Why Me?

"What do I need YOU for?"

I heard The New York Times tech columnist and podcast host Kara Swisher ask that about Clubhouse on The Daily Beast's "The New Abnormal" podcast. She could have asked that to anyone about anything, but it's a question I've myself asked in many instances. It's a good exercise, because having an answer to it means that you've thought about what you do and your work's value.

(Note to the Grammar Police: I know it should be "For what do I need YOU?" Nobody talks that way. Shut up.)

Are you a talk host or podcaster? What do your potential listeners need YOU for? Knowing that will take you a long way towards success. Do they want entertainment? Probably. Information? Depends, but yeah. Accurate information? One would hope so. Companionship? Yes. Are you providing what they need from you? And are you doing it better than the many alternatives vying for their time?

Producers! What does the host need from you? No, not talking about a Starbucks run. Do they need material? Do they need coaching? Do they need direction, help in determining when it's time to dump a topic and move on, additional questions to ask a guest? Are you there to help the talent sound their best? Can they do the show without you, and if so, will it be materially worse if you're not there? And if corporate decides to conduct one of those "reductions in force" that they so love to do, have you made yourself indispensable enough to the station that nobody would dare let you walk out that door? (Okay, that might not matter to them, but still.)

Program Directors: Oh, this hurts, since that was once upon a time my job, and the position has changed in so many ways. We know that while the product of your efforts is intended for the listening audience, you're really serving upper management and corporate, and so many of those folks think that they don't need PDs at every station, that one manager can handle most or all of the stations in a cluster, or they can have a format manager cover a region from a "center of excellence." What do they need YOU for? They'd say that they want you to keep the paperwork up to date and just make sure nothing bad happens, especially if it endangers the license. What they DO need you for is to adapt to the market, make sure the lineup is right for the market, produce enough local content to hold that advantage over other media, get the imaging right, direct the local talent, and protect the integrity of the station when the GM wants to load up with infomercials. But they might not THINK they need you for that. Tough job, it is. Maybe do all that and tell them that's what you do. Maybe they'll recognize your value. Maybe.

Upper management: Easy. Make more money for the company than they spend on you. That's what the CEO and the investors want. That's ALL they want. You could put nothing but the sound of people vomiting on your stations and if it makes enough money to pay the bills and clear a profit, you've proven your value. For now, that is. Do it again next quarter, only more so.

Podcasters? In a way, you define what your listeners want when you choose the topic and format of your show, especially if you're doing so as an independent, not answering to a network. Your answer to "what do I need YOU for?" is gong to depend on the kind of show you do and listeners' expectations based on that. Comedy podcasts? They want to laugh. True crime? They need suspense, drama that keeps them riveted until the end. News updates? They can get news anywhere; they need context, angles and details they won't get from other media or other podcasts. People sitting around talking in front of two mics and a laptop? That's when "what do I need YOU for?" becomes a trickier question. Why DO they need you? What are you bringing to the table that others aren't? Your sparkling wit? Your deep knowledge of "Star Wars" trivia? You have to do better than that. "What do I need YOU for?" is another way of asking "why should anyone choose YOUR show over the approximately one zillion other shows out there?" I can't answer that for you. (Or, more precisely, I can, for a fee. I'm not gonna consult you for free.)

The radio industry? I plow through a never-ceasing flow of research studies and press releases touting who's listening to what, but the most important part of the studies involves the "why." You saw that in Jacobs Media's Techsurvey at the All Access Audio Summit, and the prominence of emotional cues in that data -- that companionship thing again, and how radio helps people through their day -- helps answer why they need radio. But those are already radio listeners, committed enough to be in radio station databases. It might also be instructive to ask people who don't actively listen to the radio to find out why they feel they DON'T need radio. Is there something radio is doing that drove people away? Is there something other than just wanting to pick their own music or hear a talk show from the beginning on demand? Is there a need radio could fulfill but isn't? Maybe not, but it might be worth a look. I don't expect it to happen, but I'd like to see the industry leaders take a step back from the headlong rush into new media and just consider the "what do they need from US" question, seeing if maybe they can reverse the trend and get traditional linear radio on a more substantial growth trajectory. After all, they'll tell you that they still reach 93%... er, 91%... what's the number now? It's still high, but it's not growing and it's not perceived as active and in the right demos like digital. If it's not going to be a lost cause, the industry has to better determine what the audience needs from it, and provide a better product to meet that demand. Researching the music is only part of it. You gotta research the rest of what you do, too.

It's all about what you can do, as an individual, a station, or an industry, that meets a need and does so better than anyone else can. Kara Swisher asked that about Clubhouse because she, like many others, realized that while social audio is an interesting development, it wasn't proving worth her time and effort. Clubhouse will surely try to adapt to grow the number of people who think otherwise, thus finding its niche among all the media divvying up the audience right now. That exercise is, however, a good one for everyone in every medium, new or mature. And if radio itself examines why listeners need it, perhaps you'll see some more creative and unusual approaches to programming and marketing than yet another cookie-cutter music format or parade of same-sounding talk shows.

But you didn't need ME to tell you that.

=============================

Why do you NEED All Access' show prep column Talk Topics? You need it for fresh material you won't find elsewhere, and it'll save you from having to look at a million news sites for ideas. Just click here and/or follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. Got a new interview this week, too, "10 Questions With..." Robert Miller, who is an absolute inspiration -- in his 60s, he decided to return to the music career he had left in his younger days, and the result has been spectacular -- touring, Jazz chart-topping albums, and now a podcast, "Follow Your Dream," which tells stories of people who decided to do something new later in life and found that for a lot of things, you really are never too old to succeed. Read it and get going.

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.

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. I'm also on Clubhouse at pmsimon, so if you're in there, feel free to follow me.

=============================

Updating my note from last week: Looks like I WILL be at Podcast Movement in Nashville in August. More details later, but I'll be moderating a panel, covering the convention, eating hot chicken and Goo-Goo Clusters. Maybe I'll see you there.

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