How To Get (Not Precisely) Rich In (Or Around) Radio

Would people pay to see you work?

I'll wait until you stop laughing.

And then I'll point out that for years, some podcasters have been able to accomplish exactly that. They book theaters or clubs and do the show in front of their listeners. Some are successful enough at it to go on tour. What do they do on stage? They sit in front of mics and do their show. That's pretty much it. And the fans love it and pay for the privilege of, essentially, watching the hosts at work.

Nobody would pay to watch me work. There's nothing entertaining about a disheveled guy tapping at a computer keyboard while a podcast or radio show blares in the background. And you might be thinking, well, nobody's going to pay to watch a radio show, especially when some shows have been streaming video from the studio for a long time. Jingle Ball and Wango Tango, sure. A radio show, live in person? Really?

Missed opportunity.

Okay, look, I may be way off base here, and maybe it would require some work making your show more visual, or maybe not. But if "My Favorite Murder" and "The Dollop" and "Last Podcast on the Left" can do it -- if countless podcasts of which you've never heard can do it -- why can't radio? Some of your radio shows have larger audiences than podcasts that do live shows; surely, you can fill a moderately-sized venue for an evening, right?

Oh, one thing about that. Your audience has to be passionate. How passionate are your listeners about you and your show?

Yeah, that's something to consider. If your audience isn't that passionate about your show -- if they wouldn't particularly fret if you were gone -- you probably shouldn't consider doing a live show, but you should also consider what you're doing with your career. If you can be easily replaced in people's lives, what are you (and your station) doing? Think about what makes you and your show special, and if you can't really define that, you might want to get on that right away. I know, your PD might want you to stick to reading what's on the cards and just shut up and play the music, or you're being told that you have to talk only about what the syndicated shows are talking about in exactly the way they talk about it, lest there be angry social media posts from political partisans. Hard to build a fan base that way, I guess. But it's 2022 and there are a million options for entertainment and you have to stand out to survive, and maybe you should get on that case soon, like, now.

Another example? James Cridland brought to my attention something else that's a very podcast thing, with a radio spin: Australia's hugely popular Hamish & Andy are doing what many podcasters have done, making their entire archive available via paid subscription, but the interesting part is that it includes 12 years of radio shows. Yes, they kept the tapes. They managed to keep the rights. And now they're converting old radio shows into a potentially lucrative product.

It's not a new idea -- way back when I was at a podcast network, we saw Marc Maron do the paid-archive thing with "WTF" and Jimmy Pardo set up a deal where half of each "Never Not Funny" episode was free and the other half was for paid subscribers, and we saw opportunity there (though the company decided the future was in subscription video instead, which did not go well at all). More than a few podcasts charge for their archives, and the introduction of Apple's subscription option and similar products through hosting companies has led to a proliferation of paid podcast plans.

But radio? We've given away the store. Old shows are discarded, or carved into "best ofs" to air during the hosts' vacations. The radio industry has poorly treated its history; airchecks of older shows are left to hobbyists to compile, and most of what's on the air is broadcast and immediately lost unless someone takes the initiative to keep the tapes, or tape it in the first place. For every Howard Stern whose archives are relatively complete and exploitable, there are thousands upon thousands (that might be an understatement) of shows left to memory. Are they all evergreen? Who'd want to listen to a talk show from 10 years ago? Isn't radio built to be ephemeral, to just drift off into space once it's been broadcast, never to be heard again? Well, who's to say? Why not leave that decision to the customer? Why not make stuff available to superfans who are willing to pay to hear it?

All of this is to say that radio tends to miss opportunities that are right in front of it. Live shows, subscriptions, archived shows... maybe some of that wouldn't work for various reasons. Maybe none of it would work. But not too many people are even trying, and that's a shame. You have fans. Give them something worth their loyalty.

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If you're working on making your show passion-worthy, it helps to have unique and interesting material, and that's what you'll find at All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics show prep page. 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.

Read "10 Questions With..." Jon Zaghloul, Sports Director at WCKG/Chicago, who talks about his unusual route into broadcasting (starting with building a sizable sports website at age 13) and providing an alternative for sports fans in one of the most competitive sports radio markets in America.

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.

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Thanks again to everyone who expressed support and concern on social media in response to my veiled expressions of difficulties. I'm OK, basically, though it's always fun when, in the middle of a procedure, my doctor, knowing I'm a writer, says "DON'T WRITE ABOUT THIS!" He was joking. I think. I'm not writing about it.

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