The saying is “Everything old is new again.” It relates to a lot of things in life. I have ties hanging in my closet that are back in style. They went from thin to wide and back to thin again. At least for today. It may all change again tomorrow.

And even that thought isn’t new. Solomon expressed it in biblical writings.

History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before.

Nothing under the sun is truly new.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 NLT

I saw that truth again when began to plow through some old media texts from my college days. Though the technology has dramatically changed since my early days of radio and television, many of the basic truths still hold up.

One of the classic texts in my early media days was Robert Hilliard’s Writing for Television and Radio. Originally published in 1962, it still holds some great concepts that are good to remember.

In the opening of the text, Hilliard writes:

“The television and radio writer aims at an audience that at one and the same time is very small and very large, that has much in common and almost nothing in common, that is a tightly knit group and a disunified mass.”

Though thousands…or even millions…may be tuned in, people still listen or watch as an individual. This is especially true in radio. Yes, I grew up in a day when the family gathered around the radio to sit and listen to programming as a group. Those were pre-television days. Today, the radio audience is like an audience of one, listening on air pods while jogging, in the car on their commute, or working in the home or office…but listening as one person. The best communicators understand this and use it to their advantage.

Hilliard also points out that psychologist inform us, “…the smaller the group and the greater the physical distance between individual members of the audience, the better chance there is to appeal to the intellect.” That may be why talk radio has had such a profound effect in our culture today.

At the same time, Hilliard understands that since the audience can remove itself from the process quickly by merely punching a button or changing the channel, emotional empathy must be established. This helps hold the audience and allows the central theme or message to be delivered.

Emotional empathy. Touching hearts. Telling powerful stories. Drawing the individual audience in. As Jesus told stories, He often painted word pictures about things that were important to His audience.

Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds….

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard….

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Farmers, landowners, builders… That directly related to the culture of the day and painted word pictures for the audience to see.

As you write, consider that one person who is listening or watching. Think of drawing them in personally, emotionally, through strong, creative writing. You will touch hearts and be better able to share God’s Truth to that one soul that the Lord wants to reach.

God’s best…