Paying The Price For Thinking Different

When did we go from "your opinions aren't the thing, your ability to entertain is" to "conform or you're through"?

I ask this because things have changed in talk radio, changed a LOT, and I'm not sure whether it's something that came about organically from changing societal expectations or something that came about because programmers have become less creative and scared of their core audience, or some combination of the two. I've known about the idea that talk programmers are uninterested in hiring hosts unless they can demonstrate unwavering devotion to the current President -- people looking for talent have specifically asked me to recommend just those who are certified Trump supporters -- but when a longtime conservative host like Jerry Bader leaves a station he's been at for over a decade and says that his non-support of Trump led to his departure, it makes me wonder what's going on.

It wasn't always the case that a talk radio lineup had to conform to one political party's positions, let alone support of one politician, period. For decades, you had plenty of room for varying political viewpoints. In New York, you could have staunch conservatives like Bob Grant and raging liberals like Lynn Samuels in the same lineup. WLS in Chicago had Jay Marvin and Mike Malloy along with Rush and other conservatives. I got to run a talk station where I didn't even KNOW the politics of hosts before I hired them. The benchmark wasn't whether they voted Republican or Democratic, it was whether they were entertaining and smart and relatable.

That wasn't too long ago.

Sometimes I wonder about the "consistency" approach. I could be wrong, but I think it restricts the reach of your station to a self-defined, narrow demographic. If all you are is the echo chamber for one side or another, that's your audience. And in the case of being strictly Trump-friendly, that means your audience is by definition going to come from a (much) older, whiter, smaller percentage of the available audience. I'm sure research shows that the "P1s" want this, but we're talking a 65-plus, male-leaning, fairly small group in a nation the demographics of which are rapidly changing. Does that restrict your appeal to anyone else? Are you afraid that those old guys will not listen if you stray from the reservation? I mean, they'll SAY they won't listen, but do you think they'll really go away?

That's a fair consideration when you're an AM station in an FM world, and, especially if you're signal-challenged, you're worried that there aren't any other listeners to attract. Putting a youth-oriented, politically diverse format on an AM station in 2018 is probably doomed. In most markets, the audience that still hits the AM button is indeed older and if you have a hold on a segment of that available audience, I suppose that's an argument for waving the Trump flag all the time.

Yet there IS an audience for something different. Take a look at the success of podcasting, including not only political shows that would never, ever make it to a traditional broadcast talk station. Look at the discussion on social media (if you can weed out the Russian bots, that is). Even though public radio is facing demographics issues of its own, look at the success of some of its leading stations. Compare talk radio's audience with the audience at large. It's not about eliminating traditional talk, it's about expanding the talk universe. Again, you'll have to educate me: Is there any chance at all to expand the appeal of commercial political talk radio beyond the True Believers who are there now, or is this a fool's errand? Can you nurture and develop new, different voices -- including hosts who are neither male nor white (nor old, for that matter) -- and evolve current talk stations to grow the audience, or is the format left to hold onto what it has and nothing more?

Again, I don't have the answer. It's a challenge, I suppose. But in an era in which there seems to be increasing interest in spoken word audio entertainment, I'm curious to see if talk radio will try to take advantage of that or if it's going to ride the horse it's been on for the past decade right off the demographic cliff. I think there's a lot of room to try new things, myself; I just wonder if there are many people left in the format thinking the same way.

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Okay, so, where the heck was I last week? If you follow me on social media or the podcast, which you should (see below), you know that I had yet another run-in with a health issue that put me out of commission for most of last week. It was not pretty. But I am recovering, so here I am.

It is NOT true, by the way, that the absence was in any way related to the Super Bowl. Would a long-suffering Philadelphia Eagles fan like myself have passed up any opportunity to write a Super Bowl preview this year? No, I would not. So you KNOW I was in pain. The Eagles' victory did, however, ease things a lot. I'm still glowing. The Philly Special keeps repeating in my mind, over and over, and it continues to be awesome. I could get used to this my-team-won-the-Super Bowl thing.

But now that it's over AND the intense pain has subsided, I'm back updating Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports; get it by clicking here and/or by following the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. There's the Podcasting section at AllAccess.com/podcasts. And, appropriately, there's "10 Questions With..." ol' pal and WPEN (97.5 The Fanatic)/Philadelphia Dir. of Sports Content Eric Johnson, who was on the parade route Thursday, about which I am not jealous at all, nope, no jealousy there. (E-A-G-L-E-S-Eagles.)

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My podcast is "The Evening Bulletin with Perry Michael Simon," a quick (two minutes or less) daily thing, and you can get it at Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Google Play Music, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Stitcher, and RadioPublic. Spotify, too. You can also use the RSS feed and the website where you can listen in your browser, or my own website where they're all embedded, too.

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If you're interested in talking about the future, the panel I'll be hosting at the Worldwide Radio Summit in Hollywood May 2-4 will be all about your place in what's coming next, with Tom Leykis, Steve Goldstein, Rob Greenlee, and Gina Juliano on hand. They will tell you a lot about what's coming next, warts and all. Register here. And as for the subject of today's column, I'll be on a panel at Don Anthony and Gabe Hobbs' Talk Show Boot Camp 9 in Dallas March 8th and 9th, talking about that and more with Mike McVay, Phil Boyce, Scott Masteller, and Gavin Spittle, and, yeah, I'll probably play the heel like I always do. I'll also be on a panel at the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Convention attached to the NAB Show in Las Vegas in April, details to come. So busy. Let's hope I don't have another medical adventure before then.

And one more time, Fly Eagles Fly. That was the best. Really.

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