The Best Defense

How do you react to a direct attack? Do you get defensive? Do you unleash a barrage of facts and statistics to prove your case? Do you ignore it and hope it goes away? What do you do?

Naturally, my answer is different from everyone else's answer.

You've heard about or seen it by now, SiriusXM's email and social media post askling "Why waste your time with AM/FM?," and the furious response by the RAB with a list of stats (Reach! We have reach!) and the NAB ("Free! We're free!"). If I were the Czar of Radio, which I am decidedly not, I would not respond by flying the Reach or Free flags. To me, there's only one appropriate response:

Produce a better product.

I have SiriusXM in my car. I also have AM/FM radio, and because I live within range of most of the signals in two sizable radio markets, I get a lot of stations. And I have Bluetooth to get whatever streaming content I want to get through my car speakers. So do most of you. We have a tremendous number of options. We can get bogged down in the discovery issue here, or the "real estate on the dashboard" thing, or the ease-of-use argument, or free-versus-paid, but let's not for now, okay? Let's just look at why we use what we use.

It's simple to me: If there's something I really want to hear, I'll find it. The problem with AM/FM radio today is that most of it's so generic that you can't imagine anyone choosing it as their preference. It's just... there. That's what some people want -- whatever happens to be on at any given time, wallpaper for the ride to Publix. But that's not what broadcasters have been saying they provide. They say they're great at personality, at localism, at companionship and engagement.

So prove it.

I don't take the SiriusXM ad -- really, people, it was just an ad, nothing else -- as a call to defend the fort. It's more a call to step up and be better. If, for whatever reason (financial, probably), broadcasters can't create content that draws people away from satellite, or podcasting, or streaming, shouting about superior reach and being free won't stem the audience erosion. And if all that's left of broadcast radio is voice-tracked, generic programming, what one competitor is saying is the least of the industry's worries.

Which brings us back to the core of what the industry should be doing when it's under attack from a rival: provide good entertainment and information and let people know about it. That's the response. The people who got that SiriusXM ad don't care about your statistics, or ratings, or lofty pronouncements about your public service. They just want to be entertained, informed... mostly entertained, actually, and if you're doing that better than the competition, that says more than a carefully planned PR initiative. Nobody wants your one-sheet. They want something they'll enjoy listening to, regardless of who's providing it.

Hurry up, already. I could use something new for the ride to Publix.

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Part of making better radio or podcasts is finding unusual things to talk about, and that can be a time-consuming pain. Or you can let someone else root through what's out there to find stuff that you might not have thought about for topics. And that's what All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics show prep page is all about. Find it 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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I was off last week, and managed to screw that up by ending it in the hospital, because ruining my time off is what I do. Thanks to all of you who sent nice thoughts along while I was negotiating the Florida health care morass. Someone should be talking on the radio about the sorry state of health care in South Florida. I'd listen to that.

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