Stunt Casting

The first thought I had when the idea of Chris Christie getting a sports radio job resurfaced this week, as it does from time to time, was, well, here we go again. After all, I have some experience with putting celebrities and semi-celebrities on the air to do radio. It is not always pretty, especially when it's the kind where the host is selected for notoriety rather than any particular aptitude for hosting. I have witnessed the horror of an inexperienced host on the air in a major market running out of things to talk about before the first hour is done. As amusing as you might assume that would be to hear, trust me, you don't need that memory in your life.

But that's unfair. First, love him or hate him -- and he's a Dallas Cowboys fan, so that's a huge strike against him -- he can talk. And he's spent plenty of time on the radio, so unlike a lot of celebrities who fall into radio gigs, he knows the drill, knows how it's done. Those are the positives. His negative approval ratings, Bridgegate, the embarrassment of his embrace of, then shunning by, Trump are among the negatives. It might work, it might not, and, yes, it would be an obvious publicity move by the station if it were to happen. And there's the thing I know will come up from radio veterans: Why him? Why not someone with experience? Why not a REAL radio person? Why another failed politician?

Those are fair questions, but there's one response that I'd find encouraging: It would be different. It's not yet another reshuffle of the usual names. It's trying something unusual and seeing if it would work. And it's not unprecedented, even in the New York market: Ed Koch did fine as a radio host. Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby didn't come up through the radio ranks. Countless jocks have become radio hosts and some have been very good at it. And for once, this would be taking a failed politician and turning him not into a political talker but putting him into an entirely different realm. Why not roll the dice?

Why not, indeed? But I'd also like to see more dice rolling in talk and sports radio in general. Earlier this week, in one of my videos (you ARE watching the videos, right? Here, I'll make it easy for you: click here to watch the video), I spoke about jobs in talk radio, and how there's a disconnect between what I KNOW programmers say they would like to do -- find fresh and more diverse talent with more varied backgrounds and interests -- and who they hire when positions open up. I asked for suggestions as to why this is, and I guessed that the problem is that hiring decisions are often made at a level above PD, probably at either a corporate or cluster management level. The responses I got indicated that I was right, that corporate management or market managers are involved and they don't want to take chances. You take a chance, you can fail.

And you can also succeed, succeed beyond anything you can do by playing it safe. So, if a soon-to-be-former Governor becomes a sports talker, I'm not prepared to put the move in the same category as those unfortunate celebrity radio conversions with which I was entangled. I'd rather think of it as, to use a horrifically clichéd term, thinking outside the box, and I'd hope that it leads to more programmers emboldened and entrusted to look at nontraditional sources for talk talent, from music jocks to local notables to podcasters to even someone you run into at the Kroger who likes to talk a lot and has a singular outlook on things. At least it's not the same-old. Radio doesn't need more same-old.

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Also not the same-old is the daily email newsletter we've launched here at All Access News-Talk-Sports. Today's Talk -- that's what it's called -- has the top industry news stories for the formats and podcasting, those videos (which feature more of the kind of commentary about radio that you get in this column), a Featured Podcast of the day, and a selection of featured Talk Topics. And it's free If you get The Letter in your email, you should be seeing Today's Talk every weekday afternoon, but if you don't see it or aren't signed up, click here to go directly to your profile and make sure you're opted in under Format Preferences and Email Preferences.

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You can follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, and my Instagram account (same handle, @pmsimon) as well. And you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pmsimon, and at pmsimon.com.

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Scheduling note: I'll be at the Talk Show Boot Camp in Atlanta on March 9th and 10th, so if you're gonna be there, say hi or something. (You can register here.) NAB Show in April in Vegas, too - that's here. And on May 3rd through 5th, I'll be at the Worldwide Radio Summit, for which you can register here. I am becoming unavoidable.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports
AllAccess.com
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