Discussing or Being - Talk Radio

[Silkie]

Ignore is a good idea too, especially if you can't be bothered with nonsense personal messages and nonsense in general, but the posts of some are interesting.

 

[Avid Listener]

Well, since the big announcement was posted about playing nice and being polite, participation has dried up to almost nothing. I guess that proves that certain internet forums are much like news/talk format radio. Many people claim that they want polite, well-mannered, orderly discussions. But when the discussion gets polite, well-mannered, and orderly, the participation stops and it turns dead.

It's amazing how few of the people who used to whine and kvetch about how uncivil the discussions were getting in here are now absolutely silent. I guess if they couldn't whine about how rude everyone else was getting, they had nothing else to say.

 

[Small Market Guy]

Well, since the big announcement was posted about playing nice and being polite, participation has dried up to almost nothing. I guess that proves that certain internet forums are much like news/talk format radio. Many people claim that they want polite, well-mannered, orderly discussions. But when the discussion gets polite, well-mannered, and orderly, the participation stops and it turns dead.

It's amazing how few of the people who used to whine and kvetch about how uncivil the discussions were getting in here are now absolutely silent. I guess if they couldn't whine about how rude everyone else was getting, they had nothing else to say.

I was on vacation for 8 days, so there was nothing to twist and make up lies about. I bet things pick back up here in short order.

 

[JeffM]

I was on vacation for 8 days, so there was nothing to twist and make up lies about. I bet things pick back up here in short order.

I'm sure you'll take care of that now.

 

[boombox4]

There's a difference between stirring the pot and actually taking sides, and I think that's the problem. It's one thing to provide the platform for discussion, it's another to eliminate discussion completely and only promote an agenda.

I was watching the Stossel show on Fox over the weekend. He's an admitted Libertarian, and his topic was the differences between Libertarians and Conservatives. To do that, he had several reps of Conservative groups to talk about things like drug legalization and gambling. Libertarians don't believe in government regulation of either, but Conservatives do. So he was using his show to present both sides of the discussion. Great use of the medium. Not necessarily very dynamic or passionate. But he's not that kind of guy. He's more of a newsman with a perspective. That approach isn't going to attract the kind of numbers a more passionate host will get. Still, it's one way to do it.

This is a bit similar to how I remember talk radio used to be before Rush Limbaugh turned it into a monologue.

I remember in the mid 80's, you still had talk hosts who were firebrands, but they seemed to have more callers. Sometimes a host would dump a caller they didn't like, but there was usually more dialogue. More give and take. The host might have been very opinionated, but at least you'd hear the other side calling up to discuss, argue, etc., and you would hear a real dialogue on the radio.

After Rush became popular (and I liked his show to begin with, I thought it was entertaining), I noticed way too many hosts began to follow his routine, and it turned talk radio into monologue radio. Way too often, if the caller disagrees, they are immediately dumped off the air.

I think this is part of the problem with talk radio. Who wants to listen to a show you have next to zero chance of participating in, especially if you don't agree with the host? In the early to mid- 80's, I remember you'd hear all sorts of liberals calling conservative minded hosts, and vice versa. I think it made for better radio. More interactive.

Now it's more like a political infomercial. We have a local show that takes callers, but the national shows don't have that many and they're seem to be in agreement with the host. No dialogue.

Even the progressive hosts I'd listen to on the local progressive station (before it flipped to sports) didn't have that many callers on shows, and had very callers few who disagreed with them.

No dialogue. Whatever happened to dialogue?

You guys in radio, who program stations, work in the field: what are your thoughts on this aspect?

 

[TheBigA]

You guys in radio, who program stations, work in the field: what are your thoughts on this aspect?

It's a generational thing. The "dialogue" you referred to went out of style in the 90s. The goal was to get edgy. Edgy led to angry.

Now angry is out of style.

 

[JeffM]

So where do you go beyond angry?

 

[TheBigA]

So where do you go beyond angry?

I don't think that's the option.

 

[JeffM]

I don't think that's the option.

I hope not too, but that's the way the suits will be thinking.

 

[TheBigA]

I hope not too, but that's the way the suits will be thinking.

I don't see that happening. The suits in particular are the ones complaining about angry talk hurting advertising. They're certainly not going to crank things up any higher.

 

[Small Market Guy]

The suits in particular are the ones complaining about angry talk hurting advertising.

The suits and out of work jocks on the Internet.