Moving On

In the wake of the election, what now for talk radio and its OH LORD I DON'T CARE MAKE IT STOP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP. Seriously, I dreaded having to write yet another navel-gazing piece about post-election talk radio since I've ALREADY WRITTEN THAT AT LEAST THREE MILLION TIMES. My first (and second, and third, and...) impulse is to just say "do whatever the hell you want," but that's not what I get paid to do. (Actually, it kind of IS, but I try not to take the easy way out.) If I have to do this, then, let's see if we can learn some lessons from how this all played out.

First, please, "we'll just do what we always do"... come on, even with this insane election cycle, you're still demographically challenged. Talk radio didn't even play as much of a role this time around as it did in past elections, if it ever really had the power people assumed it did. And do you think, even with all the craziness sure to come, that this will magically change and Millennials will flock to AM radio to hear about it? They're getting their fill of political talk from social media right now. Which reminds me....

Social media has fallen into the trap that talk radio was already in, the echo chamber effect. If you and your friends are all like-minded and pass amongst yourselves the same links to the same stories that confirm what you already believe, your Facebook feed is exactly the wrong way to know what's going on -- you'll stand a strong chance of missing what's really going on. Talk radio's been like that -- can't have dissenting viewpoints, gotta be all-conservative or all-liberal or the P1s will flee. That's not healthy on a societal level, and it's really limiting on a programming and entertainment level. Specializing is good, but being aggressively exclusionary is a weird strategy for audience-building as it is for social network-building.

Maybe that has something to do with how, with all the finger-pointing and confusion over how the upset happened, I'm not sure that everyone in talk radio really saw what was happening. I don't mean guessing that Trump would win, or supporting or opposing him. I mean that the anger and despair that fueled the result has been there all along, and you have to ask yourself, no matter what your political position is, whether you recognized it before now. A large portion of the natural talk radio constituency told the world that they're economically hurting and were looking for someone who would at least acknowledge that and claim to offer a solution, whether he actually did or not. Did you hear that before the election? Is that the angle you took in talking about the election? Or did you concentrate on the outrageous stuff and the personal attacks and the "big issues" that were, to the voters, secondary to the economic things they're experiencing? You should have done both, which is easy to see in hindsight, but there were plenty of signs in advance. You could be forgiven, though, considering that the candidate who lost is married to the "It's the Economy, Stupid" guy, and she lost track of that, too.

And I don't buy either the theory that it's automatically better to be the outsider, that talk radio benefits when "their side" isn't in power, or that talk radio benefits when "their side" is running things. There's nothing to indicate either has ever been the case. Doesn't matter; you weren't running, and your job is different from that of cheerleader or disloyal-opposition. Your candidate won? Okay, then, hold his feet to the fire to do what he promised you he'd do, and make sure your listeners know you're advocating for THEM and not the politician or the party. The number of people who put party or ideology over the personal is dwarfed by the size of the constituency that wants their concerns or voices heard. Your candidate lost? Same thing. The job should always be the same: be entertaining and be your listeners' advocate, representative, megaphone. (Yes, I know, that's pretty much what I said last week. Seems appropriate now, too.)

All of which is to say, sure, you could do business as usual, and what gains you got from this election will settle back into that mid-range of the ratings where you were before, because they always do. Or you could take this opportunity to push the format forward, recalibrate what you talk about, get going on growing the format and your show instead of continuing to recede in audience, influence, and currency. It's not as good a time to do this as ever, it's better. It's imperative.

Can I talk about something else now? Good.

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You want to talk about something else on your show, too? Or more on the election and the aftermath and all things political? All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics has you covered either way, so get your fresh and unique show prep by clicking here and follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. And there's the Podcasting section at AllAccess.com/podcasts. Oh, and there's a great new "10 Questions With..." newly-anointed WSPD/Toledo PD "Shaggy Matt" Culbreath, who's bringing a fresh perspective to programming this format. Definitely worth your time.

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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This column's posting on Veterans Day in the U.S. and Armistice Day and Remembrance Day elsewhere; It's a day to honor those who served their country, and I'll be especially honoring my late dad, an Army veteran whose service was a little unusual and involved baseball. Maybe someday I'll tell you that story here. Nothing to do with radio at all, but sometimes we need to talk about something else... which itself is another talk radio issue, isn't it?

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