Drop Everything

Pop quiz! A big non-weather-related emergency breaks out in your market. It's big enough to make instant national news. You're a talk station with a strong news department and the "news authority" position in your market. What do you do?

a) Drop all regular programming and go wall-to-wall with coverage.
b) Stick with regular programming but make sure all the hosts are talking about nothing but the emergency.
c) Cover it in the top and bottom of the hour news and go back to regular programming and syndication.
d) The forbidden dance.

Oh, you know what to do. You have to go wall-to-wall, or at least have hosts talking about the situation. You have to be there when people are looking for information and need it immediately.

Why am I rehashing the obvious? I'll keep this brief: While I was out for my morning run/walk/jog/plod Friday morning, I was listening to a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department press conference about a murder at our local mall when I checked my email and found, amidst the usual flood of press releases and spam, a terse note from a friend suggesting I tune into a particular station right at that moment. Confused, I tuned in, heard a sea of pre-roll streaming ads (thanks, iHeartRadio), and wasn't sure what I was supposed to be hearing. And then I checked Twitter, saw news about the school shooting, and thought, aha, this station's the news dominator in that market, they've done great work in emergencies, I get it now.

What I got was a top-of-the-hour brief report and then back to syndicated political talk about the Damned Lib'ral Media. The station didn't go wall-to-wall. Coverage was reserved for the top and bottom of the hour 5-minute reports. Even the station's webpage had sparse information and the exhortation to "Tune in every half hour for the latest on this developing story."

Look, I don't expect every station to drop everything and go wall-to-wall. I understand that resources are scarce. And I must point out that the very same station did an incredibly excellent, exemplary job in the aftermath of a hurricane, and deserves whatever awards you can get for that kind of community service. But weather emergencies are different. You can't anticipate some elements of those -- the intensity, the exact areas of devastation -- but at least you know they're coming and can prepare a little. You usually get a warning. Doesn't make it easier, but it's different from the totally unexpected. When a mass shooting happens, it's a split-second decision.

And here's something that should inform that decision: If you're a talk or news station, and you've assumed the market's radio news position, when something big happens, you'd better be there for the listeners who are tuning in for information, and you'd better not make them wait. Not everyone has access to TV, or streaming video, or social media, and that's your audience; They're in their cars, they're at work and aren't allowed to stream video, they're doing other things but want to hear what's happening. You can't fail them, because once you do, you're not a trusted news source anymore. If there's not enough information to fill all the time, repeat what you have, but when someone tunes in, you have to be talking about what they're thinking about, and when a huge story's breaking right in your backyard, there's no debate about what they want.

We, as an industry, take justifiable pride in our emergency coverage when it's good. We tend to brush over the moments when it's not up to par. But if we're in Washington lobbying, or pressing the cellphone carriers to activate those FM chips, or pleading our case that we're still relevant and important in people's lives because we're who they turn to when they need information, we'd better be able to show that when people really do turn to us for that information, they get it.

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When there's no emergency, you can get the material you need for any kind of show at Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, and it's all 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. And Westwood One and WMAL/Washington host Chris Plante is the latest to answer our 10 Questions, so check that out for some insight into how he made the move from reporter to talk host and what's made his one of the fastest growing talk shows in syndication.

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