More Of What You Came For

It's Friday and I'm not listening to talk radio because I know what I'm gonna get. It doesn't matter what your politics are, by the way. You can agree with what they're talking about, or you could be absolutely against it, but, well, let's just note this: I don't have to be explicit about any of this and you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know that whenever there's big news, talk radio will do what talk radio does, and that's as predictable as anything.

Hold on, lemme just turn the AM radio on and...

Yep. Just what I expected.

Back in the days when I was programming talk radio, I thought the way to go was to be unpredictable in every way but that whatever we did had to be entertaining and fun. If we had to talk about political issues, it was going be entertaining to everyone and we were going to avoid a situation where people would know what we were going to say before they even tuned in. It seemed like a good plan. Listeners, we reasoned, would be MORE likely to tune in if they were curious as to what we'd have to say about things and honestly couldn't predict our hosts' positions, and tuned in to hear viewpoints they hadn't considered and didn't expect.

That isn't how things turned out in the long run, of course. I'm also open to the idea that I was wrong, that predictability is the way to grab and hold onto a loyal audience. That audience, for talk radio as it is for cable news, is very old and getting smaller every day, but, hey, those 6+ numbers hold up, even if the cume doesn't and the shares of any demographic a national advertiser would want are minuscule.

Okay, I don't think I was wrong.

So, today. I have other choices, of course; I could listen to podcasts. The problem is that I know what THEY'RE going to say, too, mostly. I could listen to sports radio, which at least is going to be predictable about less hypertension-causing material (the aftermath of the NBA Draft, you say? I can deal with that). I could listen to music. Or I could do what I'm doing, pounding out a column in silence. Silence works. Try it sometime.

Of course, I'll go back to checking out talk radio and political podcasts soon enough. I wonder if, when I do, I'll be surprised by what they have to say.

Never mind. I already know the answer.

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If you aspire to be unpredictable, having unpredictable material helps, and you'll find inspiration for that at All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics show prep page. Find it all by clicking here, and you can also follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics and find every story individually linked to the appropriate item.

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Yeah, it was a short one this week. Hand still hurts, aggravation reigns, just wanna get to the weekend without any further agita. Maybe next week will be better.

Perry Michael Simon
Senior Vice President/Editor-in-Chief and News-Talk-Sports-Podcasting Editor
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
Twitter @pmsimon