Even though he has a party five days a week on FM 107.7 — The Island, Franzman doesn’t think of himself as a comedian.

“We all know someone who tries to be funny all the time,” he says. “That can be annoying – unless you’re truly funny.”

Franzman’s goal on the air is to be informative and entertaining. The information part of the job includes news and weather.

If he can make listeners feel comfortable or provoke a smile, “it would be ideal,” he said.

But he says he’s not a comedian.

A woman told him once that he’s not hilarious. But, she said, “You regularly make me smile when I’m in my car.”

“That’s what I want,” Franzman says.

He tries to let the humor happen naturally.

Franzman is heard from 5:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Fridays on The Island, which is officially KSYZ-FM.

Franzman, 54, has a lot of listeners. According to Nielsen ratings, his shift leads the market among all listeners 12 and older.

Known by only his last name on the air, Franzman started working at The Island in October 2013.

The station, which has an adult contemporary format, plays music from the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s, with more current hits tossed in sparingly.

When Franzman was a kid, he used radio as a companion.

“I think there’s a lot of that going on out there,” he said. “There’s people that want to escape the world today — listen to some great music.”

He thinks there’s “a percentage of kids growing up today that might not like today’s music. We were lucky growing up. Everything on the radio was good. There might be kids that don’t care for new music, so they want to go back.”

Franzman didn’t work in radio until 2003.

A native of New Haven, Conn., he was a graphic designer for 20 years at newspapers in New Haven and Stamford, Conn.

He was also a drummer, playing in 13 bands over the years. “It’s why my ears ring constantly,” said Franzman, who still has the urge to tap on dashboards, desks and tables.

Eventually his newspaper career ran its course

He’s heard it said that when you don’t know what to do, “you do what you’ve always wanted to do.”

So he turned to radio, enrolling in a broadcasting school at Lombard, Ill.

His first job, which he took while still a student, was at a Christian station not far from the broadcasting school. He then worked at a station in Joplin, Mo., for five years. Later, jobs took him to Columbia, Mo., back to Connecticut and then to Texas and Indiana.

Knowledge and experience made radio a good fit.

“Shortly after my first couple of jobs, I realized this is for me, and I love it. This job that I get to come in every day and do — it’s a blessing,” he said.

Like many other radio stations these days, The Island uses a technique called live to tape. Most of the time, Franzman’s show is broadcast live. Sometimes, listeners hear something he actually said four or five minutes ago.

Tired of moving, Franzman likes it in Grand Island.

He praises NRG Media, which owns The Island. The company, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, owns five stations in Grand Island and Kearney.

“They believe in live and local, which is why I’ve been here almost nine years,” he says.

Franzman has no say in the music he plays. That decision is made at the corporate level.

He patronizes businesses that sponsor The Island. If he’s going to a restaurant anyway, he says, why not go to a place that supports his show?

Franzman has another job on the side. He puts in 10 to 12 hours a week for a greeting card company, maintaining the selection at Dollar Tree and Hy-Vee. He finds the work “oddly soothing.”

He wants the people of Grand Island to know that they live in a “fantastic” community.

“I believe that I got this radio gig as a blessing because if I didn’t have all that experience in my background, I don’t know that I would have respected what I have here.”

Grand Island is a giving community, he says. The people are nicer and more charitable than he’s found in other cities.

Franzman said he’s basically a chameleon. “I pretty much fit in everywhere I went. But those markets didn’t work out for me, and this one — it’s different.”

He’s impressed by the number of fundraisers in the area, and the strong support for nonprofits. People “come together for every one of them. Somehow they find the time and the money to help out every single event.”