Expert Testimony

Everyone had a good laugh over that yo-yo story earlier this week. You saw that, didn't you? Some guy managed to get on several of those happy-talk local morning TV news shows by claiming that he's a yo-yo champion and expert. He would then go on the air and proceed to prove that he is, in fact, not a yo-yo expert at all. The guy's doing a great job of punking producers and assignment editors, and, unless you're one of those who fell for the scam, it's highly amusing.

It's also highly instructive if you host or produce a talk show. I'll say at the outset that I'm not a big fan of loading up radio talk shows with interviews, but that's largely a result of having heard a lot of bad interviews. By "bad interviews," I'm not necessarily talking about technique. It's more about the guests. I'd say a majority of those are less interesting than the yo-yo guy.

See, it's tempting to book anyone you can get, especially if you're in a small market or you lack self-esteem and just want to take whatever's offered, without a lot of thought about why anyone would want to hear that or whether the guest is really what he or she claims to be. Surely, if you're a producer, getting offered guests can feel like a godsend, or a life raft. You just say yes and that's another segment filled. Yo-yo champ? Psychic? Child psychology expert? Sure, why not?

But that's not going to always be good radio. Booking guests for the sake of filling time is a guarantee that you're going to end up with a show that's not compelling, not interesting, and not likely to retain a lot of listeners. And that can also apply to booking bigger celebrities or elected officials. The question you should be asking when you book guests is simple:

Why should anyone care what this person has to say?

If that question eliminates every political pundit in the world from being on the radio, I'd be happy with that. You don't need pundits to tell people what they think about the issues. That's YOUR job. It's YOUR show. YOU'RE the pundit. You don't NEED another one of those. Besides, I'm amazed by how people become regular pundits on talk radio and cable news without having any real experience doing anything that would lead to special insight. Who are these people? Is the primary qualification for becoming an "expert" just telling people that you're an expert? Basically, that's it (although it also helps on TV if you're young and blonde, and it helps on radio if you've been thrown out of elected office due to getting indicted). Why feed into that?

But there ARE good guests and great radio interviews. You know what makes interviews great? It's when the interviewer genuinely, sincerely cares about the interview. It's when the interviewer has so much to ask the guest that there isn't time for it all. It's when the interviewer comes into the segment with enthusiasm and curiosity. The best interviews I hear on talk radio, and on podcasts, for that matter, sometimes are with guests I, as a listener, don't care about, but the host does, and he or she finds the right questions and lines of conversation to draw me in and make me care. If I suddenly realize that the interview's about over and I haven't changed the station because it's been entertaining and interesting, even when I didn't think I'd care about the subject, that's a good one.

It's the host's job to find what makes the interview worth doing and taking it in that direction. Make me, the listener, care. Show me what makes that guest worth hearing. Tell me something about the guest and the topic that I don't know, and why it matters.

And if the guest isn't cooperating, and you find yourself pulling teeth to get anything out of the interview, pull the plug. Especially if you're in a PPM market, you can't hesitate to pull that plug and get out of the interview. The longer you let it drag on, the more likely your audience will bail on you. If that angers the publicist or the guest, too bad. A boring interview doesn't do them any good, either.

The essence of what I'm saying -- hey, you didn't have to read all of that! -- is that you need to be way, way more selective in choosing who to interview (and when, and how much) than most shows are. If that means you do fewer interviews and talk to fewer pundits and spend more time talking yourself or taking calls, that's not a bad thing.

Besides, in a pinch, I know this yo-yo champion you can book.

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Wait... if you aren't booking some political party stooge or vapid actor plugging his movie who doesn't want to be there in the first place, what can you do to make a show? Well, all you have to do is go to AllAccess.com, click on that Formats thing on the menu, go down to News-Talk-Sports, and select "Talk Topics." It's that complica... er, that easy. What you get when you go there is a plethora, a cornucopia, a festival of news items, kickers, and commentary that you can use to build your show. Look, I've actually done talk radio, and I've done morning shows, and I know that sometimes you just need someone to throw topics at you one after the other, throwing in comments and jokes to give you some idea of how to approach them. That's what Talk Topics, the all-too-literally-named show prep column, works. It's the 2010 version of when I'd sit in the jock lounge with the hosts, ripping articles out of the paper and pitching them as possible topics. You could use that, right? For example, this week, among hundreds of topic ideas, you'll find items about a dad who branded his kids, Sorority Girls Gone Wild, your first baseball managerial firing of the 2010 season, the pending change in the Heinz Ketchup recipe, the end of "Little Orphan Annie" (the comic strip, at least), a Taco Bell order that came with something extra, a new male contraceptive alternative, why some jobs are never coming back, several towns finding new ways to get at your money, lots about Arizona and immigration and boycotts, the danger of flying umbrellas, how a state candy tax ended up having a hard time defining "candy," Gulf oil spill troubles that aren't just about the ongoing leak, the epic battle of Goats vs. Kudzu, and a lot more, from the Supreme Court nominee to psychic frauds to reality show "stars" behaving badly.

In addition, you'll get some insight from a guy who does really good interviews with an eclectic array of guests in "10 Questions With..." KMOX/St. Louis-KDKA/Pittsburgh-WCCO/Minneapolis "Overnight America" host Jon Grayson. And the rest of All Access keeps pumping out the industry news, job listings, ratings, columns, music charts, and all the resources you need to do your job and keep up on what's happening in radio and music. It's all free.

Don't forget to follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at twitter.com/talktopics, which has every single Talk Topics item in headline form, clickable and convenient. Get the biggest radio industry headlines through the All Access Net News Twitter feed at twitter.com/allaccess. My own personal tweets are at twitter.com/pmsimon. The All Access iPhone app is available here.

For more me, there's pmsimon.com, my own personal site where I write about forgotten pop culture, sports, and life, and I'll also be contributing to the new hyperlocal Rancho Palos Verdes Patch website, if you want to find out what's going on in a city where you probably don't live. Plus more to come. Who needs sleep?

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Oh, right, the cancer walk. Yes, we did it. It was a great day, and it was greater due to the generous support of many of you and the good thoughts you sent our way. We're still collecting donations through sometime in June, if you're so inclined; just click here to give to the Revlon Run/Walk 2010. Again, thank you for supporting the cause.

Perry Michael Simon
Editor
All Access News-Talk-Sports
psimon@allaccess.com
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