Does a radio station's website still matter? For Lance Venta, founder of the American trade publication RadioInsight, the answer is yes, but the industry seems to have forgotten it. In a column published on October 28, 2026, the first instalment of a series on the future of digital content in radio, he delivers a harsh verdict: in more than twenty years, station websites have barely progressed, and some have even gone backwards.
A realisation sparked by student radio
The trigger came while he was preparing a panel at the annual College Broadcasters Inc. convention, the US association of college radio stations, on the best station websites and digital strategies. Looking back at the platforms he has built over two decades, Lance Venta saw how little ground had been covered. He points to one of his first projects, built in 2006 for a full-service oldies AM station: viewed today through the Internet Archive, that site could still work in 2026, he says, with a few cosmetic tweaks and a mobile-friendly layout. In his view it even offered more to listeners and advertisers than the station's current website.
Real results when the web is taken seriously
To show what a well-run website can deliver, the author recalls several projects carried out for stations:
- in Denver in 2018, stations went from no listener database at all to 10,000 sign-ups each in three months;
- at those same stations, website and stream revenue grew from zero to a few thousand dollars a month, and kept rising;
- in 2022, a local story about a Domino's Pizza franchise opening passed 100,000 page views, in a city known for its seafood restaurants.
These examples show that editorial content designed for the audience can generate traffic, qualified contacts and revenue.
An industry that has neglected its online content
The problem, according to Lance Venta, is that the industry has largely decided that web content and engaging listeners beyond the on-air product are no longer priorities. He cites Townsquare Media, long a pioneer in driving listeners to its stations' websites and apps, which has cut back significantly, along with the local on-air talent who used to write that content. Another example: in New York, Hot 97 was one of the country's leading hip-hop culture blogs under Emmis; after MediaCo's cuts this month, all the content produced for that station and for WBLS carries the same single byline.
Yet, he stresses, with external marketing budgets almost non-existent, every part of the brand should be used to attract listeners and revenue. The main obstacle: most content is not optimised to be shared and archived.
What it means for web radios
For a web radio, this diagnosis is even more relevant: without an FM transmitter, the website is often the main gateway to the player. Several ideas follow directly from this analysis:
- build your own listener base (newsletter, accounts, alerts) rather than relying solely on third-party platforms;
- publish useful content, local or themed, that can be found in search engines and shared;
- take care of archiving shows, playlists and articles so they remain available over time;
- treat the stream as a revenue source, just like the website.
Lance Venta says upcoming instalments will cover metadata, how stations and shows are organised, growing digital revenue and the websites leading the way. A series worth following for anyone running an online radio station.
Source : RadioInsight