10 WAYS SYNDICATION SET TALK RADIO BACK 20 YEARS

[smedge2006]

1. Hosts who refer to listeners as "folks", thus destroying the intimacy of radio
2. Hosts who tell you over and over that they're about to take a break
3. Long music beds that tell you a break is coming
4. Music beds in talk radio at all -- I mean really, isn't the content in talk radio supposed to be talk? If they wanted music they'd go to a music station
5. Rigid call screening that took the earliest truly interactive electronic medium and made it more one-way and passive, as other media were offering more interactivity.
6. Talk stations that are all syndicated
7. Talk stations that are all about ideology
8. Talk stations that are all about ONE ideology
9. Annihilation of local news by shows that start their content at six after
10. Shows changing stations and destroying stations that relied on them for 10 or 20 years

 

[TheBigA]

Blah blah blah, complain complain complain.

Most of the things on that list have nothing to do with syndication. You just don't like the state of talk radio today. And almost all those things were being done more than 20 years ago.

What's wrong with "folks?" Should the host address people individually? Or say, "Hello Houston?" Is that more intimate? Larry King used to address his callers by the city they were from. But I believe the idea of radio's intimacy is a myth anyway. The phone is more intimate.

Nothing wrong with music in talk. I think one of the mistakes in talk formats today is to assume it's all about news and politics, and you can't do a talk show about music or entertainment. Why not? One of the thing that helps Howard Stern is his use of hard rock. It provides brand identification for his audience.

The ideology thing is a problem, but once again, your complaint has nothing to do with syndication. Lots of syndicated shows that aren't one ideology, and radio stations choose not to carry them. Unfortunately one ideology works. The only other option is sports. One of the biggest problems with the American society is the lack of tolerance. You can't mix ideologies on a station because the audiences won;'t tolerate each other. Like combining classic country and rap. Get off my lawn! That's America today.

Your comment about local news is wrong. Talk shows that start at the top of the hour kill local news.

The REAL problem is that AM radio has been on life support for 25 years. The only thing that has kept it afloat outside of a couple dozen 50K flamethrowers in major markets has been syndication. Eliminate syndication, and you can kiss the AM band goodbye.

 

[Dr. Daliah]

I have to agree with The Big A, although I'm curious to know what the A stands for. Music breaks it up and makes the show fun. And most shows give ample break time for news.

However, AM Talk stations should at least have some local flavor and not have programming completely filled with syndicated shows. And can someone please do something about the crappy infomercials!

 

[MikefromDelaware]

What we're hearing is simply modern day "network radio". Granted it's not the rigid networks like CBS, NBC, Mutual, and ABC of by gone years, but just as with TV, many of the more popular shows are the "national shows". Frankly I'm not a fan of them, because I'm not into the one side political nature of most of that talk, but it is part of what's available on radio today.

Actually I listen to network radio everyday, as I'm a avid listener to NPR. Different strokes for different folks.

Many heritage AM stations are dropping the syndicated talkers during the work day and going more live and local, WBAL Baltimore, WDEL Wilmington Del, are only live and local during the dayparts. WPHT Philly only has Rush all other stuff is locally based, and I've read in other posts here too of other stations that are moving away from all syndicated shows. Of course, others are picking up those discarded shows as WBCM Baltimore and WILM Wilmington both picked up Rush/Hannity, and WILM just recently picked up Beck when Philly's WPHT dropped it.

I never hear anyone ever complain about why isn't there more local TV? Given the quality of much the TV networks air, it's a good question. But let's face it, both radio and TV are businesses and they'll air what they believe will bring the listener or viewer their advertisers want. So if airing Rush/Beck/Hannity will bring great ratings of the demo the advertisers want, then the biggest stations will air those shows. If the luster is fading as it appears to be, after a good run of over 20 years, maybe things are changing and the 2nd tier stations are going to be airing the so called big 3. It's all business. NPR that depends on donors also airs the type of programming that their audience wants or those folks will tune elsewhere and not send in their cash to pay for NPR. It's all business. So you don't like syndicated talk? You vote with the station selector.

 

[semoochie]

I think that the first point refers to taking broadcasting out of a one-to-one medium. We're all taught to speak to just one person and that one person is your audience. By saying "folks" or other plural reference, you lose that direct connection.

 

[jas2525]

What's wrong with "folks?" Should the host address people individually? Or say, "Hello Houston?" Is that more intimate? Larry King used to address his callers by the city they were from. But I believe the idea of radio's intimacy is a myth anyway. The phone is more intimate.

Gotta be honest...
Hosts refering to the audience in the plural bugged me looong before I ever got into the biz. It's about the audience member's perception, not the hosts. The host is imagining a big audience, while the listener is often times hearing you while alone.

This "intimacy" people refer to is not about imagining that the listener considers you their best friend, but rather about the broadcaster simply saying things in a tense that makes sense to a listener who is hearing you with only one set of ears, vs. listening in a room together with 100 other people.

If I was in an auditorium with a huge audience and the person on stage said "Hey Buffalo!" that would make sense in that moment because you are clearly part of a large group. If I'm listening through my earbuds to a guy on the radio saying "Hey Buffalo!" it feels like he's talking right past me. Nobody ever suggested that idea to me, it's just the way I've always perceived that personally.

It may seem like splitting hairs, but there is a difference in perception depending on how this is handled...and the nuance of this is truly lost on some.

Does it matter that much? No. But one definitely makes more sense in the ears of a listener, so why not do it?

 

[TheBigA]

Hosts refering to the audience in the plural bugged me looong before I ever got into the biz. It's about the audience member's perception, not the hosts. The host is imagining a big audience, while the listener is often times hearing you while alone.

Not necessarily. Radio is played in offices and stores. Not always one on one. It's back to dayparts. Perhaps the one-on-one works best at night. But not during the day.

 

[jas2525]

Hosts refering to the audience in the plural bugged me looong before I ever got into the biz. It's about the audience member's perception, not the hosts. The host is imagining a big audience, while the listener is often times hearing you while alone.

Not necessarily. Radio is played in offices and stores. Not always one on one. It's back to dayparts. Perhaps the one-on-one works best at night. But not during the day.

Actually, a significant portion of non-passive radio listening goes on in cars, where many people are alone.

In-store listening, if you can even make out what an announcer is saying, is pretty passive.

Also, why not error on the side of reason? If you're in a small group or a big audience and the host doesn't say "folks" or "Hi Buffalo", there's no harm, vs. talking past the lone listener with plural references.

 

[radioguy39nj]

6. Talk stations that are all syndicated

This is the problem with WABC. With the exception of Joe Crummey from 10 AM - 12 Noon, the station is all syndicated. WABC has always served as the flagship for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Hannity was PM drive host on WABC before he went national.

WOR isn't much better. It could nicely fill the market hole for mostly local programming that talks to the NY metro area, but it too is largely syndicated. That's a shame, since heritage three-letter calls such as WGN Chicago, WLW Cincinnati, KFI Los Angeles and KGO San Francisco are mostly live and local.

 

[radiobum]

Being 60 years old it seems almost 'sacreligious' to hear right wing talk show hosts using bumper music from The Beatles and Hendrix-among others.

 

[jas2525]

6. Talk stations that are all syndicated

This is the problem with WABC. With the exception of Joe Crummey from 10 AM - 12 Noon, the station is all syndicated. WABC has always served as the flagship for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Hannity was PM drive host on WABC before he went national.

WOR isn't much better. It could nicely fill the market hole for mostly local programming that talks to the NY metro area, but it too is largely syndicated. That's a shame, since heritage three-letter calls such as WGN Chicago, WLW Cincinnati, KFI Los Angeles and KGO San Francisco are mostly live and local.

WABC is a disgrace, as far as needlessly abandoning "local".

First of all, they aren't doing as well as they did when the station WAS all local.
Second, Of all the markets in the country, NYC is the most self contained---meaning, there are sooooo many very local issues that they needn't even acknowledge the rest of the world exists, and they'd still have plenty to talk about! But what are NY listeners treated to instead? Well, basically the same programming that somebody living in market# 285 would hear. Why? Because the braintrusts decided it's more reasonable to have THE most prominent talk station in the nation...be a turn-key operation. Sad.

You can hear more interesting local talk in just about ALL the other top 100 markets.

Truly a disgrace.

 

[TheBigA]

First of all, they aren't doing as well as they did when the station WAS all local.

When was that? Not anytime in the last 20 years. They've run Rush and Hannity for years. I'd suggest a lot has changed in the overall radio marketplace since then.

The fact is that going 100% local talk is no guarantee of success, because it will take a lot of money to hire quality local talent that can beat the national guys. You can't just put some 24 year old former Metro Traffic reporter and expect to get great numbers and make money. It takes a huge financial investment at a time when advertising is weak and AM is in decline.

Here's the truth: This station is owned by a company that just came out of bankruptcy. The new owners won't take control until August at the earliest. Nothing will change until then. My bet is the new owners will look to use the station as a base for more national talk. Perhaps rotating around from NY, LA, and SF. If there was money to be made doing local talk, someone would do it. The fact that no one, including Salem, is doing it says to me that people are overstating the potential for local talk in NYC. If there was a station that might do it, it would be WOR. Their biggest problem isn't that it's all syndicated, but that its audience is over 65.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Talk radio today, especially commercial national talk radio, has changed from years ago, where the caller was far more important. Today, those national shows are totally host driven. Basically they are "secular sermons". It's one thing for a host to have a short monologue at the beginning of the show to get the topic going, but Rush/Hannity/Beck take few calls. It's their lecture you're tuning in to hear, so why not say folks. He's on a stage preaching and you're in the audience soaking it all up. Rush brags about how he's the expert, and tells you what a risk to his broadcast career he's taking on open line Friday, because he implies that the audience is a bunch of idiots, etc, so if he just lets them talk about whatever, you'll tune elsewhere. He frankly doesn't even let most callers complete a sentence before jumping in to spin or sway the remarks in the direction he desires. Heaven forbid someone might see it differently than Rush/Beck/Hannity. But they are the big radio stars of today, so they can get away with that. So you hear 3-4 callers in the 3 hour show. That's a lot of preaching, even for Billy Graham. Image, some people listen to Beck/Rush/Hannity every day all day long. Talk about brain washing, albeit voluntary. But the bottom line is there, those three shows sell radio ads, bring in revenue, and up to now good ratings so they get to do it the way they want. That gravy train may be coming to an end as many heritage stations are going live and local and the second tier stations pick up the big 3, in Philly, no station within the Philly market is carrying Beck/Hannity.

So with that type of program (Rush/Beck/Hannity) isn't being sold as its just you and elRushbo. Now I've not picked up any of the local talkers in my market Philly/Wilmington using folks, hey Philly or hey Wilmington, etc. Local talk does seem to be less focused on the host and more focused on the issues, the community, and yes the callers, etc. Granted, some local callers are a pain, but if done right, you can use those local callers to help give that personal touch to the show as those folks are part of the local community, vs hearing a caller from the other side of the nation on Rush. So in fairness to the big 3, their shows are a different breed of cat from the local talk show, but maybe due to the larger than life presence of the host and his/her ego, it's a given.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Most of the things on that list have nothing to do with syndication. You just don't like the state of talk radio today. And almost all those things were being done more than 20 years ago.

Part of me is as agitated as Smedge, and part of me agrees with your response to his logic.

If there is something WORSE than today's syndicated talk radio, it is a local guy trying to prove he can run with "the big dogs" when he obviously doesn't have enough octane in his tank. Yes, everybody has to start somewhere but very few local talkers show much promise.

I don't think I have met the human being, or been in the presence of a human being, who can compile and organize 15 hours a week of political opinion that has integrity. Like the greasy spoon diner that takes just a tiny bit of ground beef and rolls it in with gobs of inert food materials of some kind, to do three hours a day, five days a week requires a talk host to back-fill with flotsam, debris, cheap-shots and filler material you don't want to let the F.D.A. test for integrity. Left wing or Right wing. The problem is the same.

If people wanted talk with integrity, C-Spans 3 channels combined would swamp the audience studies.

Which in turn means: I havent met the human being, or been in the presence of a human being who can decompile and make sense 15 hours a week of political talk filled with integrity.

When I was in college, 16 hours a week in the classroom was full-throttle and people who schedule 18 or 19 hours a week in the classroom ate Kryptonite for breakfast and changed clothes in a phone booth.


Syndication is NOT the problem. There are BAD farmers in the world... farmers that run very small farms using very small tractors can use practices that cause erosion and deplete the organic material out of the dirt. Other farmers go forth with big tractors that belch black diesel smoke and can plant or harvest a swath eight rows wide and they too can cause erosion and deplete organic material.

Syndication is just the diesel tractor teamed up in a pack of six tractors destroying the once fertile prairie much more decisively than the local talker with his two-row antique green popping Johnny with the bright yellow wheels.

In studying the family genealogy, it appears that for 150 to 200 years the American frontier was filled with farmers who had worn out the land and were moving on to find virgin land to molest. In my lifetime we have seen the end of that journey as farm families have finally learned to farm the same piece of land for 60, 100, 150 years.

Someday talk radio will learn that you can't win the philosophical battles if you keep burning the forest and then burning the prairie grass every year.

Cow manure is the farmer's friend. B.S. will someday be the death of talk radio as we know it.

 

[TheBigA]

Someday talk radio will learn that you can't win the philosophical battles if you keep burning the forest and then burning the prairie grass every year.

Cow manure is the farmer's friend. B.S. will someday be the death of talk radio as we know it.

Maybe. Rush changed talk radio, and the next phase hasn't happened yet. I suspect we're at the end of the Rush Era, but who knows.

I don't actually think anyone cares about philosophical battles. All they care about is making money. If they can make money with local talk, that's what they do. If they can't, they call in the outsiders. I agree that it's hard to compete against the "big dogs," as you put it. Those who can, and there are quite a few, expect to get paid a lot to do it. At some point, that salary becomes too much for a local station to handle. Next thing you know, Michael Smirconish has a syndicated talk show. That's how it happened. Now his big salary is spread over lots of stations. That's why there isn't local talk in NY. There are lots of great hosts, but they all want too much money for just one market. Plus they all have egos, and you can stroke a big ego by telling them they'll be heard coast to coast. That's the discussion that takes place in the corner office. I can promise you no one in that room cares if you call your audience "folks."

 

[jas2525]

I can promise you no one in that room cares if you call your audience "folks."

Let's not overblow the "folks" thing. All because someone is good at something doesn't mean evey aspect of their game is done right or with reason.

Great mechanics sometimes don't have the courtesy to wipe the grease off your door handle after they fixed your car.
Doesn't make them any less a talented mechanic, but handling details reasonably is what distinguishes polished pros from sloppy ones. Rush also bangs his counter. Sounds bush league...I don't care how great he does overall...it sounds lame. Not surprisingly, Hannity even copies THAT...lol.

It's a matter of the art of broadcasting itself, not in a stuffy way, but in a way that is void of such crutches as "folks" etc. etc.Especially since that crutch doesn't even make sense to a lone listener.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Great mechanics sometimes don't have the courtesy to wipe the grease off your door handle after they fixed your car. Doesn't make them any less a talented mechanic, but handling details reasonably is what distinguishes polished pros from sloppy ones. Rush also bangs his counter. Sounds bush league...I don't care how great he does overall...it sounds lame. Not surprisingly, Hannity even copies THAT...lol.

It's a matter of the art of broadcasting itself, not in a stuffy way, but in a way that is void of such crutches as "folks" etc. etc.Especially since that crutch doesn't even make sense to a lone listener.

What an excellent metaphor to help us sort out some of the details of this discussion.

By the way, welcome to Radio-Info. We look forward to an excellent post from you every day!

Since radio is a very personal thing, maybe it doesn't follow the same rules that affect a lot of other business transactions but your image of the mechanic may be spot on. Back when my father was teaching me how to twirl wrenches, and during that short phase in my life when I put groceries on the table rebuilding 4-barrel carburetors and solved the electrical automobile problems already screwed up by two previous techs, the car sometimes responded only to a mechanical genius... and we were willing to tolerata a grease spot now and then. But that was in the days of the Edsel.

Today a car is, like radio, a very personal thing. And if I drive a Lexus or a BMW or an Audi, I don't tolerate grease spots.

The automobile industry took lessons from the television appliance industry who discovered that you can't make your brand the captive of the neighborhood dufus with the little black case of tubes to swap out in hopes of fixing the set. You build a TV set, and now a car, that does not require a genius to repair. A disciplined, quality focused person of less than heroic characteristics will do just fine, thank you.

Today's dealership technician is not covered with grease and a red shop-rag hanging out of his rear pocket like the days of old. He/she follows a carefully authored service plan that is as much about grease spots and not returning the car to the owner with the radio tuned in to a station featuring table-saw bands turned full blast.

So which automobile owner is the metaphor of the radio listener in the next five years? The driver of the Lexus who expects the same kind of automobile pampering that he gets when he rents a $650 hotel room. or the driver like my son who buys 8 year old used cars on the cheap and drives them till the wheels fall off. He is probably on a first name basis with the sloppy mechanic you mentioned in your example. (Boy am I going to mess with his mind! When my son comes next week I think I will take him along the day I get the oil changed in my Lexus. ;D )

I suspect there are both kinds of listeners. I wonder which kind will respond to advertising and make the sponsors happy? And is that changing?

 

[Megacycler]

Good syndicated talk shows helped to buy medium and small market AM stations an extra 25 years of life. Rush Limbaugh wasn't nationally syndicated until August 1988, and then he didn't go to 3 hours until September 1990 just when Saddam Hussein decided to invade Kuwait. That gave him a big boost, along with Clinton's presidency giving him tons of material with which to work. Small and medium market AM's were all but dying until then.

Owners just weren't willing to put out the big money for decent local talk hosts because it was too risky (Cost vs benefits).
And to have a lowly paid host just taking open phone calls for the topic of the day doesn't do much for ratings.

Rush's success certainly led to copycats but thats radio. We all know that nobody copied Todd Storz and Bill Drake.

 

[radioguy39nj]

WABC is a disgrace, as far as needlessly abandoning "local".

First of all, they aren't doing as well as they did when the station WAS all local.
Second, Of all the markets in the country, NYC is the most self contained---meaning, there are sooooo many very local issues that they needn't even acknowledge the rest of the world exists, and they'd still have plenty to talk about! But what are NY listeners treated to instead? Well, basically the same programming that somebody living in market# 285 would hear. Why? Because the braintrusts decided it's more reasonable to have THE most prominent talk station in the nation...be a turn-key operation. Sad.

You can hear more interesting local talk in just about ALL the other top 100 markets.

Truly a disgrace.

One correction. WABC has never been 100% live and local since it became a talk station in 1982. In its early years in the format, about 50% of the programming originated on the West Coast.

I have listened online to talk stations in markets outside of NY and they are definitely more interesting and entertaining. Those stations are anywhere from 50-75% local. Are there more local issues to talk about in LA, Chicago, Seattle, Phoenix or SF? I think not!

 

[radioguy39nj]

If there was money to be made doing local talk, someone would do it. The fact that no one, including Salem, is doing it says to me that people are overstating the potential for local talk in NYC. If there was a station that might do it, it would be WOR. Their biggest problem isn't that it's all syndicated, but that its audience is over 65.

KGO SF and WGN Chicago are 100% local and usually lead the ratings in their markets. KFI LA, KIRO-FM Seattle and KTAR Phoenix are at least 50% local and do well. WPHT Philadelphia dropped Beck and Hannity to focus on more local programming.

Salem does hardly any local programming on any of its talk stations, so I don't think that's a good example. Not only is WOR's audience over 65, the programming is stale. The station needs to be reinvented, rejuvenated and moved to FM. Buckley will never do that, unfortunately.

If local talk programming can thrive in small and medium markets, there is no reason it can't do likewise in New York. WABC and WOR are ratings also-rans because they aren't talking to their market. CBS' three AMs (WFAN, WCBS & WINS) are profitable because they present news and sports programming that matter to the NY market.