Putting The ‘New’ In New Year

Some things never change.

All Access is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2020, and I've been here for most of that. In that time, one of my recurring themes has been the radio industry's seeming inability to develop talent on a level that would attract truly creative people to the industry and give listeners a reason to choose broadcast radio over competing media. That's not to say that strong talent isn't developing in radio, nor to claim that every single station or programmer is clueless. It's just that after decades of gotta-listen programming, we're no longer generating that heat. It's been a long time since Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity rose from local radio to national prominence. Talk radio's largely unchanged since forever. There are exceptions, and it's not like there aren't excellent radio hosts out there right now, but in terms of generating content that impacts the current culture, broadcast radio just isn't in the game right now.

That's frustrating, considering that audio entertainment and information is undergoing somewhat of a boom period outside of radio. Podcasting has its stars, even if nowhere near the magnitude of what radio used to do (okay, maybe Joe Rogan is in the conversation, but I'm not sure he'd register Stern-level or Limbaugh-level awareness among the general public). Certainly, when you look at radio in countries other than America, you'll find household names. Here in the U.S., though, it's a combination of nobody breaking out of the pack and a lot of competition for the public's attention. Nobody's broken out for years. 2019 was just like 2018, and 2017, and 2005, and 1997....

Let me mention here something I posted on social media (wait, you're not following me? Fix that right now) over the holiday break. I had heard an especially annoying fill-in host flailing in a prominent slot on a major market talk station, and I said so, but I didn't blame the host, who was a cable news pundit/web site editor/apparent podcaster who'd been dropped into the pool with, evidently, not a lot of guidance on how to do talk radio, and consequently careened from topic to topic and didn't seem to have anything new to say about any of them.

What upset me about that fill-in was less about the content -- hey, it's a fill-in -- than a few things that shouldn't be happening to radio in 2020. First, the obvious: A talk radio station -- ANY radio station -- should be consistent, and by that I mean that any time a listener tunes in, they're expecting quality, and if you don't offer that, you'll blow them off. Do that enough times and they'll find another station, and if everyone's doing that, they'll find Spotify and SiriusXM and podcasts and whatever else gives them what they want. Does that mean you can't try out new talent? Of course not, and new talent is going to make mistakes and learn from them. But that talent has to be prepared for the occasion, and if the attitude of management is, hey, it's the holiday, nobody's listening, just throw someone with the "right" political position into the pool and head off to vacation, you're showing, at best, disinterest towards your audience. Nobody should be put on the air without guidance and preparation and production support. It's unfair to them and unfair to the audience.

Second, I'm perfectly happy with the idea of mining the podcasting world for talent, but radio and podcasting ARE different, and someone who can do one well might not do the other well. Doing an hour-long show with a beginning, middle, and end is not the same as opening the mic and talking, interviewing, and taking calls for three hours broken up into several segments per hour. Some people can comfortably do both, but the different media require different approaches. A podcaster trying radio needs to learn how to pace, to interact with callers, to reset topics as listeners come into the show mid-stream. A radio host doing a podcast has to adapt to setting things up once at the outset and then developing the content to keep people from bailing within the first few minutes. They're related talents, but not the same thing.

And there's the problem I raised years and years ago which has yet to be adequately addressed: If you're that singular, wildly creative talent, and you have great ideas on how to break out of the pack and be that elusive audio superstar, what is radio offering you that's better than podcasting or streaming? A salary is a good start, but they don't even have to Google "job security in radio" to know that nothing's guaranteed but insecurity. It's not like laying off midday and evening hosts nationwide is an industry secret. And the lasting legacy of "Private Parts" is the image of management insisting on restrictive and silly rules. They don't have that in podcasting. They don't have ANY rules in podcasting. Or video. Not only are there no gatekeepers in podcasting or video, but even kids have all the equipment they need to make content -- a cellphone will do everything, and getting fancier can be done on a strict budget, too. You have a good idea, and something to say? You can try to get a radio job, the numbers of which are shrinking, or you can just hit the red button and do it yourself, at any age, anywhere, any time.

That's what radio's up against as we enter 2020. It's what the industry's been up against for years. There have been some noble attempts to turn things around -- Dan Vallie, take a bow -- and I don't think it's a totally impossible task to get creative people of any age to try radio. What it'll take is an industry that's open to new ideas, that will both train new talent in what works and be amenable to bending or breaking those rules when someone has a true vision that doesn't conform to radio as we know it. Just finding wiling young (or old, really) people who you can imagine sounding just like existing hosts -- the if-they're-cable-pundits-they're-probably-OK method of talent scouting -- isn't cutting it. The job of talent development has changed. You should be looking for something different and guiding that person both in following radio's requirements and pushing the boundaries of the medium.

You should be looking for stars, not just people who can fill the time. Maybe we'll see that in 2020. Here's hoping.

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And part of the preparation any host needs before cracking the mic is getting some good, unique, engaging, relatable stuff together to talk about, and, oh, hey, look what's back in action for the new year: it's Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, which has material for every show with commentary and stuff, much of which you just won't find anywhere else. Just click here and/or follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item.

Make sure you're subscribed to Today's Talk, the daily email newsletter with the top news stories in News, Talk, and Sports radio and podcasting. You can check off the appropriate boxes in your All Access account profile's Format Preferences and Email Preferences sections if you're not already getting it.

My podcast is "The Evening Bulletin with Perry Michael Simon," a quick (two minutes or less) daily thing, and you can get it by just clicking here, which should take you directly to the page or app that will work best for your device. It's also on Spotify; just search for it there, or ask for it on your Amazon Alexa-enabled device by saying "Alexa, play the Evening Bulletin podcast."

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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With the new year comes yet another round of convention coverage, and you all know how much I love that. (I'm already exhausted and I haven't even started packing yet.) First up is CES in Las Vegas, which seems to be a lot less audio-oriented this year, judging by the agenda, than it has been in the past few years, as radio people discovered the show. I'll be there once again for All Access, and, again, follow me on Twitter @pmsimon for additional observations from the event. And if you're planning on being there, keep an eye out for the tired-looking guy lugging a backpack around LVCC and the Aria. I don't bite.

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