Connecting through the microphone 

Beyond impromptu midnight rain, radio programmers and radio stations have to connect with their audiences uniquely. 

“The majority of your audience is not going to reach out to you. It could be five people, could be 500, it could be 5,000, and I’ll probably never know,” Amador said. “We have to just make peace with that, even though all of us are super curious and think about it all the time.”

Amid this, most radio journalists feel highly connected to their audience, according to Pew Research Center. 

“I wonder sometimes if anybody’s listening because I’ll say things to get people to reach out, and sometimes you get no response at all. Then weeks or months later, someone will think about that night, like, ‘I remember two months ago, you played that song and did this,’ and you’ll have no idea, and it’s kind of really a kind of a strange and delayed gratification,” Amador said.

The audience is more than a statistic gathered by a research company, even if radio programmers can’t see them. And the audience listens, even if they don’t respond.

“I take solace in that when I’m out in the community, almost every time that I’m at an event, I meet somebody who’s a listener,” Amador said. “So that’s my way of knowing.”