The use of popular music from the decade before last as bumper music.
Yes, I know, that mimics exactly what stations targeting the same demo (30's, the leading edge of the mainstream right-wing talk audience) would do. Which is exactly the problem.
Talk radio has never really developed its own school of programming -- which is why unique talk radio institutions are so rare -- which in a way is one reason why syndication is so common. Talk just glommed onto music radio hot clocks and tried to shoehorn them around spoken words, developing faulty analogies such as "callers are records." Especially today with consolidation, many if not most talk program directors are actually running several FM music stations and the talker is an afterthought. Thus these music PD's trying to program something they don't understand return to a familiar crutch -- putting bumpers of the same limited playlists that make up their music libraries in rotation.
Do these "PD's" really think people searching for talk radio (who by definition are getting tired of music on radio -- talk's audience is a subset of the radio universe, it's not pulling people in from other media who didn't listen to radio already) are trying to hear "Heart of Rock n Roll", "She Drives Me Crazy", "Master of Puppets", and the other 80's gems that are associated with talk radio -- sometimes heard on SEVERAL shows simultaneously.
Yes, I know, that mimics exactly what stations targeting the same demo (30's, the leading edge of the mainstream right-wing talk audience) would do. Which is exactly the problem.
Talk radio has never really developed its own school of programming -- which is why unique talk radio institutions are so rare -- which in a way is one reason why syndication is so common. Talk just glommed onto music radio hot clocks and tried to shoehorn them around spoken words, developing faulty analogies such as "callers are records." Especially today with consolidation, many if not most talk program directors are actually running several FM music stations and the talker is an afterthought. Thus these music PD's trying to program something they don't understand return to a familiar crutch -- putting bumpers of the same limited playlists that make up their music libraries in rotation.
Do these "PD's" really think people searching for talk radio (who by definition are getting tired of music on radio -- talk's audience is a subset of the radio universe, it's not pulling people in from other media who didn't listen to radio already) are trying to hear "Heart of Rock n Roll", "She Drives Me Crazy", "Master of Puppets", and the other 80's gems that are associated with talk radio -- sometimes heard on SEVERAL shows simultaneously.
