{"id":8229,"date":"2026-04-23T09:49:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T09:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/audiotiq.com\/?p=8229"},"modified":"2026-04-23T09:49:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T09:49:44","slug":"radio-head-of-digital-the-t-shaped-profile-that-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/audiotiq.com\/fr\/radio-head-of-digital-the-t-shaped-profile-that-works\/","title":{"rendered":"Radio Head of Digital: The T-Shaped Profile That Works"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A concept worth dusting off<\/h1>\n

Back in the early 2010s, a handful of marketing blogs started talking about the T\u2011shaped profile. The idea was simple enough: you want someone with broad knowledge across a lot of disciplines (enough to collaborate with specialists and see how everything connects), combined with real depth in one specific area where they can actually deliver value. HubSpot<\/a> wrote about it, McKinsey consultants picked it up, and growth teams built hiring frameworks around it. It caught on because it was honest about what modern cross\u2011functional work really requires: pure specialists tend to struggle the moment they have to collaborate, and pure generalists rarely deliver anything memorable.<\/p>\n

Fifteen years later, the idea still holds up. And it applies remarkably well to one of the most underrated roles in radio right now, which is the Head of Digital.<\/p>\n

A quick sidebar on the shape itself. Since the T\u2011model first appeared, it\u2019s been extended in various ways. A V describes someone with two strong verticals, usually a more senior profile who\u2019s had time to grow a second area of depth. A comb refers to three or more verticals with the broad horizontal across the top, which tends to describe experienced operators who\u2019ve run teams across multiple disciplines for many years. If you\u2019re already a V or a comb, you can skip the rest of this piece. For most Heads of Digital in radio, the T is where you start.<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\t\t\t<\/div> \n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div> \n<\/div><\/div>\n\t\t

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Why the Head of Digital role is harder than it looks<\/h1>\n

Let me say this upfront, because I know how it sounds: the Head of Digital at a radio station is one of the most complex digital jobs out there. I\u2019m not trying to flatter anyone. I\u2019ve watched people come into this role from radio, digital\u2011native media, or even tech companies, and almost all of them underestimate the complexity before they arrive.<\/p>\n

In a tech company or a digital\u2011first media brand, the environment works with you. The product is digital by design, the culture is built around metrics and iteration, and everyone pulls roughly in the same direction. The person, whatever their title is called internally, can pick a slice of the value chain and go deep on it.<\/p>\n

At a radio station, the situation is different. You\u2019re running a digital layer on top of a broadcast medium that has its own gravity. Decades of editorial habits, producer instincts, and processes built long before podcasts existed. Sometimes broadcast and digital pull in the same direction. Often they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

And while you\u2019re navigating that, you\u2019re also managing your own app, website, social media channels, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, smart speakers, etc. Every one of those has its own logic, its own algorithm, and its own way of telling you whether you\u2019re winning or losing.<\/p>\n

The KPIs don\u2019t translate either. Broadcast audience is mostly declarative and remains a vague estimation released every quarter at best, while you are looking at why listeners drop off at minute 6 of a given show or why your app\u2019s weekly active users have been flat for six months.<\/p>\n

Then there are the internal politics. You have to convince a producer with twenty years of craft that the thumbnail matters or that the episode title affects discoverability. That a 50% ad render rate is a real problem, not a technical detail that someone should look at next quarter.<\/p>\n

Mastering the full digital value chain in radio is genuinely complex. The T\u2011shape isn\u2019t a nice\u2011to\u2011have framework here. It\u2019s close to the minimum you need to survive in the role.<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\t\t\t<\/div> \n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div> \n<\/div><\/div>\n\t\t

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The horizontal bar: 14 skills to cover<\/h1>\n

Not every skill needs the same depth, which is why I find it useful to split them into three levels.<\/p>\n