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Nationally syndicated host: Rush Limbaugh "devastating to our survival"
- Thread starter denverradiodude
- Start date
A station I used to listen to overnight carried Doug Stephan's bright-and-bubbly-oh-so-cheery-sugary-gushy "Good Morning!" show. The show was so Polyanna and over-the-top-cheerful that I recall waking up and wanting to smash the radio. I recently heard his "Countdown" show while on vacation -- equally brainless and disgusting.
Stephan's points about Limbaugh are no doubt correct, but his model for what talk radio should become is the other extreme. His relative lack of success over the same 25 years may show that his act isn't especially attractive to audiences and advertisers.
Rather than swing the pendulum completely in the opposite direction, talk radio needs more hosts who know how to implement the format in a less partisan and more issue-oriented way -- not hosts who resort to assigning numbers to stories because they have no opinions or passion about them.
Stephan's points about Limbaugh are no doubt correct, but his model for what talk radio should become is the other extreme. His relative lack of success over the same 25 years may show that his act isn't especially attractive to audiences and advertisers.
Rather than swing the pendulum completely in the opposite direction, talk radio needs more hosts who know how to implement the format in a less partisan and more issue-oriented way -- not hosts who resort to assigning numbers to stories because they have no opinions or passion about them.
Talk Radio is its own worst enemy. Putting gasbags like Rush on the air gives the whole genre a bad name and evidently has resulted in an advertiser exodus. I'm not even in the biz and I saw this coming. Advertisers who want customers are going to be tied to the programs they sponsor. If that program offends common sensibilities or crosses the line too many times the results are predictable.
I see one area that seems to be missing (at least in my market) and that is LOCAL talk. Issues that affect my community. It could be local politics, crime, schools, infrastructure or a hundred other things. It seems talk radio is focused only upon national issues - things that everyone has an opinion upon but no one seems to have control over. It's like talking endlessly about the weather.
I see one area that seems to be missing (at least in my market) and that is LOCAL talk. Issues that affect my community. It could be local politics, crime, schools, infrastructure or a hundred other things. It seems talk radio is focused only upon national issues - things that everyone has an opinion upon but no one seems to have control over. It's like talking endlessly about the weather.
Funny...I started saying the same thing three years ago. Tried pitching the idea to radio execs. They all said "Talk needs to be conservative to attract a large enough audience." The model is totally based on white male conservative talkers. Others have tried an all-female network and an all-progressive network. Both went belly-up.
Someone needs to be first. Someone big needs to take a chance. Take a risk with talk that isn't political or conservative. Sports Talk is the logical successor to political talk. But it doesn't need to stop there. Stephan points to TV talk shows, and how successful they are. Yet no one in radio does what they do on TV. Why? Even Oprah's radio show lacked the intensity of her TV show. There seems to be an opening, but no one's willing to take the risk.
Someone needs to be first. Someone big needs to take a chance. Take a risk with talk that isn't political or conservative. Sports Talk is the logical successor to political talk. But it doesn't need to stop there. Stephan points to TV talk shows, and how successful they are. Yet no one in radio does what they do on TV. Why? Even Oprah's radio show lacked the intensity of her TV show. There seems to be an opening, but no one's willing to take the risk.
TheBigA said:
I've asked this question before. Why do talk shows need to be about politics and why do political talk shows need to be either conservative or progressive? If the idea is to attract only those listeners who agree with the host/subjects then you are starting off by limiting your audience size. Or is the conservative information bubble so dense that conservatives will only listen to support their points of view and nothing else?
Talk radio should be about interesting subjects. Historical perspectives, problem exposure and resolution, in-depth coverage of local and state politics (issues, not personalities or opinion). We have so many problems in our society today and none of this hits the news except at election time and then most of that is just noise. As newspapers fade away talk radio has an opportunity to step in and become informative. Use the old very entertaining format that Paul Harvey used - with callers or without (personally I would appreciate guests with appropriate knowledge rather than callers).
TheBigA said:
TV talk shows are mostly just blather. Women's health, fashion, Hollywood personalities etc. I would think putting this type of programming on the radio would bore most people to death since so much of the subject areas require visual as well as audio. I haven't seen a serious TV talk show since Dick Cavett went off the air. If his show were reinvented on radio it might well develop a following. Or....and this is the bad news for radio....it might not, because the younger audiences today consider radio only for music and perhaps sports and every other subject needs to be visual.
landtuna said:
Name one success that wasn't. That's what I get all the time. Any new show has to fit the format. Another type of show would be like playing Pitbull on a country station. Bieber on a classic rock station.
landtuna said:
Zzzzzzzzz...sounds like PBS. "Let's examine the problems in the Punjab." Like needles in the eyeballs.
There's a reason why no one's done a show like Cavett...it was a flop.
There are ways to do talk radio that are ENTERTAINING, not educational. That's what I'm talking about.
TheBigA said:
Limbaugh used to do exactly that - until Republican politicians started kissing his backside and he became drunk with power. Starting in 1994, he was no longer strictly an entertainer; he became an influential voice in the Republican Party. Whether he wants to admit it or not, his views do shape the opinions of what is now a shrinking Republican electorate.
He was at his best during the Clinton years. Even when his political clout got bigger, he still managed to have an entertaining show. But since Obama was elected in '08, he's become an increasingly bitter, angry old man. You'd think with the opposition party in the White House, he'd go back to being his old, entertaining self. Didn't happen. And, with Obama's re-election and prominent Republicans now questioning what they've been for close to 20 years, his clout is diminishing as well. That makes him even more bitter and angry.
I'm waiting to see how many stations dump his show in the next few years. I haven't heard of any yet, but if he's causing revenue to drop, then I think some will.
Doug Stephan's roots were in the horribly bland American Radio Network out of Baltimore... a network whose standard return bumper for local ID's was pretty close to a synthesized version of a 60 Hz hum. Utterly colorless. Stephan carved out a niche mainly because small markets that didn't want or couldn't afford to go local in AM drive had few alternatives in the '90s.
As far as his critique goes, the over-niching of talk radio into a corner of angry old white guys has to be reversed. One solution may be to make it more general. More of the things that talk radio used to do before Limbaugh became the mold for everything. Advice shows, psychologists, maybe even bringing back psychics. (At least it'll get calls.)
Address politics and issues with sincerity. Bring back local crusades. Hell, bring back local talk period.
As every other medium became more interactive, talk radio became less interactive. It was originally called "two-way" talk radio, to distinguish it from somebody delivering a lecture. That's how it became known as a medium of the people. It's become one-and-a-fraction way talk radio.
Yes, this means taking risks but the alternative is extinction in 5-10 years.
As far as his critique goes, the over-niching of talk radio into a corner of angry old white guys has to be reversed. One solution may be to make it more general. More of the things that talk radio used to do before Limbaugh became the mold for everything. Advice shows, psychologists, maybe even bringing back psychics. (At least it'll get calls.)
Address politics and issues with sincerity. Bring back local crusades. Hell, bring back local talk period.
As every other medium became more interactive, talk radio became less interactive. It was originally called "two-way" talk radio, to distinguish it from somebody delivering a lecture. That's how it became known as a medium of the people. It's become one-and-a-fraction way talk radio.
Yes, this means taking risks but the alternative is extinction in 5-10 years.
smedge2006 said:
But I think that's why talk radio has become so confrontational. It's obnoxious and in your face, but it's not bland or colorless. People have very solid opinions about it. They either love it or hate it. Unfortunately that approach only works for so long before it all burns out. The bad news is that the alternative is going back to the bland colorless stuff that existed pre-Rush.
smedge2006 said:
The problem with local talk is that it's good for an hour, maybe a segment a day, but unless you're in a major market, you run out of stuff to talk about very quickly, and you end up with a lot of the same callers all the time. That's what I hear on the local talk stations I sample. We don't live in a local world any more. The local world is our family and friends. The media we use is bigger than that. Radio can't replace family and friends, and with cell phones, it's better to speak directly with your friends about things than use mass media.
TheBigA said:
Hmmmmm....I'd swear you just said someone has to try something new and here you've shoved a cork in it before the conversation even gets going.
What I meant by LOCAL politics was to guest members of the state or local political community. Do some in-depth discussions of issues and legislation in progress. With the decreasing impact of dead tree news it seems a niche that radio can fill. TV does it but only at daybreak on Sunday mornings....not exactly prime time. I would welcome some informed discourse on issues while they are being argued and not at the next election when used as a sword by one candidate or the other.
And by non-political I mean presenting multiple sides of an issue. Not blabbing the conservative or progressive talking points and not giving opinion (unless coming from a widely respected person in the field). Opening up the conversation to call-ins after the presentation would be a plus if time were available.
TheBigA said:
LOCAL. I've been reading and hearing the same old, same old from the Middle east since I was ten years old and it is never going to change. I don't care about the Middle East any longer. But I do care about the city I live in, and the state, and the economic condition and what the cops are doing about crime and various civic programs as they affect me and my neighbors.
TheBigA said:
I don't remember it as a flop but perhaps that's because I watched and liked it. He had an interesting mix of showbiz and other people and it was both educational and entertaining. But those were different times. It seems we have more to talk about now than Vietnam and pot growers (wait, maybe not all that much has changed).
TheBigA said:
The programs can be both if done right. When the show is over you want to say to yourself "I'm glad I spent that hour listening."
landtuna said:
You wanted to know why it hasn't happened. I'm just reporting the reason why.
landtuna said:
That's a conversation better held at a community meeting where you and the other ten like-minded people can discuss real solutions, and maybe even get them actuated. But it's absolute death on the radio. You can hear the crickets, and believe me, I've done just that.
Last week, my neighborhood association had a meeting to discuss all the things you listed. I was there with a handful of other people. A mere fraction of our neighborhood population. That's an indication of the potential radio audience for such talk.
I'm all for replacing negative talk with something else. But serious talk is already being done on NPR.
I agree completely about over-niching, but the examples you give (advice shows, etc.) are exactly that -- over niched!smedge2006 said:
There are plenty of examples of hosts who are trying to be more general (less political) in terms of news/talk, and many are succeeding, IMO. To name a few:
Jerry Doyle
Michael Smerconish
Jon Grayson
Michael Savage
Mike Gallagher
John Gambling
David Patterson
Gambling and Patterson are local to NYC so they're able to cover significant local issues but are well qualified to discuss politics and national issues. These shows aren't "happy talk" but they're actually fun to listen to.
wadio said:
When CC takes full control of WOR, Gambling will likely stay but Patterson will likely be gone, IMHO. Gambling will probably keep his morning show, but the rest of the day will be Rush and Co. CC didn't buy WOR to make it into a New York version of KFI. That's sad!
radioguy39nj said:wadio said:
When CC takes full control of WOR, Gambling will likely stay but Patterson will likely be gone, IMHO. Gambling will probably keep his morning show, but the rest of the day will be Rush and Co. CC didn't buy WOR to make it into a New York version of KFI. That's sad!
Yep. Another unfortunate casualty will likely be Mike Gallagher (syndicated but he gears the show toward the WOR audience in many ways.) I was never a fan of Gallagher on WABC or in his early syndication but he's doing a damn good show lately.
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