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Content Conflict

A

azjason

Programming question for news/talk stations:

How do you effectively ensure topics on one show discusses/covers,etc... isn't the same one on the next show? Typically shows/hosts work so independently that they don't know what else is happening outside their own prep. And the end result is the same show, over and over. You can argue that the personalities make it different, or there might be a different angle, or the topic is just so big it warrants it... but is there a good way to foster effective communication between the shows to ensure you don't have a broken record?

Or maybe no one has this problem and I am in a worse position than I thought!!!

Thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

jason
 
My solution would be to specifically program a station with different topics that your target demo will enjoy in different dayparts. I'd generally put a news show in 5-6 AM, general entertainment from 6-9, local talk 9-Noon, sports talk Noon-3, political talk 3-6 (or you could flip the last two), news 6-7, another political show (possibly from a neutral viewpoint or one opposing the view in the 3-6 show) 7-10, general entertainment or comedy (I tend to favor the latter) 10-1, then one of the usual overnight options 1-5. As for how to keep the topics apart on the shows that might cover the same topic, the only way to do so would be to have those shows stay local and have the hosts talk over their prep with each other each morning. Possibly even have them prep together so that they know they aren't going to be covering the same thing twice in a day.
 
I tend to agree with Josh C. on the morning drive aspect. It needs to be a mix of news/weather/sports/entertainment with an upbeat approach. Once you get into the remainder of the day, that's mainly dictated by how you want to position you station. If you're news/talk, that's doesn't mean you can't talk about a local or state sports story that may be of some controversy, but when you're talking issues I think that you may not, necessarily, have a problem when the topic flows from one show to another if it happens to be one of major interest to your audience. In some cases, you can determine whether to stay with a 'hot' topic by the response you're getting on the call-ins. If you're attracting a larger TSL with the topic, you may want the next shift to continue with that topic. I've heard situations with national talk shows from the networks where a personality has dropped his prepared topic for the previous show's topic just because it's such a 'hot' topic and deserves further disucssion. It might not be a bad idea to have your personalities discuss their prepared topics, but if they're professionals at doing their job, they should be able to make the decision as to whether a topic needs to be continued. Most of the time, these topics are related to local issues that affect a large group of people within the community, such as political, environmental and health issues, fire and police protection, taxes, etc. I wouldn't write off a large portion of listenership by changing to a topic of less importance. It's a judgement call.
 
What's interesting that wasn't discussed was the rotation of hot topics within one program. A 4-hour program is going to have a lot of audience turn over between the start and end of the program. If you were programming a hit music station, you would want the audience to hear the hits as soon as they turned on the radio (thus the high repetition of current music on today's chr/hit music stations). While news/talk programming may have a different approach, some of the same theories of radio need to apply. Just because you spent 20 minutes on a hot topic in the first hour of your show, doesn't mean it's forgotten about for the rest of the show. Hot topics need to be recycled through the program as well as through the day. And don't forget...in most cases, your different hosts are going to be able to add different insight and perspective to the topic. Therefore, if done correctly, it should stay fresh through out the day.
 
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