You Against The World

What would you do if you discovered that the most popular radio personality had suddenly moved to your time slot, competing against you? What would you do if EVERY really popular personality was on against you? Could you compete? Would you try to pull out all the stops and take them on? What would you do to be competitive?

I hate to break this to you, but you're in that position now.

I thought about this the other day while listening to what I'll call a lower-tier podcast, an okay show, but not a great one. I'm not sure what triggered it, but I thought, this is decent, but why am I listening to this when I COULD be listening to a better show right now? In the past, listeners got what radio gave them, there was limited competition, and a "decent" show could very well have been the best choice. Now, thanks to technology, you can listen to one of a zillion shows, via podcast, broadcast, satellite, or streaming. Among them are the biggest names and biggest talents in the audio business, on demand. Time slots don't matter. Signals don't matter. Everything's available all the time.

What does that mean for you? Let's look at the podcast world as it stands right now: The nonexistent barrier to entry has led to a massive pool of "people sitting around talking" podcasts, and a much smaller pool of podcasts that, through quality, production, and/or timing, have become the elite shows, the ones that top all the charts and are familiar to anyone who listens to podcasts. Why would people listen to the former when they can load up on the latter?

Because there are some very good shows among the former, for one thing. But if that question occurs to someone listening to those shows -- why am I not listening to "This American Life" or "Radiolab" or Carolla instead of this? -- will they stick with the little guy? Will they listen to you, whether you're a podcaster or broadcaster?

The days of WABC taking on WMCA and the Power Pig attacking Q and Howard Stern vs. Mark and Brian were fun, but your competition now consists of everything that's available, at all times. That's not even counting the fact that you're also competing with social media, TV, online video, gaming, and a million other distractions, all easily summoned up in a matter of seconds, soon by voice, soon everywhere. When someone says "Alexa, play me (name of show)," will it be your show they want? What reasons are you giving them to pick you rather than the superstars or the familiar? What unique content are you creating that they'll want to spend time with more than with the elite shows?

And that's an argument for finding a narrower niche and serving it extremely well. If you're trying to be the best general entertainment show around, that's a crowded field and you're battling some heavyweight competition. If you're looking to be the number one choice for a particular well-defined topic, you have a better chance. If you find a niche that's pretty much empty... shhh! Don't tell anyone, just get the show out there before anyone else can react. (That niche probably doesn't exist, but it doesn't mean you can't try.)

The goal, though, is to stand out, to give people a reason to pick you over everyone else. "Everyone" includes some very good shows, so your work is harder now than it's ever been. Are you up to the challenge? Yes? Good, that's what I want to hear. Go do it. There's always room for great content. And then you'll need to get the word out, but that's another column....

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One way to create unique content is to talk about stuff people haven't heard about yet. A good resource for that kind of material is... well, will ya look at this, it's All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics! Our very own show prep thing! And it's free! Just click here, and follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item, too. And there's the Podcasting section at AllAccess.com/podcasts, and "10 Questions With..." Jim Fisher, PD at WRNO/New Orleans and a bunch of stations by the Gulf for iHeartMedia, with some great insight on how WRNO found success in a market with a dominant heritage talker already on FM, plus some inspiration courtesy of his life transformation into an ultra-marathon runner.

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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I'll remind you one more time that you can hear me talk about radio stuff on two recent podcasts, SB Nation Radio host Matt Perrault's "The Perrault Vault" here or via iTunes here, and Matt Cundill's "Sound Off" podcast here or via iTunes here. Coming as soon as next week, there'll be some more of me available to you, the consumer (and not necessarily what you'd assume I'd do next). In fact, it might be TOO much me. Heads up....

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
www.facebook.com/pmsimon
Twitter @pmsimon
Instagram @pmsimon