What should NOT be said on the radio?

[DonTheTrucker]

Conservative talk radio does so well because it does what radio has tossed aside: create an emotional bond with your audience. Politics is much like the songs the air personality used to play. It was the jock that got the listener, then the songs.

This is a good way to put it. To think that people are going to transcend human nature any time soon because we can communicat easier is wishful thinking. Why should radio be any different from any other medium that shows bias? Just be glad our politicians aren't killing each other in duels anymore, and that we have a system that guarantees our right to gather in forums like this and complain how things were better in the "good old days".

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Keep up the good conversation. A funeral (thankfully, not my own,) will have me busy this week. I will tune in from time to time but I have no illusion that if I am absent the conversation will suffer. (It just won't be quite as spicy.) ;D

 

[vchimpanzee]

How realistic is it to target the soccer mom as an AM conservative talk listener anyway? Conservative talk radio is what it is because it's white guys in their forties and fifties programming to white guys in their forties and fifties. This same boys club has, whenever it has gotten the chance, crushed female-friendly programming. Witness the transformation of WGN including the dumping of Kathy and Judy, as well as the stonewalling by corporate chains of Greenstone Media, leading to its eventual demise. There is basically just one female-friendly talker in US radio, 107.1 in Minneapolis.

107.9 the Link in Charlotte. Does it not count because they play hot adult contemporary music at times?

 

[Holland Cooke]

Radio used to "touch" listeners. Now it's voicetracked.

Conservative talk radio does so well because it does what radio has tossed aside: create an emotional bond with your audience. Politics is much like the songs the air personality used to play.

Well said.

And I've never heard the-appeal-of-Rush Limbaugh described better than by Chris Matthews, who calls it "phone sex for the Chicklets rep."

Matthews refers to the modern day Willie Loman character, who'll trudge through a dozen CVS and Walgreens stores today, getting-told-"no"-by-half-of-'em. And Rush is riding-along with him in the car, assuring him that, yes-the-world-IS-going-to-hell-but-it's-THEM-not-you.

THAT'S connecting.

HC
www.HollandCooke.com

 

[Talk_Dude]

Re: Radio used to "touch" listeners. Now it's voicetracked.

Conservative talk radio does so well because it does what radio has tossed aside: create an emotional bond with your audience. Politics is much like the songs the air personality used to play.

Well said.

And I've never heard the-appeal-of-Rush Limbaugh described better than by Chris Matthews, who calls it "phone sex for the Chicklets rep."

Matthews refers to the modern day Willie Loman character, who'll trudge through a dozen CVS and Walgreens stores today, getting-told-"no"-by-half-of-'em. And Rush is riding-along with him in the car, assuring him that, yes-the-world-IS-going-to-hell-but-it's-THEM-not-you.

THAT'S connecting.

HC
www.HollandCooke.com

I'm always amazed when radio types clump all talk together into one lumpen mass, just as they do with music on music formats. When I tune in any talk radio show, what makes me decide to stay tuned in is the specific topic being discussed at the time. For example, if I tune in Rush and he's talking about something to do with national security or the war on terror, I stay tuned in. If he's talking about the oil spill in the Gulf, I change to some other show. It's not that I disagree with him on some things and not others, it's just that some topics bore me and others interest me.

Saying that any talk show host is this or that is like saying any particular music act is like this or like that. Except for one-hit wonders, if someone asks me if I like any particular musical act, my honest answer is usually, "I like some of their songs and not others". If I'm asked about talk show hosts, it's the same thing. When the topic is interesting, then the host is interesting. If the topic is boring, then so is the host.

Maybe some talk show consultant/guru will figure out how to measure topics for popularity the way music format guys measure songs. They can come up with the weekly Top 40 topics to talk about.

 

[Holland Cooke]

It's already being done.

Maybe some talk show consultant/guru will figure out how to measure topics for popularity the way music format guys measure songs. They can come up with the weekly Top 40 topics to talk about.

It's already being done.
Over-done, some would suggest, given the way "granular" PPM data is being inferred by some.

But for a couple decades, perceptual research has been used to test topics and otherwise "know" listeners' interests. Various groups/stations/shows "play the hits" accordingly.

But it's just a tool.

 

[Talk_Dude]

Re: It's already being done.

Maybe some talk show consultant/guru will figure out how to measure topics for popularity the way music format guys measure songs. They can come up with the weekly Top 40 topics to talk about.

It's already being done.
Over-done, some would suggest, given the way "granular" PPM data is being inferred by some.

But for a couple decades, perceptual research has been used to test topics and otherwise "know" listeners' interests. Various groups/stations/shows "play the hits" accordingly.

But it's just a tool.

Are you telling me that on talk shows now the topics that hosts talk about are predetermined from a tested list, they way pop songs are on a CHR station? I'm not an insider, so that would be news to me. If it turns out that radio talk about the oil spill in the Gulf is dropping in popularity, like a pop song heard too many times, it drops down the playlist to a lower rotation among the topics?

I can't wait to be able to go to a public website somewhere to get my weekly Top 40 list of talk topics. We'll be able to quickly see how high on the charts Lohan's jail sentence opens at, or whether the war in Afghanistan or the economy hits #1.

 

[Holland Cooke]

"Play the hits"

Are you telling me that on talk shows now the topics that hosts talk about are predetermined from a tested list, they way pop songs are on a CHR station? I'm not an insider, so that would be news to me. If it turns out that radio talk about the oil spill in the Gulf is dropping in popularity, like a pop song heard too many times, it drops down the playlist to a lower rotation among the topics?

NOW?
NOW???

Short answer: "Yes."

Next-level-of-detail:

I did my first "Q-design" [drafted a questionnaire for outbound telephone survey takers] in 1990.

But, before that, in June, 1984, as I negotiated my personal compensation package to manage WTOP/Washington, I stipulated "focus groups, enough of 'em so that the numerator was the-number-of-people-on-the-on-air-staff and the denominator was how-many-people-could-fit-in-that-room-behind-the-two-way-mirror," so the people MAKING the product could hear (what a concept) the people we wanted to USE the product. To his credit, the man who hired me was intrigued. Or fatigued by my insistence.

Seems quaint now, eh?