Live, Local, Late Breaking

Writing about the radio business for over 20 years means that you end up repeatedly banging your head against the wall over the same topics, because, let's be honest, a lot of it hasn't changed in decades and there's only so much new stuff you can find in a generally static industry. Sometimes, the problem you want to talk about doesn't really have a workable solution.

Here we go again.

I noticed that a station that has always been live/local around the clock is going to voice track overnights now, and it was jarring, partly because it was one of the last holdouts and partly because I saw the news on a day that illustrated why radio needs live programming around the clock. But I also recognize that the economic argument was lost years ago, stations aren't going to budget for even minimum wage overnight, and that's just the way it's going to be.

Check the timing. On Thursday night, BuzzFeed posted its story about the president allegedly ordering Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, which is a massive, massive story. Social media went wild. It was a huge deal. If your station wasn't live at that moment, you were not airing programming that addressed what your audience was talking about. You were not offering the personal connection, the companionship, the engagement that radio SAYS it's best at providing. You're no better than the streamers you deride as impersonal and lacking the personality you say you provide. Something happens, and you're voice tracked, or on tape delay. Congratulations, you saved a salary or two, at the mere expense of the value radio has to offer, the value that makes it different from other media.

I know. Call me Don Quixote and point me towards the nearest windmills. This isn't going to change. It's been this way for a long time now. And you'll cite ratings -- see, voice tracking doesn't hurt, the numbers (relative to other stations) are fine, people want you to shut up and play music, nobody listens to talk radio after dark anyway, yeah, I know. But live programming -- timeliness, a live voice talking about what's happening right now -- is what radio can do better than anyone else. It's what sets radio apart from podcasting, which otherwise can do spoken word better because it's on-demand and foreground but can't be up-to-the-minute. It's what sets radio apart from customized streamers, which can give you exactly the music you want but has a real problem with the personality and companionship part and hasn't quite gotten to the "local" part yet. It's an opportunity, and even after several decades of this, it's frustrating to see an opportunity lost.

But, you know, revenue. No money in it. It's even worse under programmatic, which doesn't care if you have great engagement or how late night listening can translate into listener loyalty in the daytime when they turn the radio back on for another day or anything other than specific demographic numbers at lowest possible cost.

So, no hope? I'm not willing to concede, crazy as it may seem. Syndication may not provide the local touch, but there are live options and that's a good thing. There are still stations fighting the good fight and keeping the night hours live, even if the number of stations doing that has dwindled. Sports radio remains largely live around the clock, helped by the aforementioned syndication. And in my dreams, someone realizes that a warm voice on a cold night is better than tape, especially for talk radio, when news is huge, breaking late, and your audience is looking to talk about it.

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Whether you're live or... well, however you do this, Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, has plenty to talk about on the radio, all for free by clicking here and/or by following the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. And the first "10 Questions With..." of the new year is with KCMO/Kansas City morning man and APD Pete Mundo, who's one of the young, up-and-coming talkers the industry's looking for. He's also a fellow Villanovan. Go Cats.

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It just occurred to me that we're only a couple of weeks from Groundhog Day. Make of that what you will.

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