Same Old

Newness, in most businesses, is a virtue. Many industries thrive on change. New car models every year. New TV shows. New technology. New and improved products, whether they're really new and/or improved. New is a marketing plus for practically everyone, with only the occasional New Coke misfire. People like new, they crave new, they're looking for new.

Yet radio hasn't embraced new as anything other than a slogan. It's a joke among your listeners: "The New Q109" doesn't mean "new" when it's been calling itself that for 20 years. People aren't that stupid, it turns out. We've talked about this before: radio is rooted in sameness. Formats, with few exceptions, are the same now as they were 20 years ago; the music may have changed, but the basic formats haven't. ("Classic Hip-Hop" isn't a new, innovative format, it's Oldies... er, Classic Hits with an update.) Announcers sound the same. Talk radio is mostly the same deal with mostly the same hosts. Clocks are the same. The elements -- traffic, weather, wacky bits, anything that can get a sponsor tacked to it -- are the same. Everything is the same.

Radio is mired in formula. But this is not 1998. Radio shouldn't sound like 1998. Remove the music and it DOES sound like 1998. And if you don't think that's the case, ask yourself if someone from 1998 would listen to a radio station or show from 2018 and find it alien. Okay, maybe they'd think "Trump got elected president?," but the radio shows themselves would sound pretty much like they did back then. This wasn't always the case -- radio in 1968 sounded a LOT different from either 1998 or today -- but we don't do Boss Radio or Musicradio 77 anymore, for good reason: those sound really, really old to anyone under 50. Times changed, and radio did change, until radio stopped changing and times kept moving on.

I'm not saying that there's no value in what radio is doing now. Far from it. There's a market for the familiar, a large market. Consistency is not a bad thing, and giving people more of the same has an appeal to those who find comfort in turning on the radio and hearing what they heard yesterday, last week, last year, and when they were kids. But it's an aging market, and generations are growing up with different tastes and expectations. You don't have to change currently successful stations, but if you're taking solace in those "93% reach!" studies and ignoring shrinking time spent listening figures, you really need to be experimenting with new and different things: new talent, new formats, new topics, new imaging, new clocks, new concepts.

And while radio isn't changing, tastes are changing faster and faster. Look at podcasts: Some of the most popular podcasts of five or six years ago aren't nearly as dominant as they were, and that's because they've fallen into ruts while newer shows are moving the medium forward. A few years ago, you saw a lot of comedy podcasts and "guys sitting around talking" podcasts doing very well. Today, most of those have kind of faded into the pile of "still downloading but haven't listened in a while" and "I'll get to it sometime" (you won't). Storytelling and personable news updates have taken the lead. New shows are doing well. New is a selling point for podcasts, whether it's new shows or new seasons of existing shows. People like and want "new," and a lot of major podcasters know that.

But radio doesn't do "new" quite as well. New shows and new stations tend to sound a lot like the old ones. Radio doesn't do "new seasons"; it doesn't do seasons at all, so there's nothing "new" to promote. There's none of the excitement of a new show, a new car, a new product. In a world with a rapidly decreasing attention span, generating new shiny objects is a matter of business survival.

Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's the knee-jerk reaction both within the industry and outside when someone tries something unusual. "It'll never work" is still the default position from most radio people when someone goes out on a limb with a new idea, or even a new iteration of an old idea. It'll never work, until it does, at which point everyone else copies it. It's the closest radio gets to true programming innovation. (And, when it ceases working -- Jammin' Oldies, anyone? -- it's back to the default.)

Or maybe there aren't too many people in programming who are adept in coming up with new concepts or scouting truly new talent. Maybe the innovators are in podcasting, or TV, or streaming, or VR/AR, or unemployed. (Or writing snarky columns criticizing everyone else... nah, not that.) That's not promising, but, come on, whoever's in charge, we all gotta be more open to trying new things, because that's what growth industries do.

You do not want to go stale. You want to keep offering new things. You always want to be the next shiny object the public desires. You can do that by, to borrow a phrase from the late, lamented WLIR, daring to be different. So be different.

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There's always something new to talk about at Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, and it's free. Check it out 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. You'll also want to read "10 Questions With...." Brad Carson, one of the busiest people in radio, who's built a pretty impressive Sports radio station in Memphis, WMFS (92.9 FM ESPN), and developed a strong roster of talent while also being on-air on music stations in other markets at the same time. The man does not sleep.

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The NAB Show is here, and I will be there covering it all for All Access. Say hello if you see me (I don't bite, at least not often). And stop by the panel I'm on at the adjacent Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Convention on Monday, April 9th at the Westgate with David Crider moderating and Valerie Geller, Dan Vallie, and Andy Curran talking about getting into the business and stuff like that. In addition, it's time to register for the Worldwide Radio Summit in Hollywood May 2-4, where I'll be moderating a panel on your future with Tom Leykis, Steve Goldstein, Rob Greenlee, Doug Reed, and Gina Juliano; Register here. And I'll be on a panel about podcasting with Seth Resler, Dave Beasing, Sheryl Worsley, and Michael Brandvold at The Conclave in July in Minneapolis. After that, I'll be at Podcast Movement in Philadelphia in July. But, first, Vegas, so I'll see you there....

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