TALKERS HEAVY 100

[cm454]

Gonna be verrrrry tricky next year.

Are there even 100 hosts still employed after all the cutbacks and syndication?

 

[Phil Boyce]

CM454: Here is the funny thing about your comment. There really isn't any more syndication than there ever was. For every host that you can name that has become syndicated in the last year, I can name at least two who dropped out of syndication. It is a tough field and only the strong survive.

As for your point about the 100 last standing talk show hosts...there are plenty of them. They always have hosts on that list I have never heard of, and that will continue. I just don't share your pessimism about this format. I know some folks have lost their jobs, and I do not want to minimize that. Anytime you lose a job it is traumatic and life changing. But it is also an opportunity to pick up your life by the boot straps and start over.

I do not know very many people in radio who have not lost their jobs at least once. If you wanted job security you should have gone into the post office, or teaching profession. Some place where they can't fire you. I have lost my job twice. The second one I had two little kids to feed and NO job prospects. I thought I would have to get out of radio. I applied for a job as the Asst. PR spokesman at the Gas Company. The young lady that interviewed me told me I would be called back if I made the top 10 finalist list. She never called. But a week later, the President of ABC Radio in New York called and flew me to Detroit the next day, where I got the PD job at WJR, the #1 station in town. I look back at losing my job as one of the best things that ever happened.

Stations will still need local air talent...and good PD's. This is still a great business. Sadly I know many who I started with that had to get out. But I am still here cranking it out after 30 years, and it has been a very rewarding profession. Don't give up.

pb

 

[jaymarvin]

Phil is right about what he says. The people who are syndicated come and go. What would be cool is to keep a list of who has a syndicated show say at the start of 08 and see who ends up still on at the end of 08 going into 09. A lot of the cutbacks were DJ's who can be replaced by voice tracking in formats that do not call for a lot of anything except giving song titles. Is that worth paying a half a million dollars for every year?

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

CM454: Here is the funny thing about your comment. There really isn't any more syndication than there ever was. For every host that you can name that has become syndicated in the last year, I can name at least two who dropped out of syndication. It is a tough field and only the strong survive.

As for your point about the 100 last standing talk show hosts...there are plenty of them. They always have hosts on that list I have never heard of, and that will continue. I just don't share your pessimism about this format. I know some folks have lost their jobs, and I do not want to minimize that. Anytime you lose a job it is traumatic and life changing. But it is also an opportunity to pick up your life by the boot straps and start over.

I do not know very many people in radio who have not lost their jobs at least once. If you wanted job security you should have gone into the post office, or teaching profession. Some place where they can't fire you. I have lost my job twice. The second one I had two little kids to feed and NO job prospects. I thought I would have to get out of radio. I applied for a job as the Asst. PR spokesman at the Gas Company. The young lady that interviewed me told me I would be called back if I made the top 10 finalist list. She never called. But a week later, the President of ABC Radio in New York called and flew me to Detroit the next day, where I got the PD job at WJR, the #1 station in town. I look back at losing my job as one of the best things that ever happened.

Stations will still need local air talent...and good PD's. This is still a great business. Sadly I know many who I started with that had to get out. But I am still here cranking it out after 30 years, and it has been a very rewarding profession. Don't give up.

pb

And some people win the lottery. That doesn't make it a good investment. Getting fired and the president of ABC calls the next day sounds like something out of those movie bio-pics. I'm happy for you but you are the exception, not the rule. Every time you sell one of your shows to a station, an opportunity for a local show is gone and so are jobs for hosts, producers and call screeners (who will probably not get calls from New York the next day and who will probably leave radio).

 

[Shoot From Hip]

CM454: Here is the funny thing about your comment. There really isn't any more syndication than there ever was. For every host that you can name that has become syndicated in the last year, I can name at least two who dropped out of syndication. It is a tough field and only the strong survive.

As for your point about the 100 last standing talk show hosts...there are plenty of them. They always have hosts on that list I have never heard of, and that will continue. I just don't share your pessimism about this format. I know some folks have lost their jobs, and I do not want to minimize that. Anytime you lose a job it is traumatic and life changing. But it is also an opportunity to pick up your life by the boot straps and start over.

I do not know very many people in radio who have not lost their jobs at least once. If you wanted job security you should have gone into the post office, or teaching profession. Some place where they can't fire you. I have lost my job twice. The second one I had two little kids to feed and NO job prospects. I thought I would have to get out of radio. I applied for a job as the Asst. PR spokesman at the Gas Company. The young lady that interviewed me told me I would be called back if I made the top 10 finalist list. She never called. But a week later, the President of ABC Radio in New York called and flew me to Detroit the next day, where I got the PD job at WJR, the #1 station in town. I look back at losing my job as one of the best things that ever happened.

Stations will still need local air talent...and good PD's. This is still a great business. Sadly I know many who I started with that had to get out. But I am still here cranking it out after 30 years, and it has been a very rewarding profession. Don't give up.

pb

And some people win the lottery. That doesn't make it a good investment. Getting fired and the president of ABC calls the next day sounds like something out of those movie bio-pics. I'm happy for you but you are the exception, not the rule. Every time you sell one of your shows to a station, an opportunity for a local show is gone and so are jobs for hosts, producers and call screeners (who will probably not get calls from New York the next day and who will probably leave radio).

You've missed the point, Julius. There are plenty of reasons local stations carry syndicated shows. Mainly it happens because local management made the determination that it could generate higher ratings and more revenue by running someone who can play in Los Angeles as well as Los Alamos. Networks selling shows aren't the "bad guys" you make them out to be. People whose eyes are open to the realities of the changing business model for radio understand that continued local investment can happen only when the advertising community supports it. With radio revenue today less than it was five years ago (while Internet advertising and other new media are growing), this simply becomes a math problem and not a conspiracy. And by the way-- many of the people your ire is directed at are working a lot harder and covering more responsibilities (mostly not of their own choosing) than they were five or seven years ago for those same reasons of declining audience and revenue. It's a lot easier to place blame than to create solutions.

 

[jaymarvin]

I want to throw one more thing in here. The one bad thing about sysndication is it use to be you could drive into any town in this country and find out what the hot topic was on a local level. Now it's all the same old same from coast to coast. How much can people take of "Liberals are bad people who want to wreck America" and "everything is Bush's fault and he should be behind bars." I think there's room for a third way out there. And I'm not talking about T/A talk. Some day it will happen. Someone will figure it out. The rules were meant to be broken. Now the trick is to find a compnay that will let you brake the rules, and then find the talent to do it.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

You've missed the point, Julius. There are plenty of reasons local stations carry syndicated shows. Mainly it happens because local management made the determination that it could generate higher ratings and more revenue by running someone who can play in Los Angeles as well as Los Alamos. Networks selling shows aren't the "bad guys" you make them out to be. People whose eyes are open to the realities of the changing business model for radio understand that continued local investment can happen only when the advertising community supports it. With radio revenue today less than it was five years ago (while Internet advertising and other new media are growing), this simply becomes a math problem and not a conspiracy. And by the way-- many of the people your ire is directed at are working a lot harder and covering more responsibilities (mostly not of their own choosing) than they were five or seven years ago for those same reasons of declining audience and revenue. It's a lot easier to place blame than to create solutions.

Which is the chicken and which is the egg?
- Management cuts costs by taking syndicated programming and automating and revenue goes down.
- Revenue goes down so management cuts costs by taking syndicated programming and automating.

I get that you believe the latter is true.

Revenue has gone down because advertisers consider the value of radio advertising has decreased. A lot of reasons are given. But when radio was local, live, personality-driven and the goal was to put on a good show, advertisers were buying. We all know radio is not what we fell in love with (as Jay has said). Normal people may not think about it like we do but somehow they find themselves listening to radio less, liking it less, paying attention less. All radio has to sell is people's attention (and whatever credibility and good will the advertiser borrows from the station, program or host). Detroit tried to cut manufacturing costs and car buyers noticed the difference and started buying Japanese cars. Advertisers noticed the difference in what they are buying, too.

Too bad nobody in radio ever read Deming.

 

[Shoot From Hip]

What I believe is that you do what you think will accomplish the goals the company has set for the station. Syndication isn't all bad and local isn't all good. When Howard Stern was on terrestrial radio, his show was among the highest rated and commanded the highest rates. Rush Limbaugh still is and does. Same for Sean Hannity. Same was true (probably isn't now) for Dr. Laura. Same in some markets for Tom Leykis in his prime. Conversely, Whoopi's show apparently wasn't getting numbers or high rates, so it's gone after only a year...and those stations have gone back to local shows. Same with the folks who took Rover, David Lee Roth and some of the other "solutions" to replacing Stern...if it works, great. And the rates WLTW, WINS, KROQ, and a crapload of other stations get by staying local are stunning.

Bottom line: if one solution doesn't work, take all the information available to you and try something else-- in some cases it's syndicated, in others it's local. But please stop painting everything with one ("syndication is killing radio") brush ...it's not a reflection of reality.

If you think station managers are going to syndication in order to lose audience and get lower rates, you're mistaken. My guess is that if they had a local show that could do better, they would.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

If you think station managers are going to syndication in order to lose audience and get lower rates, you're mistaken. My guess is that if they had a local show that could do better, they would.

No, I think they wanted to save money. What happened was they lost audience and ad rates dropped. False economy and bad management. If anybody wants to write a business case study on radio, feel free to use that as a title.

 

[Shoot From Hip]

Actually, what happened was iPods, cell phones, the Internet (v1 and v2), CDs, navigation systems, satellite radio, smartphones w/ email and music such as the Blackberry and Treo, and a host of other competitive technologies...along with some bad management practices. The bad management didn't happen in a vacuum.

 

[cm454]

The rules were meant to be broken. Now the trick is to find a compnay that will let you brake the rules, and then find the talent to do it.

Does "breaking the rules" mean having hosts on the air who don't have a political agenda?

MOST people who may enjoy talkradio DO NOT have a clearly defined and/or extreme political agenda, which makes it all the more limiting and disappointing that so many stations now are programmed using a political agenda litmus test.

Most POTENTIAL listeners to talkradio may care more about a PERSONALITY than a political slant. MOST people I know, talkradio fans and not, do NOT concern themselves with the minutia of political ideology and the propagandizing that goes with it, as is espoused ad nauseum on so many mostly unchallenged talk stations around the country.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

Actually, what happened was iPods, cell phones, the Internet (v1 and v2), CDs, navigation systems, satellite radio, smartphones w/ email and music such as the Blackberry and Treo, and a host of other competitive technologies...along with some bad management practices. The bad management didn't happen in a vacuum.

It's easy for management to blame competition from new technologies for their problems but declines in audiences and revenue are trends that started before all these other media became competitive factors. Radio lost listener loyalty and listener involvement and therefore when new alternatives emerged, there was a market ready to embrace them. Radio faced new competition 60 years ago, too. Then it was able to adapt to a changing media environment thanks to a few rebels like Storz and McLendon who broke from the established and dominant radio networks and their affiliates and reinvented radio. Not this time. This time radio is acting like other industries and companies did right before they became extinct.

 

[jaymarvin]

Breaking the rules means taking chances on the air and talking about many things just not right vs left. Breaking the rules means getting in trouble for the right reasons not the wrong ones. Breaking the rules means stop putting promos on that brag about the station instead of talking about the listeners out there who care and use the station. How many hosts get on the air and start right in on the same old same old? Breaking the rules means putting hosts on who all have various views on subjects. Breaking the rules means putting drama, heat, and laughter back on the radio. That's what I mean.

 

[Don62]

Breaking the rules means taking chances on the air and talking about many things just not right vs left. Breaking the rules means getting in trouble for the right reasons not the wrong ones. Breaking the rules means stop putting promos on that brag about the station instead of talking about the listeners out there who care and use the station. How many hosts get on the air and start right in on the same old same old? Breaking the rules means putting hosts on who all have various views on subjects. Breaking the rules means putting drama, heat, and laughter back on the radio. That's what I mean.

Is this the same Jay Marvin that was on the air in Chicago or Denver-KOA?

If so, I really enjoyed listening to you, sir.

 

[Phil Boyce]

Julius says:

Every time you sell one of your shows to a station, an opportunity for a local show is gone and so are jobs for hosts, producers and call screeners (who will probably not get calls from New York the next day and who will probably leave radio).

MOST of our competition is from other syndicated shows. We rarely knock off local talent. Today I was pitching Mark Levin to a very big station in a top 10 market. They are dropping two syndicated shows at night and the PD want's to go live and local. They just hired one local host and are looking for another. They like Mark, but want to be live and local. You know I get that. It would annoy me if I lost out to another syndicated show when I know Mark is better. But I can't argue with their logic. If her local host does not score, I will still be waiting there with a great show. Somebody we will get Mark into this market.

The only way a syndicated show gets on a station is if the station thinks WE can do a better job with those 2 or 3 hours then they can. A syndicated show has to do well in the ratings or we get canned. Stations will not allow us to run 4 or 5 minutes an hour of network inventory if we don't score.

I feel bad for anybody in radio that loses their job, but the enemy is NOT syndication....it is mediocrity.

pb

 

[jimwalsh2001]

I feel bad for anybody in radio that loses their job, but the enemy is NOT syndication....it is mediocrity.
pb

Touche...couldn't agree more. But Phil, I gotta call you on your earlier comments regarding your optimism about the industry. Let's be fair about this: it's real easy for someone in your lofty position to be optimistic. It's kinda like Joe Kennedy, circa 1934, asking, "Depression? What depression?" ;D

Out here in flyover country, I contend it's a different story...

 

[jaymarvin]

Don, thanks for your kind comments. Hey Phil! Want to tell me where those two stations are? My contract here is up in three months! ;D

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

Julius says:

Every time you sell one of your shows to a station, an opportunity for a local show is gone and so are jobs for hosts, producers and call screeners (who will probably not get calls from New York the next day and who will probably leave radio).

MOST of our competition is from other syndicated shows. We rarely knock off local talent. Today I was pitching Mark Levin to a very big station in a top 10 market. They are dropping two syndicated shows at night and the PD want's to go live and local. They just hired one local host and are looking for another. They like Mark, but want to be live and local. You know I get that. It would annoy me if I lost out to another syndicated show when I know Mark is better. But I can't argue with their logic. If her local host does not score, I will still be waiting there with a great show. Somebody we will get Mark into this market.

The only way a syndicated show gets on a station is if the station thinks WE can do a better job with those 2 or 3 hours then they can. A syndicated show has to do well in the ratings or we get canned. Stations will not allow us to run 4 or 5 minutes an hour of network inventory if we don't score.

I feel bad for anybody in radio that loses their job, but the enemy is NOT syndication....it is mediocrity.

pb

The enemy is too many station managers who go syndicated because it's cheaper and easier.

Mediocrity? Many local shows may sound mediocre to outsiders but have large and devoted followings in their own markets. There is no objective measure of mediocre or "excellence in broadcasting."

Syndicated talk shows (and music formats) have resulted in predictable, formulaic, one-size-fits-all radio that is less engaging, less relevant and less entertaining. Smooth and polished maybe but listeners don't care about that nearly as much as radio insiders do. This is a big part of the reason radio has become irrelevant to many potential listeners.

Nobody knows in advance how a show will perform. Cheap and lazy managers do know that even if ratings (or more importantly, revenue) suffer, a cheap or free syndicated show can be more profitable.

It's one thing for small market stations to pick up syndicated shows. There weren't talk radio stations outside major markets before syndication became technically and economically feasible and probably wouldn't be now without syndication. However, something is out whack when when a major market station like WABC is mostly syndicated and when you keep hearing the same line-up going from one major market to the next.

Radio is captive to its own conventional wisdom.

 

[Shoot From Hip]

Julius says:

Every time you sell one of your shows to a station, an opportunity for a local show is gone and so are jobs for hosts, producers and call screeners (who will probably not get calls from New York the next day and who will probably leave radio).

MOST of our competition is from other syndicated shows. We rarely knock off local talent. Today I was pitching Mark Levin to a very big station in a top 10 market. They are dropping two syndicated shows at night and the PD want's to go live and local. They just hired one local host and are looking for another. They like Mark, but want to be live and local. You know I get that. It would annoy me if I lost out to another syndicated show when I know Mark is better. But I can't argue with their logic. If her local host does not score, I will still be waiting there with a great show. Somebody we will get Mark into this market.

The only way a syndicated show gets on a station is if the station thinks WE can do a better job with those 2 or 3 hours then they can. A syndicated show has to do well in the ratings or we get canned. Stations will not allow us to run 4 or 5 minutes an hour of network inventory if we don't score.

I feel bad for anybody in radio that loses their job, but the enemy is NOT syndication....it is mediocrity.

pb

The enemy is too many station managers who go syndicated because it's cheaper and easier.

Mediocrity? Many local shows may sound mediocre to outsiders but have large and devoted followings in their own markets. There is no objective measure of mediocre or "excellence in broadcasting."

Syndicated talk shows (and music formats) have resulted in predictable, formulaic, one-size-fits-all radio that is less engaging, less relevant and less entertaining. Smooth and polished maybe but listeners don't care about that nearly as much as radio insiders do. This is a big part of the reason radio has become irrelevant to many potential listeners.

Nobody knows in advance how a show will perform. Cheap and lazy managers do know that even if ratings (or more importantly, revenue) suffer, a cheap or free syndicated show can be more profitable.

It's one thing for small market stations to pick up syndicated shows. There weren't talk radio stations outside major markets before syndication became technically and economically feasible and probably wouldn't be now without syndication. However, something is out whack when when a major market station like WABC is mostly syndicated and when you keep hearing the same line-up going from one major market to the next.

Radio is captive to its own conventional wisdom.

Ask any program director if there's an objective measure of mediocrity or excellence. I can think of two: ratings and revenue. We may not agree with them, and we may not like they metholodology...but they are the currency of the realm. And no matter whether the show is local, syndicated, or comes from Mars, those are the elements that determine success (I know...you're looking for "mediocrity" or "excellence"...not success. But the real world measures success). And you're certainly free to start your own station if you choose...even if it's just on the Internet.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

Ask any program director if there's an objective measure of mediocrity or excellence. I can think of two: ratings and revenue. We may not agree with them, and we may not like they metholodology...but they are the currency of the realm. And no matter whether the show is local, syndicated, or comes from Mars, those are the elements that determine success (I know...you're looking for "mediocrity" or "excellence"...not success. But the real world measures success). And you're certainly free to start your own station if you choose...even if it's just on the Internet.

Sorry, more conventional wisdom.

It's still a crap shoot. Nobody knows whether a program, syndicated or local, will be successful in advance. Nobody knows in advance whether another program will be more (or less) successful than the current offering. And success is not just about a given program. Syndicated programs, as I said, achieve different levels of success (or failure) in different markets; even different levels of success on different stations in the same market. Success is a result of many factors including timing, promotion lead-in/audience flow. Programming is a crap shoot (although some prefer to call it an "art").

Radio has become an imitative medium, rather than a creative medium. Manager see, manager do. Maybe station executives weren't paying attention when there mother said "if your friends jump off a cliff, would you do it, too?" Radio is business of executives following each other off a cliff.

Syndication has become the default option whether it makes sense in given instance or not. Like right-wing, candidate bashing, political talk.