Say Why

Give them a reason.

Last weekend, I was on a panel at a college radio and podcasting conference at Cal State Long Beach, the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System's west coast gathering, and I talked and I observed and I saw a good number of people of varying backgrounds and ages eager to get into producing audio content. If you'd been there, you'd have been struck by the enthusiasm. You'd also think there was hope for commercial radio, that there really IS a next generation to carry the torch.

But they don't see the business the way you do. Commercial radio isn't the goal. Podcasting, streaming, public radio... those are equal or paramount in their minds to commercial radio. That's the effect of generations coming of age with choice, with audio coming not necessarily from an AM/FM receiver but from the devices in their pockets, with entertainment and information of all kinds delivered on demand. They want to know how to get started and get ahead in podcasting. The well-appointed studio in the student union is for a stream because the college leased out its FM to another operator a few years ago, and that stream, to someone whose listening is on a smartphone, is as radio as, um, radio. The question from them isn't whether that generation is going to do podcasts and streams, it's how to monetize and how to grow an audience. In fact, it's mostly the latter; they want to do it to be heard more than they want to get rich from it.

You're in commercial radio? You want to develop talent? You want to keep things going? Give the enthusiastic new content creators a reason to join you. Show up at colleges and high schools for conferences and career days and invite yourself to speak at communications classes. Tell them what radio can do for them -- that it offers resources and, yes, salaries, that it still has an audience larger than all but the very biggest podcasts, that it's monetized, that it will teach them how to communicate better.

Don't tell them about the layoffs. Don't tell them about the disappearance of news departments, of midday and overnight hosts. Don't tell them about longtime, locally beloved hosts being shown the door because they landed at the top of the salary list and management saw them as line items. They either know about all that or don't care because radio is not on their radar, not the kind of radio we're talking about.

Many industries don't need to give potential workers a reason to join them, because the only reason is a need to make a living. The jobs aren't specialized, the skills are interchangeable or trainable, the product a commodity. Radio's a creative industry, so there's competition for the best available talent, more competition than ever. In fact, there's no hurdle, no barrier to entry for anyone to do it themselves if they wish, with the caveat that making a living from it might not be easy (or, if they become YouTube celebrities or Instagram influencers, might be easier than any other option). The days when kids longed to be just like the people they heard on the Top 40 station are gone.

(It's even more acute for talk radio. For much of my career, I would encounter people from outside the business who, when they learned what I did for a living, would say "Oh, I could do that" or "Give ME a talk show!" Now, chances are that those people ARE doing talk shows, just as podcasts, not radio shows. You want to do a talk show? Plug a USB mic into your computer, start talking, bam, you're a talk show host.)

So, if you care about the future of the radio industry, give them a reason to join the club. Show them what radio can be, convince them that it's a real option, tell them the pros and cons and be honest about the present but give them realistic hope for the future. They're open to it, but they're not hearing it. And as long as they don't hear from you, they'll be off on their own, podcasting or streaming, doing video or Instagram stories, creating the next generations of audio and video content without you and your station and your industry.

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No column next week, because here in the U.S. of A., it'll be Thanksgiving weekend. Enjoy the holiday, and may nobody preparing your meal see that article advising you to put mayo in your mashed potatoes, because you don't want mayo in your taters and you don't want experimentation with your Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey, potatoes (no mayo), green bean casserole, stuffing, sweet potato pie, football. Nothing fancy, just the tried-and-true.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
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