Moving Experience

It ended in the same place it began twenty six and a half years ago, a cafe a few steps away from the ocean in Hermosa Beach. It was in that precise spot that we looked around at the beach and the sun and the rollerbladers and skateboarders and volleyball games and a parade of pre-schoolers toting flags for an Independence Day celebration and decided that, yeah, we could be happy living around here. (Not that we seriously considered not coming; if an L.A. job calls, you go.) In the same spot in 2022, on an overcast but pleasant day, we looked around and said, yeah, we loved living here, but it's time to go. And go we will.

It's natural, when leaving someplace you've lived for a long time, to wax nostalgic and go over all the things that happened during that time. We did a lot here. I worked at a few radio stations, did a lot of fun projects, got to do the Hollywood thing (working with and becoming friends with celebrities, going to premieres and events, having people say they'd love to work with you on a project and then ghosting you, waiting forever for our car to be retrieved by a valet), witnessed car chases fly by my car at 4 am on the freeway, got into the habit of calling highways "The 405" and "The 110," waited patiently in the drive-thru for an In-N-Out order (it's overrated, by the way, good but overrated), experienced earthquakes and Santa Ana winds, and became one of those annoying guys who recognizes all the locations on TV shows and in movies ("look, that's Gaffey Street in San Pedro!"). It was a good run.

It also got me thinking about how much has changed for the audio business since 1995, and how much hasn't changed. We had no Spotify, no iPhone, no YouTube, no podcasts. Newspapers were still viable and still taking a massive chunk of advertising revenue. Radio was unchallenged in cars, and people still used radio alarm clocks.

But the writing was on the wall even then: RealAudio was released that April, and it was apparent to some of us that, someday soon, anyone could have their own "radio station." It was inevitable. For radio, that posed a challenge: Could the radio industry keep itself relevant to consumers if the business was heading towards unlimited competition? If and when consumers had enough bandwidth, speed, and affordable data plans, would radio offer something they couldn't get elsewhere that they'd stick with radio to get?

Back in 1995, some people tried. There was "guy talk" in L.A. and Orlando, a hybrid of apolitical and "a pox on all their houses" talk in New Jersey. KFI had already embarked on its personality-driven spin on political talk. It was an exciting time for talk radio, the possibilities were limitless, the challenge of remaining relevant to younger generations and competing with the rise of new media was accepted...

And then it wasn't. There are vestiges hanging on, and the sports format has usurped the position the Stern-led "guy talkers" occupied, but talk radio ossified into the angry old guy (even by younger men and women) ranting we have now, appealing to a much smaller audience. Music radio tried to meet the challenge of streamers offering customizable choice and no personality by blunting the only advantage it has, the personality element. I won't belabor the point, but in 26 years, radio hasn't changed enough while the world has changed around it. Maybe it's that many of the same people were in charge in 1995 who run things in 2022. Maybe it's that the people who did see things changing in 1995 aren't in radio anymore. Good luck convincing anyone who's under 30 years old that radio is a viable career option, or anyone with original creative instincts that radio is a better option than podcasting or streaming or doing video. Perhaps you could pay them, but, then again, the Wall Street Journal has an article right now about how some TikTok stars out-earn some CEOs. Try matching that.

Which brings me back to lunch in Hermosa Beach, thinking about the past twenty six and a half years in California. It's been interesting and mostly great, but now I'd prefer to think about the future. We can learn from the previous chapters, but there's more to be written, and there's opportunity, both in business and in life, to create great things. It's time to move forward. And to borrow a line from the final "Calvin and Hobbes," which, incidentally, appeared in 1995, it's a magical world... let's go exploring!

=============================

The move will pause All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics show prep page for a week, but there'll still be plenty of stuff to talk about there, so go there by clicking here, and you can also follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics and find every story individually linked to the appropriate item.

Make sure you're subscribed to Today's Talk, the daily email newsletter with the top news stories in News, Talk, and Sports radio and podcasting. You can check off the appropriate boxes in your All Access account profile's Format Preferences and Email Preferences sections if you're not already getting it.

You can follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, and my Instagram account (same handle, @pmsimon) as well.

=============================

As I alluded to above and mentioned last week, I'll be out for the week of January 17th while we move. If you're in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach areas, I'll be there by the following week. You can feel free to buy me lunch. Someplace within sight of the beach would be nice.

Perry Michael Simon
Senior Vice President/Editor-in-Chief and News-Talk-Sports-Podcasting Editor
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
Twitter @pmsimon