Has Talk Radio reached it's peak?

[tothedj]

After reading the various posts concerning the biggest talk hosts being dropped in Philadelphia, New York City,
Atlanta, and other markets, is talk radio beginning to reach it's peak?, it sounds like we might see a trend toward
more "local" hosts, or other shows that doesn't dwell on the same subjects over and over, while this format has
it's benefits, there is time and place to adjust, as long as it doesn't diminish what we need to know.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Because stations are replacing Hannity and Savage with local hosts, talk radio must be on the decline? Am I reading that correctly? If I am, it sounds bass-ackwards to me.

 

[MattParker]

Interesting that the syndicated hosts have tried to convince their followers that a move back to local talk means the end of talk radio - and that somehow an evil leftist government must be behind it. No. It's only a blow to the egos - and bank accounts - of a few syndicated hosts. It might actually be good for talk radio.

 

[johnbasalla]

How well talk radio does on FM stations will help determine if it has reached its peak.

 

[mescutia]

Maybe it just means that political talk radio has reached its peak.

 

[MattParker]

Or that syndicated talk has reached its peak....
Or that Rushesque ideological talk has reached its peak....
Or that these particular hosts have reached their peaks.

Radio, like most media, operate on the principle that nothing succeeds like excess. After resisting picking up a syndicated show when Rush first went on satellite, stations not only embraced him but wanted more of the same. There were a lot of hosts (and producers) who tried. Most didn't last. Hannity was the first to develop any kind of traction, followed by Beck. Like TV westerns, it was just too much for too long and people got tired of it.

Until the 90s, there weren't that many talk stations. Not because of the Fairness Doctrine, as some like to claim. Because talk is an expensive format to produce and it's hard to find people who do it well. So talk was limited to big stations in big markets. Satellite syndication made talk available to smaller stations in smaller markets. There will probably a place for syndicated talk on such stations for a while yet. But for those major market blow torches, syndicated political talk's audience is getting smaller, older and harder to sell to advertisers. Prices for syndicated shows have gone up; revenue from them has gone down. It becomes harder to cost-justify syndicated talk over live and local. Here's where it gets tricky: Where do these stations go for the next generation of hosts and producers after big time radio has destroyed its own farm system?

 

[johnbasalla]

I'm waiting for some big 50,000 watt secular stations to become brokered hell holes.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

What goes around comes around.

They would be fitting into the shoes of the Mexican super-power blow-torches of 50 years ago.

Where I grew up you could hear those things being demodulated by your bed springs at night!

 

[mescutia]

Vegas just had a small ..Ingram, Medved, Hewitt, Humphries talk station, KDOX, switch to Music oldies, and the other major talk stations in town don't do well as those in other parts of the country...check out Vegas ratings.. kxnt and kdwn are way down the list if you include FM stations,

I would think that people are more interested in other things besides talk radio in Vegas.

Just sayin'.

 

[Talk_Dude]

Vegas just had a small ..Ingram, Medved, Hewitt, Humphries talk station, KDOX, switch to Music oldies, and the other major talk stations in town don't do well as those in other parts of the country...check out Vegas ratings.. kxnt and kdwn are way down the list if you include FM stations,

I would think that people are more interested in other things besides talk radio in Vegas.

Just sayin'.

You're confusing the people who live and work in Vegas with the tourists who visit there.

 

[Legend City]

I have all but given up on talk radio, I realized that its nothing more than cheap entertainment.

Get you invested ("I'm just like you!"), get you angry ("those nasty liberals/conservatives"), offer nothing but anger, and keep stringing you along.

Talk radio is not about informing the public, its about whipping them into a frenzy and getting ratings.

 

[johnbasalla]

It depends on the host. Dennis Prager never has offered "nothing but anger", although some issues can get him upset. I've heard a number of local hosts who don't whip listeners into a frenzy. Of course a talk show host could only whip a whippable person into a frenzy to begin with.
I think its OK to try to get listeners invested, as that's a way to increase TSL and have them come back for more the next day.

 

[TheBigA]

If all of talk radio were to disappear tomorrow, it wouldn't eliminate the email chains that go on inventing all kinds of crazy conspiracies. I'd suggest those email chains are far more destructive than anything on talk radio.

 

[Legend City]

It depends on the host. Dennis Prager never has offered "nothing but anger", although some issues can get him upset. I've heard a number of local hosts who don't whip listeners into a frenzy. Of course a talk show host could only whip a whippable person into a frenzy to begin with.
I think its OK to try to get listeners invested, as that's a way to increase TSL and have them come back for more the next day.

Prager isn't one of the bad guys, neither is Dennis Miller. The most egregious are Rush, Beck, Hannity, Savage, Maltzberg, Levine. Its become WWF Wrestling, its all fake, and it means nothing.

 

[TheBigA]

Here's some of what Rush said today with regards to talk radio being the cause of Saturday's shooting:

[urlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/rush-bails-water-arizona_n_806912.html][/url]

 

[Drucifer]

No.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

No.

If "No" is the answer, where do you see Talk Radio going? What will change? If Talk Radio is still working toward a peak beyond where it is, what will be the attributes of the peak when we see it? Will the peak be good for our civilization, or will the peak cause us to shake our heads in disgust?

 

[mescutia]

I have all but given up on talk radio, I realized that its nothing more than cheap entertainment.

Yeah, I gave up on talk radio a few years ago... around the same time I started getting into podcasts.

 

[Ultimajock]

Here's some of what Rush said today with regards to talk radio being the cause of Saturday's shooting:

]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/rush-bails-water-arizona_n_806912.html]

..."The guy listened to heavy metal, and some of that anarchist stuff." So vicious ****** rhetoric on broadcast and cable can't possibly make people do bad things, but Ozzy Osbourne is a General in the Armies of Evil. It's not relevant at all that Chuck Harder was distributing "militia" propaganda to hundreds of rural stations around the country, and one of the listeners reached by it was Terry Nichols. Sure, Rush. And the fact that the four hate talk outlets in Tucson combined can't attract 8% of the available audience, and two of those stations can't individually attract one out of every hundred listeners. I've encountered patches of fog that have more real substance than Limbaugh's arguments...

 

[MattParker]

The question should be when did talk radio reach its peak? It was a while ago. None of these people are doing anything new, different or original - a sure sign of a programming form why past its prime. Most of them are imitating Rush, and Rush is imitating Jeff Christie and Morton Downey, Jr. (his predecessor in Sacramento, who was in turn imitating Joe Pyne and Wally George).

It's audience is limited to the angry, old down-scale White folks demo. It's client-base is the bottom-feeder advertisers targeting that demo. And show prep is hand-outs from the Republican National Committee.

What afflicts talk radio is not much different from what afflicts all radio. Talk radio is so far past its "peak," it's finished its cigarette and fallen asleep.