How to Kick Off 2026 With a Bang for Your Radio Station
Kicking off a new year with a bang doesn’t mean ripping everything up and starting again. In fact, more often than not, the strongest starts to the year come from radio stations that take a step back, get aligned, do their planning, and remind themselves exactly who they are in January.
What IS A Strong Start?
For me, a strong start to the year is about getting your ducks in a row. It’s sitting down with your team and revisiting your station’s positioning, style, and goals. Reinforcing what makes you you. Clarifying your key selling points. And, importantly, building a level of excitement around the year ahead – both internally and for your audience. It’s about making a quiet promise to listeners that, yes, you’re still their station for 2026.
January is where stations often fall into one of two traps.
Some come back sounding flat. No excitement. No freshness. Nothing that signals a new chapter has begun. Others go too far in the opposite direction, embracing the whole “new year, new me” idea a little too literally. Too many big changes, too quickly, all framed as a “refresh”. That’s when stations risk upsetting the balance of what they are and what listeners actually love about them. Confusion creeps in, and suddenly listeners start sampling elsewhere.
Planing For 2026
Planning plays a huge role here – ideally before Christmas. In a perfect world, January plans should be written, shared, and understood by the team before December is even over. That includes having a rough outline of your first big competition, pilot shows for any new launches, key marketing in motion, and a clear view of any housekeeping that needs tackling from January 1.
That said, radio isn’t always perfect. December can be chaos, especially for smaller teams. If you can’t get everything locked before the holidays, that’s fine – just make sure planning is the first thing you do when you’re back.
Refreshing Isn’t Always Change
From a programming point of view, refreshing your station doesn’t always mean adding or removing things. Sometimes it’s more like a spring clean. Look at your recurrents – are they still worthy of being there? Check your gold or throwbacks – are they still strong, or have they quietly lost their shine? Review your clocks. Could they use a subtle shuffle? Are there tracks missing metadata or details you’ve been meaning to fix for months? Tidying up these details can completely change how a station feels without listeners ever consciously noticing why.
January also needs balance. If you come back sounding identical to December, the lack of change can feel more obvious than you think – especially when listeners are actively looking for that fresh-start feeling. But if you sound totally unfamiliar, that’s just as jarring. The sweet spot is a middle ground: enough change to feel refreshed, not so much that it feels like a different station.
Talent plays a huge role here too. January is a chance to reintroduce yourself and reinforce your style. Talk about the things your audience is likely experiencing – new routines, fitness goals, self-improvement, journaling, reading more, resetting habits. Bring the energy. People flip stations more in January than almost any other time of year, and that creates a genuine opportunity to win new listeners if you sound confident, relatable, and alive.
Motivate The Team
If there’s one piece of advice I’d give any station looking to own the start of 2026, it’s this: get your whole team aligned and excited. Have the big meeting. Ask what’s working, what isn’t, and what ideas people have been quietly sitting on. Internal excitement matters more than we sometimes realise. When your team believes in the direction, it shows up on-air – and listeners absolutely feel it.
A strong January isn’t about being louder or newer. It’s about being clearer, sharper, and more confident in who you are.
