COAST-TO-COAST AM Sounding Arthritic

[Kelly A]

Sadly, many of the newcomers seem to be weaker in the "old" basic skills than previous generations of newsies, leading me to wonder if those skills have been de-emphasized in college to the point of near-irrelevance.

Ultimately the goal is to attract listeners/viewers/readers. One could argue that teaching the 'old ways' of journalism should be limited to a academic history lesson, not necessarily relevant to what media companies are looking for in an applicant.

I work for a well known major media company. If you surfed the qualifications and position descriptions of openings, someone in the traditional radio or TV business wouldn't recognize them. On the technical side; gone are traditional experience or training. If you have a Cisco CCIE certification, or a registered AWS architect, you'll stand a marked better chance at being hired, than experience with transmitters, audio, or SDI video. Same goes with journalists. If you've got over 10,000 subscribers to your vlog or social media presence, present well from an aesthetics point of view, then you're the next reporter or host on TV or radio.

 

[CTListener]

Ultimately the goal is to attract listeners/viewers/readers. One could argue that teaching the 'old ways' of journalism should be limited to a academic history lesson, not necessarily relevant to what media companies are looking for in an applicant.

I work for a well known major media company. If you surfed the qualifications and position descriptions of openings, someone in the traditional radio or TV business wouldn't recognize them. On the technical side; gone are traditional experience or training. If you have a Cisco CCIE certification, or a registered AWS architect, you'll stand a marked better chance at being hired, than experience with transmitters, audio, or SDI video. Same goes with journalists. If you've got over 10,000 subscribers to your vlog or social media presence, present well from an aesthetics point of view, then you're the next reporter or host on TV or radio.

Sizzle > steak.

 

[Mikey Radio]

So is the problem AM radio or is it the programming? Younger people used to find late night talk shows on AM stations even if they didn't listen to the station during the day (preferring music elsewhere). Young people are up late - its a prime audience to go after. If the programming is old, anemic and boring then it won't attract them. Much of the radio industry seems in the mode of cutting costs rather than trying to build for the future. The future Rush, Larry King and Art Bell may have been let go a year or two ago and are selling real estate now. I think there is a talent pool out there in the podcast, tik tok and youtube space that radio should look at. Some of these people may want to expand their brand with an evening or overnight talk show and could use their social media platform to promote that. But the iHearts, Audacies, Cumulus, etc. of the world seem to only know about slashing and burning. AM radio - "its on the the way out anyway so let's make it a self fulfilling prophesy by adding more infomercials, more recorded loops of news that is 6 hours old and just drain the last bits of cash out". Just drive the audience away to other media - who cares so long as the execs can keep cashing big checks until they retire.

It's also the fact that the world has changed - A lot. There many more things to do in modern times than listen to the radio, and entertainment preferences are very different. Since folks earlier in this thread mentioned Larry King and felt he was the last of the great late night / overnight hosts, let's look at his era specifically: He was on the air from 1976 to 1994. During the first 10 years of his reign, our home didn't have CATV and we got fewer than 10 channels of OTA TV. Personal computers didn't exist. I didn't sign onto the internet for the first time until 1993 (hello, free AOL floppys and a 2400 baud dial up modem). A lot of my spare/free time at home was spent in front of the TV, watching VHS movies and listening to the radio - sometimes in the background while I was working on projects or hobbies.

Now, if 1 I watch 1 hour of TV per week, that's a lot for me. I spend far more time in front of my computer or on my Smartphone. I haven't listened to talk programming on the radio in years, mostly because most everything in my area is right-wing drivel and in the car, options like streaming, SiriusXM and small-format MP3 players have opened up worlds of programming that never existed in King's time. You mentioned young people that are up late. Many younger "kids" have no idea what OTA radio is, especially talk. They're glued to their Smartphones. Social media like TikTok, IG, Snapchat and others have their attention, as well as messaging friends, schoolmates and the like. There was also no such thing as "gaming" back in King's era, aside from things like Atari in the 80s and systems like Nintendo that were around - Certainly nothing like the systems that have come to market since King's show went off. Steaming movies and addictive (for some) series and "binge watching" via the internet or subscription service didn't exist back then, either.

 

[davideduardo]

So is the problem AM radio or is it the programming? Younger people used to find late night talk shows on AM stations even if they didn't listen to the station during the day (preferring music elsewhere).

I've never seen any evidence of that in actual ratings going back to the 70's for late night (10 PM to Midnight) and, after Arbitron started adding Midnight to 6 AM tables, in overnights.

Young people are up late - its a prime audience to go after.

The biggest late night and overnight adult audience is shift workers and truckers. Not younger people.

If the programming is old, anemic and boring then it won't attract them.

It never did.

Much of the radio industry seems in the mode of cutting costs rather than trying to build for the future. The future Rush, Larry King and Art Bell may have been let go a year or two ago and are selling real estate now. I think there is a talent pool out there in the podcast, tik tok and youtube space that radio should look at. Some of these people may want to expand their brand with an evening or overnight talk show and could use their social media platform to promote that.

The problem here is the same as many of us saw or witnessed when we tried to have standup comedians do morning shows. Those guys are great for, maybe, an hour in a live show. But they do the same show over and over... the same hour of content. When they have to do 20 hours a week, nearly 100 hours a month of original content, they fall flat by day 2 in most cases. Same with podcasters. They can do 15 minutes each day or a couple of times a week, but they can't do hour after hour.

But the iHearts, Audacies, Cumulus, etc. of the world seem to only know about slashing and burning. AM radio - "its on the the way out anyway so let's make it a self fulfilling prophesy by adding more infomercials, more recorded loops of news that is 6 hours old and just drain the last bits of cash out". Just drive the audience away to other media - who cares so long as the execs can keep cashing big checks until they retire.

AM is dead for a variety of reasons. First, it sounds bad... that is why so many AMs are only on the air to validate an FM translator. Second, in the top 100 markets there are less than 90 stations that cover 80% or more of the market day and night. All the rest have severe signal issues, and as noise increases on AM, their coverage shrinks even more. Third, it's been 40 years since anything on AM has appealed to younger people (except, maybe, sports) so there is no habit of listening.

 

[Bongwater]

I realize that Coast-to-Coast AM with George Noory is a very successful show, but man alive, I have been listening to the show over the past several days and the show sounds really arthritic and old and dingy. It has gone past what I call "appointment radio." The top of the show isn't bad when Noory covers big news stories, but then it dies, dies, dies, dead.
The only people who the show might appeal to anymore have to be 55+-to-dead....
Ideas?

First, this show is about 30 years old. That's about 100 in radio years. And honestly? It kinda shows.

Second, conspiracy/spook spreading methods have changed decades ago. With (mostly still) AM radio, you have to wait until the dead of night to get your fix. But with free and mostly easy to use video/podcast editing software, anyone's their own Art Bell. Or Alex Jones. 24/7.

Truthfully, as successful as Coast to Coast AM has been for an older generation, social media is even more so now for modern conspiracy/spook needs. Including and most increasingly 55+.

One could write as long as they like before carpal tunnel sets in. More people will know what they have to say anytime than those who are just up chain smoking at 11pm Pacific/2am Eastern.

And best of all, there's no more waiting behind Jerry in Port Orchard (West of The Rockies) who's pig-biting mad at them choppers of The New World Order buzzing around his house every night, turning his chickens gay before George gets to the chupacabra problem on their property and how one of them almost bit Lurleen.

(To paraphrase that famous old ABC-TV Network News closing liner of the 1980s "More Americans Get Their News from SuperSecretStuffTheGovtDoesntWantYouToKnowAbout1776BuyCrypto.facebook Than From Any Other Source")

 

[sdwulfdawg]

I'm thinking that the word "anemic" would better describe the show.

Nailed it!
The show "shuffles" than "sprints" as it should be. When I was studying broadcasting in my first degree, the rule in talk radio is that you let the listener say what they want in one go around, then the host picks up on the best points, discusses them, then release the call. The same goes for an interview. Let the person say their piece, then pick up the conversation of the most interesting points and go with it there. Otherwise, the show DRRRRRRRRR-AAAAAGS!

 

[brettbutlerisok]

Nailed it!
The show "shuffles" than "sprints" as it should be. When I was studying broadcasting in my first degree, the rule in talk radio is that you let the listener say what they want in one go around, then the host picks up on the best points, discusses them, then release the call. The same goes for an interview. Let the person say their piece, then pick up the conversation of the most interesting points and go with it there. Otherwise, the show DRRRRRRRRR-AAAAAGS!

That's exactly what Art was so good at. If a caller wasn't getting to the point he would become very annoyed and it was entertaining! He was skeptical sometimes too. Georgy Noory just kisses ass (callers and guests alike) and sounds like he's ready to believe just about anything. It's boring. No tension.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

That's exactly what Art was so good at. If a caller wasn't getting to the point he would become very annoyed and it was entertaining! He was skeptical sometimes too. Georgy Noory just kisses ass (callers and guests alike) and sounds like he's ready to believe just about anything. It's boring. No tension.

Phil Hendrie would also get extremely perturbed....

YOu would make a great program director....

 

[Kelly A]

That's exactly what Art was so good at. If a caller wasn't getting to the point he would become very annoyed and it was entertaining!

And what a good host does. Keep the show moving.

 

[boombox4]

The biggest late night and overnight adult audience is shift workers and truckers. Not younger people.

Younger people don't work late nights or swing shift? That's news to me.

The younger people who work late nights probably don't listen to AM radio during those hours because they don't listen to radio, period -- but that's a different issue, I suppose.

As for the problem of getting younger people into radio, why should they?

Why should they want to work for any radio (or other mass media) company, when they can simply make their own content and make money off of that content without being employed by a company that'll just get rid of them the next time there's a downturn or the CEO decides it's time to do some cost cutting (usually just before Christmas)?

Look around on YouTube. There are probably thousands of content creators who have already bypassed the ancient model, mass media company dinosaur. In the early to mid 2000s enterprising journalism students started bypassing the ancient model, news media dinosaur. Some of them may have not made much money, but then you don't make much money working for a local newspaper that has next to zero revenue, and has already been bypassed by social media like Nextdoor dot com.

The business model's changed. In 2022 Radio is still a money making entity, but its days are numbered. Which young person in their right mind would want to work in radio now? Like KellyA said, it's all smartphones and TikTok and other related media. An enterprising young journo today would bypass the whole media company model and instead, just take it straight to the people. After all -- the only device you need for that is a smartphone. There's no real point in going to journalism school now. Just a few writing classes should suffice. But then again, when Twitter is considered a news source, you don't even need writing courses. Just to be able to type stuff out on your smart phone.... autocorrect will take care of any mistakes.

It's a whole new world.

The quality of the journalism has declined because of it, but that's apparently not an issue anymore, as I've observed, and as CTListener can probably agree. Journalism as we knew it, and as we were trained in it, is on the way out.

RE: Back to George Noory: Over the past couple weeks there have been a couple interviews that were interesting: one with an author talking about sharks and great sea creatures, and another interview with an ex-mafioso, and another one with an Elvis expert (talking about the new Elvis movie and other things). When C2C veers away from the paranormal, the show can still be very interesting. A lot of the paranormal stuff I tune out, as it's like hearing the exact same thing I've heard 50X over by now.

 

[davideduardo]

Younger people don't work late nights or swing shift? That's news to me.

I was referring to teens.

The younger people who work late nights probably don't listen to AM radio during those hours because they don't listen to radio, period -- but that's a different issue, I suppose.

Nobody under about 50 listens to AM unless the market's only sports station is AM only.

As for the problem of getting younger people into radio, why should they?

Younger people get into radio when it is part of a multimedia platform.

Why should they want to work for any radio (or other mass media) company, when they can simply make their own content and make money off of that content without being employed by a company that'll just get rid of them the next time there's a downturn or the CEO decides it's time to do some cost cutting (usually just before Christmas)?

What will happen is the same as occurred in the late 1920's when the Federal Radio Commission cleared the hobbyist stations off the band. Today, it will not be the FCC but the rights organizations that will leave it all to only the big players.

Look around on YouTube. There are probably thousands of content creators who have already bypassed the ancient model, mass media company dinosaur. In the early to mid 2000s enterprising journalism students started bypassing the ancient model, news media dinosaur. Some of them may have not made much money, but then you don't make much money working for a local newspaper that has next to zero revenue, and has already been bypassed by social media like Nextdoor dot com.

But the bigger threat is the near domination of the bigger players. And anything small that is growing, they will buy.

The business model's changed. In 2022 Radio is still a money making entity, but its days are numbered. Which young person in their right mind would want to work in radio now? Like KellyA said, it's all smartphones and TikTok and other related media. An enterprising young journo today would bypass the whole media company model and instead, just take it straight to the people. After all -- the only device you need for that is a smartphone. There's no real point in going to journalism school now. Just a few writing classes should suffice. But then again, when Twitter is considered a news source, you don't even need writing courses. Just to be able to type stuff out on your smart phone.... autocorrect will take care of any mistakes.

One of the biggest obstacles is in music programming. There is no profitable model with pure ad-supported music streaming, so a huge portion of the world's population that can't afford paid music services is SOL.

 

[boombox4]

That's exactly what Art was so good at. If a caller wasn't getting to the point he would become very annoyed and it was entertaining! He was skeptical sometimes too. Georgy Noory just kisses ass (callers and guests alike) and sounds like he's ready to believe just about anything. It's boring. No tension.

True, but Art Bell still often acted like he believed a lot of the bunk that was said by guests and even some callers.

He took some heat for the Hale-Bopp Comet / Heaven's Gate debacle, which he didn't cause, obviously, but I remember hearing the interview in question and Art wasn't sounding as skeptical as I would have preferred.

Most of the tension on the show was between Art and Charlie the Liberal from California. I wondered what happened to that guy.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

Art Bell was a TRUE legend!

 

[Kelly A]

True, but Art Bell still often acted like he believed a lot of the bunk that was said by guests and even some callers.

As time progressed, he actually did believe the schlock he was peddling. As time, and many years of working nights wore on, Bell was losing it. After all; if all you interact most of your waking hours with loon's, guess what happens?

He took some heat for the Hale-Bopp Comet / Heaven's Gate debacle, which he didn't cause, obviously, but I remember hearing the interview in question and Art wasn't sounding as skeptical as I would have preferred.

That's because he bought the whole thing hook, line, and sinker. Next came the anxiety of questioning his own sanity, while still having to play to the fears to keep an audience. Combine that with no social life outside of a mail-order bride and ham radio? He became a recluse and it all went downhill from there.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

He took some heat for the Hale-Bopp Comet / Heaven's Gate debacle, which he didn't cause, obviously, but I remember hearing the interview in question and Art wasn't sounding as skeptical as I would have preferred.

I didn't hear about this....what happened with that?

 

[Kelly A]

I didn't hear about this....what happened with that?

Basically predicting the end of the world:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1997/02/23/talk-radios-comet-caper/0cd6bb47-04eb-40cb-ba1a-044941f917c3/

 

[Dondd]

Most of the tension on the show was between Art and Charlie the Liberal from California. I wondered what happened to that guy.

... or that "preacher" who would call Art and rant and chastise him.

I heard Charlie the Liberal (the caller's description of himself) on a recent Art Bell rerun.
He made a lot of sense and didn't swallow the talk radio mob's suffocating conservative indoctrination.
I too, wonder what happened to him.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Given that Art Bell last hosted C2C on a regular basis 20 years ago, and the demographics that talk radio has always attracted, I would assume many of his regular callers are no longer walking the earth.

 

[Kelly A]

Given that Art Bell last hosted C2C on a regular basis 20 years ago, and the demographics that talk radio has always attracted, I would assume many of his regular callers are no longer walking the earth.

That's a safe assumption. And more are dropping to the other side everyday.

 

[gr8oldies]

Ultimately the goal is to attract listeners/viewers/readers. One could argue that teaching the 'old ways' of journalism should be limited to a academic history lesson, not necessarily relevant to what media companies are looking for in an applicant.

I work for a well known major media company. If you surfed the qualifications and position descriptions of openings, someone in the traditional radio or TV business wouldn't recognize them. On the technical side; gone are traditional experience or training. If you have a Cisco CCIE certification, or a registered AWS architect, you'll stand a marked better chance at being hired, than experience with transmitters, audio, or SDI video. Same goes with journalists. If you've got over 10,000 subscribers to your vlog or social media presence, present well from an aesthetics point of view, then you're the next reporter or host on TV or radio.

You'd never write like you would for radio. The idea seems to be to write in circles, never getting to the point, so readers will see more ads until they get to the end or give up in frustration