The article is devoted to the study of the specificity of phatic speech on the radio. Phatics in this communication is conditioned by the process of democratization which is the main strategy of the media in general and, as a consequence, by the increased personal element in the sphere of oral public communication. There are two extralinguistic elements of identifying phatics: a) functional, where phatics is defined either as a simple exchange of words contributing to people uniting or as an implementation of the contact-making language function; b) semantic, where the specificity of phatics is determined in contrast to the informative content. 0riginally used in the sphere of everyday communication, phatic speech becomes an integral part of the mass media space today, as it enables to establish the contact with the audience and create an illusion of friendly communication between interlocutors. A radio listener enters the artificial world the presenters create by their specifically organized speech. The phatics in the speech makes public communication similar to the every day one, thus reducing the distance between the presenter and the audience. Approaching the level of their public speech to the language usage of prospective listeners and their language competence, radio presenters create a sense of home atmosphere suitable for informal communication. Colloquial speech is actively used. It adapts elements of different communicative spheres and facilitates their interaction. Colloquial elements express phatic communication on the radio. Infotainment as the principle of informing in the media leads to the activation of the game as a form of communication. The game is a deliberate breaking of the language norms with a pragmatic aim to establish and maintain the expressive phatic contact with the audience through the comic effect. Language game in a variety of techniques functions at different levels of radio broadcasts: program names, presenters' nicknames, presenters' speech. Pun is a common form of a language game; it is based on the use in one text of words with identical or similar sound forms (in precedent texts, idioms). The comic effect is created by a deliberate breach of lexical compatibility laws, constructing unusual lexical units and using circumlocutory nominations. Thus, phatic speech actively penetrating the area of public communication determines the tendency of the modern radio to ambivalence, which combines different phenomena a natural vivid dialogue with the listener and an informative message. Imitation of colloquial speech and language game on the radio bring an element of live human communication and make it more unpredictable and interesting for the audience.