This week's All Access newsletter utilizes a bit of hyperbole to make a point about the kind of folks who pine for days gone by to the detriment of new ideas. My classmates at Haverford and Villanova Law should be aware that I'm having some good-natured fun with them for entertainment purposes. Sort of:
I'm on some sort of e-mail list for my college reunion. The next reunion is this year, and my old classmates are all excited about getting back together and revisiting the good old days. They're ticking off names of people who'll be attending, and professors they'd like to invite, and memories of momentous occasions and old habits. It's been interesting to read all of this stuff, except for a few things:
1. I have no intention of going to any reunion.
2. I have no recollection of any professors.
3. I have no recollection of my classmates.
4. I have almost no recollection of ANYONE from those days. Or anything.
Well, that's not quite true, and people who know me or read my blog know that I do wallow in nostalgia for certain things, like old TV shows and sports and stuff like that. (And radio, too.) But college, and high school, and most of childhood... nope, can't recall much.
I think that's because we best remember the good parts. College was uneventful for me, so I don't remember much of it or the people involved. But obscure old TV shows and cartoons? The 1980 Phillies? The sound of the ice cream truck that used to troll my neighborhood when I was a kid? I remember those like they were yesterday.
But they're gone, and they're not coming back, which brings me to how this all relates to radio. If there's one thing in which radio geeks like myself, and you, like to indulge, it's nostalgia for the "good old days" of radio. We love old airchecks, we love to remember the days of Musicradio 77 WABC and "Boss Radio" and Super CFL, and with good reason- we grew up with them, we loved them, and they're still a blast to hear to this day. We remember the good parts (and forget how some of us eagerly defected to FM progressive stations because those beloved top 40 stations weren't cool enough for us). And any time the consensus of the "experts" who complain on Internet message boards or in the newspaper deems a present-day station a failure, you get people demanding a return to the old days.
I can't blame them. If you're of a certain age, something like your typical FM Talker geared towards young guys sounds alien, with talk about sex and wrestling and sex and video games and sex and sports. And you hear people say things like "they SHOULD be doing Adult Standards" or "they SHOULD go Oldies to replace that other Oldies station that went all Jack on us" or "they SHOULD hire (insert name of retired elderly political talk host who wouldn't fit the rest of the schedule here)."
They may be right. But even if they ARE right, some people in the industry have a tendency to trash anybody trying anything new and different even before it's on the air, all for the satisfaction of jumping on the corpse if it DOES fail and saying "I told you so." Radio SHOULD encourage innovation, even if it leads at times to failure. It's good- even instructive- to remember the industry's past but not necessarily to live there.
I've been present at the creation of some risky projects, and I have the arrow scars to prove it. In each case, we were asked "what are you doing?!?" ("FM isn't for talk!" or "Talk is for politics!") We were told "it'll never work." We were told "you should bring in (insert name of retired elderly political talk host who wouldn't fit the rest of the schedule here)." We plowed ahead anyway. Some of the projects were successful. Some weren't. But if we'd have taken the safe route, the same people who complained about what we were doing would be complaining about how boring and samey radio's become.
It's not dissimilar to what I wrote about last week, but I'll sort of reiterate it on a more, er, macro level: as an industry, we ought to give new ideas more of a chance, both on a business level and as radio listeners and fans. That doesn't mean looking at one book (coming soon: one PPM month) and pulling the plug if it's not top three 12+, but letting hosts and formats and concepts find their audience, even if it takes a while. I know, publicly-traded broadcasting companies don't HAVE "a while" for things to develop- even this week, one company's travails with one station drew a napalm-like reaction from Wall Street. But if radio- any radio, terrestrial or otherwise- is going to continue to grow and prosper, it has to find what appeals to new generations of listeners accustomed to a different culture and different competing media. You can't always do that by taking the "safe" route and sticking to what worked 20 years ago. The old days? Great, memorable, legendary, s pecial, worthy of honor and never to be forgotten. But it's time to make new memories.
I have no slick segue to the weekly pitch for Talk Topics at All Access News-Talk-Sports, so I won't even pretend- just go there for show prep items galore like Rudy Giuliani's two-fer deal, a dine-and-dash-and-dine-and-dash-and-dine-and-dash-and-dine-and-dash-and-dine-and-dash incident, the nude chocolate Jesus controversy, why someone needs to have a little chat with Johnny Depp, the pros and cons of cooking for your pet, how your apartment could kill your social life, why you might think twice before helping that guy with the disabled truck, what prostitution and soccer have in common, why smokers make lousy workers, a spectacular case of speeding, and the answer to the eternal question: is pot kosher? And don't miss "10 Questions With..." Fox Sports Radio evening host and Knicks and Raiders fan J.T. The Brick and the Talent Toolkit with sites for material about a truly universal thing, especially in radio: getting fired. You'll also enjoy the rest of All Access with Net News- first and best with breaking industry news, and often the ONLY place you'll read about many things happening in the industry- and the Industry Directory and radio's most extensive job listings and much, much more, all free.
Oh, yeah, one more thing: don't forget, April Fool's Day is Sunday, so if you hear something really stupid, outlandish, and unfunny that day, it's probably intended as a joke. Or it might be the new Will Ferrell movie. Hard to tell.
Share
