forward in the future to bring people like Philip, that content that they need?

>> I think, I think one of the things that WXXI is, has been reported and you probably have read about it isn't a good place among public stations throughout the country.

And being a joint licensee with a TV station, everybody knows TV is more expensive.

It just is.

The equipment's more expensive, the transmitters more expensive.

Just producing television content is more expensive.

And even the government set that up when they set CPB funding up, that most of those grants, 75% of it went towards television.

The other 25, 25% of the local grants went to radio.

That's the way the formula was.

So because radio is easier to produce.

But I think the thing that always is interesting is that we were always in the model that that Grant wasn't what drove the station.

It helped the station do things.

And so we had to come up with different ways of filling that gap.

But the majority of our funding comes from our listeners, our listeners that become members.

And that's not just a pitch for you to become a member.

It's the reality because they see the the vital nature of what is there, what is been done, the fact that there is this curation, this editorial thing.

So, yes, I mean, it was a hit for us and not small, you know, millions of dollars lost in that funding grant.

But we see the import of that.

How the community has said, no, this is something we want to support.

We need the support because of what's there.

So I think that model is still going to be something that's so vital, important.

At the same time, with all the other distractions that are out there digital platforms, everybody's trying for the same money, especially if you're looking at the what we kind of call advertising money.

that's our underwriting businesses that want to support the station with donations that but at the same time get acknowledged for that.

That is subtle advertising in a very legal way that you can do it in public media.

But, you know, channel channel ten or, you know, or spectrum wants that money to and as well as the online YouTube vendors.

So there is a competition and the main thing is just being true to our mission, true to what we do each and every day is going to attract those businesses because they know that the audience that is listening or viewing is wants that they want that authenticity.

They want to be able to know that the people are supporting these causes.

and that's something that's going to happen.

So yes, there are challenges moving forward with anything is the technology changes.

And the, the way that we get our funding has but so far and it's a big thank you to our community for coming to support this very valuable resource.

And I'm not saying that because I work here.

This is this is the way I truly feel.

you know, WXXI has been part of my life.

Before I ever got, I was, you know, I was ten and I was buying things when we used to do a TV auction, unbeknownst to my parents, until they realized I was spending my allowance on stuff.

>> I missed the auction.

>> And that.

But, I mean, that was the case.

I mean, it's the way it is, but our community has been involved.

They always will involve because if we don't have the community behind us, then we have to question whether or not what we're doing actually is doing a service for the community.

>> So I just want to add, I purposely I was in corporate media for many years managing media outlets.

you know, in Atlanta and L.A.

and other places.

And I consciously chose to come back to start there because I believe that that's really where the majority of media's future, the most media's future is going to be in that type of business model, because it's just you can't be as profitable in some areas of the country and in some niche markets because of the advertising landscape has completely changed.

And I used to be in charge of both content and advertising.

And I could tell you the incredible drop of money in, in revenue that happened, you know, in the, in the last 15 years.

And you just a lot of markets, a lot of places are just not profitable.

I mean, to the to the degree that certain large corporations want it to be, you're not going to be able to guarantee 17% growth every year in a lot of these areas.

And and so the, the best way to bring people quality content, quality journalism, in many cases is going to be a nonprofit model.

>> Sure.

Because, you know, when Gannett is a publicly traded company that might affect the the funding landscape there.

But like with powder, when you say that a model like that is is the future, what do you mean by that?

Do you mean like the hyper local?

Do you mean like the Spanish language?

Do you?

>> What do you mean all of those?

>> So yes, the the niche audience that's served well by that, that product by that media outlet to the fact that it's local.

So you can you know, provide coverage no one else is providing, but you're funding is going to come locally from things like donors.

and underwriting.

That's local.

Who, who can't really afford to reach other people through other mediums and then through grants, we actually got quite a few number of grants from people who believed in what we were doing and wanted to be part of what we were doing to reach folks in the community.

so I think that's really and being that engaged in the community is really the future, I think, of journalism versus something that comes from the other side of the country.

>> And not just the future of journalism.

I want to I thinking about radio, like what?

Because when I think about those niche audiences, I think of on demand programing be the being the best way to serve them, potentially.

But what's the case for radio in that?

And what made Poder successful in that space.

>> Is the I think the connection with the community.

The deejays were from the community.

They weren't once again in some office in New York mixing the music.

They were here.

People knew them.

You could say many of them were musicians and bands.

I mean, they all had Connections in history.

We were in the community all the time.

We did probably almost an event every other week, if not every week.

We were out just out at churches, out at parks, out at parties.

so people loved us like we had a couple of concerts to, to, raise money when we were first starting and we sold them all out.

You it wasn't you know, it was just that kind of ground level.

support.

I remember when we started a bunch of musicians on their own got together, like, all the most well-known musicians in town, got together and wrote us a jingle.

We didn't even ask them completely on you know, the motivation, the request didn't come from us, but people were just motivated because of that pride, that community connection.

>> And I think that aspect of when you talk about the local talent coming in that the hosts, the people involved in the station, that really goes across commercial and noncommercial radio in a market, particularly we we have evidence of that with long time hosts on commercial stations that are a fabric of the community that are very well known.

And people actually listen to those stations.

They listen to us people, you know, listen to Brenda on Classic one and now listen to Mona and Stephen's the probably the newest announcer on classical, but yet he's starting to develop that community presence.

As far as that goes.

People want to have that in the community.

They become stars.

Howard Stern yeah, nationally known, internationally known.

You know, he does his show has you know, listeners that subscribe to that on Sirius.

and I'm not going to detract from him, but Howard Stern didn't do that well in Rochester when he was on the air on a live, you know, nationally syndicated show, syndicated show like Rover on one of the commercial stations.

He takes a candle to the other announcers that are locally because people know who they are.

They trust them.

They're part of the fabric of the community.

And that's where your credibility is.

And that's where radio succeeds over some of these other syndicated and other services you have to pay for.

And that's really important that that local is local hosts really do make that significant.

Whether you're talking about poder or whether you're talking about, you know, a local low power station like Wayo or, you know, the university of, you know, RIT or other stations that do this on a basis.

That is where why they attract that audience to the point of having some programing.

If all you did was program a program, a super niche audience.

I think this is where you mentioned about on demand.

If you did a show every week that was on hedgehogs, I think putting that on a radio station that has a 50 zero zero zero watt signal that covers, you know, half the state probably isn't doing the best service to your audience.

>> Well, we'll see about that.

We're.

>> You're going to host a hedgehog show.

>> I know the hedgehog show now.

It's a challenge.

we're late for our only break.

We're talking about radios past, present and future.

And we're going to take a quick break.

We've got a ton of calls and comments coming in, and I'm going to invite my colleagues to from our musical stations to come and give their perspective as well.

That's when we come back on Connections here on WXXI.

>> Coming up in our second hour, a special rebroadcast of one of our most popular conversations, white House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller recently said that Pope Leo is betraying his Catholic obligations.

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>> You're listening to Connections on WXXI.

I'm Veronica Volk in for Evan Dawson this afternoon, and I want to welcome my colleagues.

Brenda Tremblay, she's the morning host and producer for WXXI classical.

Thank you so much for joining us.

>> It's great to be here.

Hi, Randy.

>> Hi, Randy.

>> Hey.

>> And Hannah Mayer is the root musical director and afternoon host.

Hannah, thanks for taking the time to talk to me today as well.

>> Thanks for having me.

So happy to talk about radio.

>> Yeah, I'm glad to include you guys, because we're talking about past, present, future of radio and people who are on the radio, I imagine, are really thinking about, like, the future.

So I want to start with you, Brenda.

What is you know, what's something that you're thinking about bringing into to the future of radio, how to connect with audiences in this like linear platform?

>> Yeah.

Well, first of all, I will say that listening to music is linear.

There's no way to listen to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in a tweet or, you know, an Instagram post.

And so, of course, we're bringing some of our music on demand.

I host a show called Performance Upstate, which is a collection of concerts gathered in and around Western New York in the Finger Lakes.

And we do a stream those we air them on traditional terrestrial radio, and then we post them so that people can listen on demand.

And there's a fresh season up right now.

But I was listening to what you were talking about before, the human element.

And I'll just say yesterday I was sitting at home and there was a bird feeder out the window, and I was doing some paperwork and I was listening to my colleague Josh Bassett, host WXXI Classical music, and I was just so happy at the spike spike of connection with him as a person.

I like him.

He's got this beautiful voice.

He's talking about the music.

I knew it was live because he was giving the weather, talking about Rochester things, and there's something magical in that.

And I'm sure Hannah can echo the same thing that over and over again, people are so hungry for that human connection that an algorithm can be a cold flame.

>> Yeah.

I mean, isn't that why we all listen to radio?

Yes, to discover new music and to listen to music in the car and just to, you know, enjoy it while we're getting from here to there.

But I think specifically now when we have all of the options in the world, you can stream anything.

You can just open your phone and listen to literally any song at any time.

I think the appeal of radio are the people.

It's the Connections that you make with the hosts.

It's our stories.

It's me telling you what shows are going on tonight, which I do every day on my show, and just I hear from people all the time like, oh, you told the story about your personal life, about what you did in college or where you got your music from your dad or whatever it may be.

Those are the stories that people tell me when I am out in the world meeting people, talking about the radio they connect with, with the host, with our personalities.

And I say the same thing about classical.

You know, we listen to classical at the house and have for years and connecting with Brenda, not only just with the sound of your voice, but the things that you talk about.

It's really those things that make radio special.

And I think a lot of younger people are realizing, like, hey, I don't really want to be on my phone all the time.

And I and I do want that human connection with other people.

>> Got a ton of comments coming in here from listeners, so I want to try to get to some of them.

We've got an email from Steve.

He says, I love your mobile app.

Every summer I drive to Illinois for vacation, and being able to play WXXI for the 15 hour journey via Bluetooth from my phone to my car radio is great.

I don't have to constantly be switching and looking for a radio channel when I leave one broadcast area to another.

Thank you Steve so much for your comment there.

And we're going to go to Greg on the phone.

He's calling from California via streaming.

So Greg, you're on the air.

Or so I, or so I thought you were.

Hold on.

Greg, are you there?

>> Yes I am.

>> Hey.

>> Hello.

>> Thanks for calling.

>> Greg.

Yeah, I am a Rochester resident, but I live in the suburb of San Diego.

I lived in Rochester for 30 years.

I still have family there.

it's a way for me to find out what is going on in a city that is part of my DNA.

I went to Aquinas Institute, lived in Greece and Brockport.

I have a brother in Webster.

you know the show on when Chuck Mangione passed away, I had known out here that Chuck Mangione had passed away, and I tuned in and heard you know, an entire hour about his life.

I saw him in 1970, in the Eastman Theater, and it's a, you know, Rochester is a part of my life.

And via my friends and relatives in the area and it means a lot to me for a few hours a week, maybe not daily, but to maintain that connection with with my home, my my hometown.

>> Thank you so much, Greg.

I think that's an important point to that.

the digitization of the radio stream, the internet of things allows you to stay connected to your community, even if you're not in that broadcast area anymore.

So, Greg, thank you so much.

I want to turn.

Oh, sorry.

You had more to add, Greg.

>> No, no, no, I just was saying thank you very much.

>> Thank you so much.

And, Brenda, you wanted to chime in on what?

>> Yeah.

I mean, I've been here since 1991, and I just love what he said about that connection in his life with Rochester.

I started in the new NPR station in 1991, and I did some freelancing for National Public Radio.

And back in the mid 90s, an inventor in Rochester named Kevin McGuire came up with this new idea for a light bulb.

It was called the Solux Light bulb.

S o u x. And the special thing about this light bulb was it had both white light like outdoor light, blue light and indoor incandescent vibes.

So you could have this light on and it would have like the whole spectrum.

And art galleries were putting up fashion houses in New York, were putting this light bulb.

The Memorial Art Gallery was like their flagship to try this new thing.

And I did a short story about it.

This Rochester inventor for Morning Edition.

And I remember after that aired, and this is ancient history now I'll date myself, but we just got calls from all over the country that people wanted this light bulb in their lives.

The Andrew Wyeth gallery representatives called they were filming a movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme in some warehouse, and they really wanted this cool light bulb.

And all of that is to say that that light bulb in my mind, became a wonderful metaphor for the power of radio, the power of broadcasting, the power of WXXI to, like, shine a light on all the good ideas, the inventions, the innovations and ideals coming out of this community.

And now that everything is digital, that's even been more amplified.

But I see a there's a powerful role, especially in music programing, to shine a light to show the world and show ourselves, to show this community that Rochester is this great music town.

Classical music, jazz, indie songwriters.

I mean, that's just sort of like the core of our mission.

And you know what Greg said?

That we can lean into that and show that to the rest of the world, day in and day out is a big part of how I think about my job every day.

>> I want to talk a little bit.

I want to push back because I think that we could be in trouble of turning into a little bit of a radio love fest here, which I would actually love.

But the journalist in me wants to play devil's advocate here and talk about the A.I.

in the room.

I know Evan loves to talk about A.I.

I'm not Evan Dawson, but I am playing him today on TV.

But A.I.

could create a curated music experience for its user.

It could mimic the human interaction that becomes so that is such an important part of why we listen to radio.

It could be part of that media experience, especially as like A.I.

is pushed on us more and developed a little bit more.

Why should people continue to invest in the much more expensive human element of radio?

And in, in sort of this like broadcast medium, if it's not tailored directly to them necessarily when they could get that experience.

>> I think the main thing is that, you know, A.I., the with A.I., the devils are in the detail, the devil's in the details.

some people have outright said A.I.

is the devil.

I'm not solidly in that camp.

I am suspect at times with how people are going to use it.

in the sense A.I.

is is interwoven through current and developing radio technology.

There are actually are platforms that are A.I.

radio stations that you put together a playlist and you have an A.I.

DJ, you use a sampled voices and they and they sound better than they did.

But the one thing that's interesting is they always tell you if you're doing using A.I.

particularly, it's more for prerecorded or pre-done formats where you have an afternoon show and the A.I.

voice is being generated rather than even a human voice recording the breaks.

It's A.I.

doing that.

They keep on saying, you really need to check that.

And the thing about it is, because A.I.

can suffer from what they call hallucinations, which I think is kind of funny term to describe when it goes off into the Netherland.

and it really does add to time.

And also but at times when it does that, you take away that credibility, you take away that authenticity.

And also A.I.

doesn't always give you that personal touch.

And you can tell you can tell when that's not happening.

It's kind of like when somebody has to do a do an oral report on an individual.

And all they did was go to Wikipedia and they pulled that information and they read it out loud and saying, here's my report.

Rather than giving you some background information of how maybe that person, if they knew them or how that person maybe impacted their life from their history, that's all part of the human element.

And that really, at least at the present, can't be mimicked or can't be duplicated.

And I think that's where A.I.

in certain cases falls short for boilerplate stuff.

I say, get me the latest weather forecast, and A.I.

puts together a really reasonable, well scripted weather forecast for me, boilerplate kind of stuff.

Yeah, I could see that.

But I at the same instance, I don't necessarily think in certain cases.

And having heard the disasters when A.I.

has really gone, you know, way off base it right now isn't ready for prime time yet.

>> I would say A.I.

still based on just a limited data set.

Yeah.

and I, I listened to a lot of music.

I was a nightclub DJ for a long time, so that was my job, was to find music no one else was playing.

And I, I use, I use Apple Music quite a bit and suggest some interesting things sometimes, but it's still pulling from the data set of what I've listened to in the past.

It won't introduce something completely new to me, which when I listen to the root, I hear things all the time.

Like I've never heard that I didn't know I liked that until I heard it.

And you just.

That's the great limitation, I think, with with A.I.

>> Yeah.

I was going to kind of say the same thing, like when I have listened to A.I.

generated like the A.I., DJ on Spotify or something like that, they just play the same songs that I've been listening to.

So I'm not getting any of that music discovery and I also just feel like as humans, we have the yearn to want to continue to create art.

Being just just sitting back in an armchair and letting A.I.

take care of everything might work for some people, but it is not going to work for everyone.

And and that's not how people want to live their lives.

So yeah, it's easy.

You can just pop on whatever streaming service and A.I.

will generate the playlist for you.

But where's the magic in that?

Where is the art in that?

Where is the uniqueness in that?

And I think as human beings, we crave that and we want more art and we want to be able to continue to create it ourselves.

So if you are just listening to the same things over and over again and you're having no human interaction with, you know, even just a human DJ who, you know, a lot of my listeners don't know me, but maybe they feel like they do and they feel like they do through what I talk about and the music that I pick and the Connections that they can make with what they like versus what I like.

And they're not going to like every single song that I play.

And that's okay.

But also that's a kind of a good thing too, right?

Like, hey, I really didn't like that song, but you're feeling emotion from it.

You're not just sitting back and just taking the easy road, if you will.

>> Brenda.

>> I was just going to say when I walked in the door, my, colleague Simon Ponton said, you know, this job is not going to exist in ten years.

That was in 1991.

And then in 2000.

He's like, this stuff is not going to exist in ten years.

And, you know, here we are some years later and yeah, the human connection.

There's something magical, like I said, about corporal listening, people still gather in big spaces by the thousands to hear live music in person.

And there's an element of that in community listening.

When you know, you flip on the radio or whatever you're listening to that 10,000, 20,000 people are also experiencing that symphony at the same time.

There's something beautiful and warm and real about that.

And so just to push back I find A.I.

fascinating and useful in some contexts, but it's a cold flame.

It doesn't feel real to me yet, and I still have my job.

>> I like that Randy 30s or less.

What do you think the applications of AR A.I.

are now in the future and?

And what are they not.

>> The future?

I don't know, for right now, I think it's great, as folks have been talking about in quickly compiling information, I was just thinking about this, you know, like, like Mike said, it can get a weather forecast.

Spit it out real quick.

But what it can't do is offer me my long time friend and colleague Beth Adams, well trusted in this community for many years saying, hey, you know what?

It was really slippery on some of the roads this morning.

Watch out, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

Unless the robots are out there reporting back from what they see on the highways, you just can't duplicate that.

So A.I.

is great.

It can be used for things we can't even imagine, but it can't really ever replace.

I don't think that personal touch.

>> All right, we're all in agreement.

Humans are better than robots.

So thank you so much for taking the time out of your retirement.

>> Yay.

>> To to join us here for this hour.

Thank you so much, Randy.

It was good to see you, Dame.

And Mike.

Mike Black, thank you so much for for joining us.

And same to you, Julio Sáenz.

Thank you.

>> Thanks.

>> Thank you.

I'm just wrapping up here.

So thank you also Brenda and Hannah for coming in studio to tell us about your thoughts.

There are so many things that we did not get to this hour.

so hopefully we'll be able to continue this conversation at some point in the future.

>> And you should follow Hannah on Instagram.

What's your handle?

>> it's.

Well, ours is R.U.R.

88.5.

>> Right.

>> And what about you, Brenda?

Where can people find you?

>> Brenda WXXI, that's my Insta account.

>> Absolutely.

Yeah.

And we can find you on the air as well.

>> Oh, yeah.

That too.

>> Thank you so much for everyone listening to member supported public media here on WXXI Connections continues after the break.

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