This week's All Access newsletter wonders aloud why what used to be a given in radio is now a luxury, and how important it is that we change how we think about that:
The bridge collapse in Minneapolis prompted a few things in my mind, one being prayers for the people on the bridge and their families and for all of my friends and colleagues in the Twin Cities, a second being that this will come to mind every time I cross a bridge for a long time, and the third, most germane to radio, is that this is the time for talk and news radio to be what listeners expect and need them to be, the ultimate information source.
A lot of talk radio stations position themselves as the place to turn for information when news happens. I hear the promos on countless stations. "Depend on us!" "Breaking news first!" "The most trusted name in local news!" But some of those stations are hardly 24/7 news operations. Blame cost cutting and management's inability to accept the importance of radio news, sure, but if you're a PD, that's on you, too. If you want the top news position, you have to insist on having a well-appointed, professional news operation, not outsourced but your very own. You have to lobby for it, and if you have it, you have to protect it from the cost-cutters. And if you don't? An emergency happens, people in their cars tune to your station, and... you're talking about something else. You're in syndication, or on tape, with nobody to break in for coverage. Or you're carrying some TV station's audio, and the descriptions are inadequate. You need news made for radio. You need your own feet on the ground at the scene.
You also need local hosts ready to go on the air immediately and make sense of the situation. You need to put callers on the air to tell what they saw -- every TV station's soliciting home video and cell phone camera material, and callers are the equivalent for radio. And you don't have to wait for anything to upload -- it's instant.
And it shouldn't stop there. What does your Web site do in cases like this? If an emergency happens and someone goes to your Web site, what will he or she find? Your program schedule? A bunch of ads? Some third-party-generated entertainment news headlines? You need to get news up there, audio and video, too. Radio cedes this position to the local newspaper Web sites and TV station Web sites, and it doesn't have to be this way. If you're trying to be the news leader, you need to be exactly that whenever and wherever a consumer comes looking for news. Just streaming won't cut it. It's too much work? It's a new age, and it's what you have to do.
What? All this costs money? Why, yes, it does. And if corporate doesn't want to spend that money, I'm sure they'll have a good story to tell the Senate panels about their commitment to localism when the folks on Capitol Hill start looking into ownership consolidation again. (What goes over better in Washington, having to try to explain Minot again and again or telling the legislators how stations across the Twin Cities dial covered every angle of the bridge collapse?) And I'm sure they have a better idea than I on how to differentiate the stations and make them more viable against satellite and podcasts and other new media. "Today's Hits, Yesterday's Favorites"-- yeah, that can't possibly be duplicated by anyone else.
I didn't get to hear the Twin Cities talk stations on Wednesday evening, but I understand that they all stepped up and went wall-to-wall with coverage. And because of that, their listeners will continue to turn to them whenever something's happening, major or minor. If you're not ready to do the same thing, good luck. If we've learned anything from the bridge collapse, it's that catastrophe can happen anywhere, at any time, including right in your back yard. And if your listeners can't depend on you in an emergency, you've lost your primary advantage against everyone else.
Okay, here, I usually do the plug for Talk Topics and all the weird and funny stories you'll find there for your show, but it doesn't seem appropriate this week, so I'll just say that you'll find a lot of stuff to talk about there -- Talk Topics at All Access News-Talk-Sports, ask for it by name -- and there's plenty of other great content on the site, too, including "10 Questions With..." former ESPN Radio producer Chadd Scott, who's part of a new Southern regionally syndicated show called "The Sports Tap," and, of course, the industry's fastest, most complete, best news coverage in Net News, along with all the columns, Mediabase charts, ratings (now including analysis), and other information you expect from AllAccess.com. End of plug.
Look, I'm proud of the job radio news does in so many cases, including this tragedy. I just want to know that it's going to continue to be the case. Instead of relief when I hear that stations came through in the clutch, I'd like to go back to expecting nothing less.
Share
