Radio station slogans: real taglines and ideas to adapt

A radio station slogan is the short line that follows your station's name in your station IDs, and wherever people read about you. The ones that last tell a new listener what they get for staying. Three real ones, each doing it a different way:

• "You give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world." 1010 WINS in New York has used it since the station went all-news in 1965 (Inside Radio). It tells a commuter how long to listen.
• "The Austin Music Experience." KUTX names its city and what it plays in four words.
• "Playing what we want." Jack FM turned the fact that the station picked the music into its personality.

In radio, slogan and tagline mean the same thing. Below are more real ones grouped by what they promise, three weak slogans rewritten, ideas to adapt for your kind of station, and how to get yours on air as station IDs.

We checked each of these on the station's own website or in a trade article on October 8, 2026. Stations change their slogans, so one or two may have moved on by the time you read this. We grouped them by what they promise, because that is the choice you'll make for your own station.

A place

• "The Austin Music Experience" (KUTX, Austin, Texas). The city and the kind of station. A station in another city could not say it truthfully.
• "New Orleans music to the universe!" (WWOZ, New Orleans). Local music, with the whole world as the audience. It's a good model for a local station that also streams online.

A sound

• "#1 for Hip Hop" (HOT 97, New York). A genre and a rank. If you borrow the shape, borrow the genre half: a rank needs ratings behind it.
• "The Spirit of Rock" (CHOM 97.7, Montreal). A genre and a feeling, short enough to say over a guitar intro.
• "The UK's No.1 Hit Music Station" (Capital, UK). Format, reach and rank in one line. It is also a very common shape. Denzil Lacey, an audio producer in Dublin, listened to stations around the world and lists "[Place Name]'s Hit Music Station" among the taglines he heard most often (denzillacey.com, January 2022). A smaller station using it will sound like many others.

A mood or a moment

• "The Most Relaxing Music" (Classic FM, UK). It tells you when to put the station on: when you want to unwind.
• "turn up the feel good!" (Heart, UK). A promise about how you'll feel, written as something you do.
• "Positive Encouraging K-LOVE" (K-LOVE, US). The station's name is part of the slogan, so the slogan is never said without the name.

An attitude

• "Playing what we want" (Jack FM, UK). A joke that was true about the station, now off air. Jack FM's UK site lists the line among its UK trademarks.
• "Where the Music Matters" (KEXP, Seattle). It says the station takes its music seriously, and invites listeners who do too.

A habit

• "You give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world" (1010 WINS, New York). A promise with a number in it, on air since April 1965 and still the station's tagline in 2025 (Inside Radio).
• "News Happens Here" (WTOP, Washington). It tells you when to tune in: when something happens.

Who makes it, and how

• "Real College Radio" (Radio K, University of Minnesota, on its Spinitron page). It says who runs the station.
• "Free. No Ads. 24/7" (NTS, online since 2011). Three things an online listener cares about.
• "Commercial-free, Listener-supported Radio" (SomaFM, San Francisco). Who pays, and what you won't hear. Right under it, the home page has the long version: "Over 30 unique channels of listener-supported, commercial-free, underground/alternative radio broadcasting to the world."

Talent coach Randy Lane wrote in Radio Ink that in the focus groups he moderated, most people could not recall a station's slogan "even though it had been pounded for years every break" (Radio Ink, 2013). Most weak slogans fail the same way: they could belong to any station. These three rewrites show the usual fix.

A list of decades

Lane used the weak line as his example of a tagline hosts rattle off every break. The better one, for a station built on '80s and '90s hits, drops the decade list and the word "best". It names a memory your listeners share, which picks your audience for you: anyone who never taped a song off the radio knows the station isn't aimed at them.

A rank nobody can check

A rank needs ratings behind it, and a small or online station rarely has any. The better line is a promise a listener can check by tuning in tomorrow at 7, and it stays true for as long as you show up.

A line any station could say

The weak one is from the college radio section of the 2021 version of this page. It describes every station on air. The better one says who makes the station and for how long, the one thing a college station has that commercial radio can't copy. Radio K gets the same idea into three words with "Real College Radio".

These are ideas to adapt, ours unless a station is named. Short lines get reused, so search any of them before you use it (see how to check below).

Online and niche stations

A stream can reach anyone, so say what you play and who it's for. Where you broadcast from matters less.

Community and local radio

A community station is local, so put the place or the people in the line. Our guide to running a community station covers the rest.

College, school and student radio

Say who makes it, the way Radio K does.

For a short school newscast, say the station name and tagline when you open and again when you sign off. Our tips on writing a radio script cover the bulletin itself, and starting a student radio station covers getting it on air.

Hits and pop

Pop stations reach for "hit music" first, so yours has to say something about your listeners instead.

Classic hits and oldies

A shared memory does more than a list of decades (see the first rewrite above).

Rock and alternative

These promise a sound, the way CHOM's "The Spirit of Rock" does, and one adds your city.

Hip-hop and R&B

These promise a sound, and the last one a moment: late at night.

Dance and electronic

These promise a moment: the night out, or the hour before it.

Jazz, soul and chill

These promise a mood, the way Classic FM's "The Most Relaxing Music" does.

Country and folk

These promise a place: the region your listeners live in.

Christian and gospel

These promise a moment: worship outside Sunday morning.

News, talk and sports

A number makes a news slogan concrete, as 1010 WINS shows.

Funny and self-aware

Jack FM's "Playing what we want" was the model: the joke was true about the station.

Start from what a listener gets. The real slogans above promise a place, a sound, a mood, an attitude, a habit, or a kind of station. Pick the one your station can claim and the next station in the same directory category can't. The slogan is the one-line version of your station branding. Our guide to defining your target audience helps if you're not sure who that listener is. Then write ten versions and read them out loud.

Keep it true in every hour. The slogan has to hold at 3 a.m. and during your Sunday talk show.

A rival can also make it false. In 2012, 1010 WINS called itself "New York's One and Only All-News Station". But another New York station, Merlin Media's WEMP, had been all-news since August 2011. Merlin wrote to CBS, which owned WINS, that the claim was "patently false". WINS replaced it with a line about how many people get their news from the station (RBR, February 2012).

1. Use your listeners' words.

   Denzil Lacey's complaint about "hit music" is that "nobody calls chart songs 'hit music' in ordinary everyday life", and that "more music variety" says nothing about what you play (denzillacey.com). Ask a few listeners what they'd call your music, and use their answer.

2. Say it in one breath after your name.

   Read "[Station], [slogan]" out loud (if you are still choosing the name, start with our guide to naming your radio station). KUTX's line is four words and Capital's is six. If yours needs a breath in the middle, cut a short one for air and keep the long version for your website, the way SomaFM puts its long version right under its slogan.

3. Check that nobody else owns it.

   Search the line in quotes with the word "radio", then look in the trademark database where you broadcast: the USPTO in the US, CIPO in Canada, the UK IPO in the UK. Stations do register slogans. Jack FM lists "Playing what we want" among its UK trademarks. CBS had trademarked WINS's "22 minutes" line, and in 2012 it sent Merlin a cease-and-desist letter when WEMP used a version of it. This isn't legal advice; for anything you'll print on merchandise, ask a trademark lawyer.

4. Try it on air before you print it.

   Run it in your station IDs for a few weeks before it goes on your logo, stickers and T-shirts (our logo ideas cover the logo itself). Re-recording an ID is cheaper than reprinting a box of shirts.

A station ID is the short recorded clip that says your station's name, and it is where listeners usually hear your slogan. A sweeper does the same job over the start of a song, and a jingle is sung; our radio imaging guide covers each type. Randy Lane's advice in the same Radio Ink piece is to keep the slogan in produced imaging, "where it can be sold effectively", instead of asking hosts to say it in every break.

Four scripts to start from:

We'd always include the second one: smart speakers carried 8.4% of the listening time on the stations we host over the last 90 days, and a listener has to know the exact phrase to find you again. Our smart speaker guide has the phrase for each speaker and the directories each one needs you listed in.

We'd record IDs with someone who is not one of your hosts, so they stand out from the talk around them. Our list of places to find voice-over talent is a start, or record your own and edit it in Audacity. Make five or six versions of different lengths and reads; the next section shows why one isn't enough.

An internet-only station has no legal rule for how often to identify itself. We'd start with an ID after every three or four songs and adjust by ear, with a mix of versions so your regulars don't hear the same clip every few minutes.

That's across 13.5 million sessions on 284 stations in the 90 days to October 8, 2026, leaving out bots and anyone who left within a minute (lengths on HLS streams are estimates). In the same sample, sessions of an hour or more were 6.8% of all sessions and carried 66.7% of the listening time. Our reading: many people who sample your stream leave before an ID plays, so they'll only meet your slogan in writing (next section). The listeners who stay an hour or more hear your IDs many times, which is why you need several versions.

Many people will read your slogan before they hear it: in a directory listing, a shared link, the header of your station website or your social media profiles. For the listener who samples your stream for two minutes, that may be the only place they meet it. Our guide to promoting your internet radio station lists more places to put it. Use the same words everywhere, and keep a longer version for places with room, as SomaFM does under its slogan on its home page.

Directories ask for a one-line description when you submit your station, and your slogan is a good start for it. Keep it out of the logo artwork itself: our directory guide notes that text-heavy logos look bad at directory thumbnail sizes.

• A rank you can't back up. "Number one" needs ratings to prove it.
• "Only" and "first" claims. They stop being true the day a rival launches, as 1010 WINS found out in 2012.
• Radio words. "Hit music", "more music variety" and "today's best mix" are industry terms; listeners don't talk that way.
• A promise your schedule breaks. "Nonstop music" on a station with a three-hour talk show loses the listener who tunes in during the talk.
• Someone else's line. That includes the famous ones; WINS's "22 minutes" line was trademarked, and its owner at the time, CBS, sent a rival a cease-and-desist letter over it.
• Jokes at someone's expense. The 2021 version of this page suggested "All the girls listen to us". We cut it.

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CloudRadio One gives you a station to put your slogan on: one plan at $39/month with unlimited listeners, AutoDJ to play your IDs between songs, and a player for your website. If you don't have a station yet, our guide to starting an internet radio station walks through the steps.