In a perfect world, national radio would be a complement to local radio, not a replacement. National super-stations would create more listening by offering consumers more choices, and thus allow the radio industry to create jobs, not eliminate them. Local stations would seize the opportunity to be more distinctively local, and have the resources they need to do that. Clearly, this has not been a week for utopian visions.

But even in the real world, "national radio" as it increasingly exists in the U.S. has been the worst of both worlds. It claims local jobs. It sometimes replaces local hosts with more accomplished personalities, but it does not consistently result in better radio. Part of the reason was that national radio has been used primarily to feign local radio—not be national radio. Broadcasters aren't willing to relinquish their once-a-year at NAB Radio Show opportunity to champion local radio, even if they no longer find it tenable to offer as much local radio.

Two years ago, after a highly publicized round of Clear Channel layoffs that were expected to lead to the use of more national resources, I put forth a vision of “What National Radio Could Be.” At the time, there were already many smart people involved in the creation of national radio, including Clear Channel's Michael Albl. Typically, however, whether it was an HD-2 multicast station or an online side channel, our best local PDs found themselves handed a whiteboard, but no markers, and instructed to create something in spare time that didn't exist. What they didn't have were the resources to create national super-stations, or the public acknowledgement that was even the goal.

The 2009 article’s vision struck a chord with a number of people, as evidenced by the comments. One of those was from Guy Zapoleon, announced yesterday as Clear Channel's new VP of digital music programming. Between previously announced president of national programming platforms Tom Poleman and the rest of the team named yesterday (Darren Pfeffer, Alissa Pollack, Zena Burns, and Dennis Clark) there is obviously more national radio coming, and with it a greater opportunity for that vision to move closer to reality. And here's what would get it there.

National radio needs to take advantage of being national. Radio’s claim to be “the original social network” was always both a little specious and not so flattering to radio. But being a listener to CKLW Detroit in 1970 or WLS Chicago in 1978 or Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern in the '90s definitely counted as being “part of something bigger.”

Sirius XM channels still approach that shared experience sometime. I’ve had more than one person respond to the mention Sirius Hits 1 by immediately launching into an imitation of big-voiced weekend countdown host Spyder Harrison. Some of radio's syndicated morning or other daypart shows certainly count as a shared experience. But by being half-in and half-out, so much of our national radio doesn’t really bring the audience together in the way it could. September’s iHeart Music Festival—although it did not promote a specific channel—was at least an example of a national platform being used for something bigger than life.

When national stations create an appealing national franchise, instead of being a stealth substitute for a local station’s own programming, there will be a better case for giving them a local frequency. And when national radio takes advantage of being national…

Local radio needs to live the promise of being local. And that doesn’t mean just waiting to be needed at the next natural disaster. It doesn’t mean emphasizing “live and local” as a liner; (sadly, being “local and loyal” ultimately did not keep WGPR Detroit viable). It means understanding the market enough to find the discernible differences from a national product that can complement a traditionally well-programmed station.

It also means not playing the exact same music as nationally programmed radio. The differences in various markets have been obscured by time, MTV, and a more mobile populace. And local hits are harder to create than ever—even if PDs were so inclined, there’s still the difficulty of forcing your competition to confirm them. But I have seen interesting evidence recently in music testing that local hits don’t always disappear into the ether.

Beyond that, a sense of place is part of what’s going to earn a station its place among zillions of newly available choices. Clear Channel’s Bob Pittman observed at NAB that Clear Channel’s most streamed stations were WHTZ (Z100) New York and KIIS Los Angeles. As Pittman suggested, those stations already fill the same “bright lights, big city” niche that stations like WLS once did. And now every extant local station needs to truly convey the feel of its own market. The promos for iHeart Radio encourage listeners to sample other markets. Why do that, a colleague recently asked, if the talent is all the same? To that end…

Better living through voice-tracking didn’t work. Okay, some hosts and stations made more of it than others. Often, however, a voice-tracked shift sounded like a well-known personality doing no more than 60% of what made them great. Voice-tracking has always had its mad scientist proponents who really believed in its ability to improve smaller market radio. But mostly it was there for the wrong reasons. Again, there’s no reason to be half-in/half-out.

Low-key and local still go together. Don’t assume that AC radio, or any other format that is low-key and music-intensive, lends itself to being an anonymous, national product. I feel safe in saying that when Valerie Smaldone left WLTW (Lite FM) New York, certain listeners, and not just a few of them, felt her absence deeply. Delilah, Kim Iverson, Bob & Sheri, Kidd Kraddick, and other national shows prove that AC and Hot AC stations have the ability to be national, but not an imperative.

The biggest opportunity is still being missed. Whether on an FM radio or a smartphone, the most listening will go to the big box formats. But the opportunity to expand radio’s audience is by finally offering format choices that are only viable at a national level. Sirius XM has done that. CBS Radio has just unveiled its own suite of stations available only through its Radio.com portal/app. But most group operators’ non-traditional channels are, if not afterthoughts, still not full-service choices yet.

Shared experiences don’t have to be hosted, but it helps. As noted here before, Pandora is a shared experience—just by dint of the many people who may listen to varying music, but discover and use it in similar ways. But taking full-advantage of the scale of national broadcasting still means “national concepts plus companionship.” I like a lot of the new channel concepts among the Radio.com stations. And I’d be even happier if “Tomorrow’s Hits Today,” the "new CHR" channel, was a real-time station with hosts who advocate for the new music involved. Music discovery is always great when it’s shared. In fact…

There’s room for a lot of different shared experiences. There is room on the Infinite Dial for a hosted “future CHR” station and an addressable, personalized “future CHR” station. Even outside the top 50 markets, you could make a case for several national CHR services to satisfy various listeners’ tastes.

In a week when so many broadcasters' lives have been disrupted, one of the ironies is how many of them could truly contribute to national radio. One of those displaced is Michael Lacrosse, the WLS-FM Chicago PD charged with tending one national powerhouse's legacy. Another is Allen ("I Am") Beebee, who, like Harrison, many broadcasters can still (affectionately) mimic decades later because of his work on another 50,000 watt AM, WNBC New York. The history of national radio has always provided a glimpse in to what is possible. And with so many resources now devoted to national radio, the broadcast groups have a responsibility to deliver on that potential.

Disclosure: My other employer Edison Research performs work for Pandora, (although I do not), and also works with Clear Channel at the station level.