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A Path Forward, Maybe
January 31, 2020
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Gotta say one thing for talk radio. At least we have an idea where it's going.
We can't say that for sure about music radio, at least the part involving people talking into microphones between the songs and commercials. I was thinking about this when the news broke here on All Access about the passing of Harry Harrison. Of course, I grew up with Harry Harrison. Practically everybody of a certain age within daytime range of WABC back in the '60s and '70s did. It was the era old radio hands long to revive, the days when Top 40 was an AM thing and jocks were more than just interchangeable voices reading interchangeable liners. Harry was great, a comforting presence in a changing and chaotic world, the Morning Mayor, and he was a familiar and positive part of a lot of lives.
Today, what he and the other WABC All-Americans and WMCA Good Guys and KHJ Boss Jocks and CHUMmingbirds did isn't in demand from the industry and isn't even in the equation for younger generations. I've talked about this many times before, how it's a mistake to think that young audiences want just music without any personality, how the industry is making false assumptions, how there is value in localism and engagement and connection that's more than just social media posts, but that horse left the barn and we're now looking at AI and "centers of excellence" and what could be an end game for the very idea of a local DJ. I hope not, but years of diminishing the art while alternatives to the commercial-laden jukebox became available and ubiquitous brought us here.
Talk radio -- this IS a talk radio column, believe it or not -- has a different future, as long as you let go of the "radio" part. The obvious path is to podcasting, "talk radio" that is more responsive to a new generation: on demand, more diverse, less restrictive on content and language, something for everyone. As I've written before, it's going to continue to be challenging to monetize and it's going to require hosts to be more entrepreneurial just to be found by an audience, but it's going to grow and it's going to be a place for what talk radio does best -- entertain, engage, inform, connect -- to grow, too.
It's not radio, though, it's a different medium with different needs and different audience expectations. We've been through that, too. What about the radio part? With the caveat that this isn't how some companies are thinking -- it's not automation, it's not necessarily national/regional, it's not what "centers of excellence" are about -- there's a future, if the industry wants it, in being aggressively live and, wherever possible, local. People do want connection, they do sometimes prefer a voice rather than just tweets and Facebook posts, they do want more than they can get from social media. We saw that last Sunday in the aftermath of the helicopter crash; yes, practically everyone learned about it from social media, but local Los Angeles radio swiftly became both an information pipeline and a communal mourning experience that rivaled and sometimes exceeded social media. When something big happens, good or bad, people do now check social media first and even most often, but radio offers something words on a screen can't. That can extend to non-emergencies. The human voice offers a different kind of engagement. There's value in that.
Public radio, which has some of the same, if not quite as acute demographic challenges as commercial talk radio, is another example. There's a sizable audience for the kind of radio public stations do well -- in-depth, diverse, not just someone ranting into a microphone. And on FM, which makes a difference; radio may be having a hard time attracting young audiences, but if there's any chance, it's going to be on FM. (Streaming, too.) But public radio's another example of how different equals hope.
And there's news. I'm inclined not to waste any more breath on this beyond a reminder: With newspapers shrinking to irrelevance and TV news dropping the ball other than for crime stories, radio has a wide-open opportunity to be the primary source of local news coverage, the only source for city hall and local issue coverage. But that'll cost money, so, yeah, that's unlikely to happen.
In any event, spoken word entertainment and information has places to go and room to grow, even on broadcast frequencies and especially in digital. That should be encouraging at a time when so many professionals are looking for a path forward. There may be one after all, just not necessarily the one you imagined in the days when the Morning Mayor reigned.
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Whatever the medium, Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, has material for you, radio, podcasting, streaming, or ranting at pigeons on the sidewalk. Just click here and/or follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. And don't miss "10 Questions With..." Alex Stone, ABC News Radio's ace correspondent, with tales of covering some of the biggest stories of the last several decades. He's been everywhere and done it all, and you'll want to catch up with him.
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Another reminder: I'll be at Podcast Movement Evolutions, February 12-15 in Los Angeles; the BSM Summit in New York February 26-27; Talk Show Boot Camp in Cincinnati March 5-6, where I'm moderating a roundtable panel; and All Access' own Worldwide Radio Summit in Burbank March 25-27, where I'll be moderating a panel, too. See you there, I trust.
Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
www.facebook.com/pmsimon
Twitter @pmsimon
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