This week's All Access newsletter does the autopsy on the still steaming corpses of two more FM talk stations:
A couple more FM talkers bit the dust this week, and I fear that too many people in this business are doing the Happy Dance over the corpses. In the wake of the latest casualties came e-mails from people wanting to know which FM talkers would be the next to die, and I sensed a little too much pleasure on the part of the writers, who looked forward to the day when music would return to those frequencies and all would be right with the world again. There are a lot of radio people who are more comfortable with the Best Variety Of Today's Hits And Yesterday's Favorites than with any brand of talk, even though the future of those jukeboxes seems set: voice tracking, nothing local, all the same from town to town. (Oooh! A new "Fresh"! How exciting! I wonder if they'll play "Suddenly I See" or "You're Beautiful"? Because you can't find THOSE songs anywhere else) That, and the performance of the Philadelphia Phillies (motto: "We've Got Jose Mesa and You Can't Stop Us From Using Him"), got me into a particularly dark mood when I started writing this thing.
Why do some FM talk stations succeed while others fail? The latest casualties are reminders of a few points I want to reiterate about FM talk, because, unlike the Happy Dancers, I don't think it's a good thing when talk and personality-driven radio get thrown aside for another 12-in-a-row liner card festival. If and when a brave company decides that it's safe to go back into the water, here are some lessons I hope they'll have learned from those who took the arrows before them:
1. "FM Talk" is not a format. Somehow, the term came to mean something aimed at 18-34 year old males and involving teams of young guys thrown in front of mics with a copy of Maxim magazine. That's one idea, but there are very successful talk stations on FM that talk about politics, about the news, about stuff appealing to women, about sports, about everything. The FM talker in Salt Lake City doesn't at all resemble the one in Orlando or the one in Charlotte or the one in New Jersey. All are successful. And if you put all four styles in one market, they could easily co-exist (right alongside yet another style, your friendly neighborhood NPR talk station) and remain successful.
2. Speaking of throwing young guys in front of a mic with a copy of Maxim magazine, don't do that. Or, more precisely, don't throw just anyone in front of the mic under the misapprehension that, well, if you're trying to appeal to young guys, you gotta have a young guy talking about what young guys care about, which is, as we all know, babes, beer, and more babes. And some fart jokes. Maybe throw in a female sidekick to chuckle disapprovingly because Robin did that for Howard. Turns out that those are not the key elements of a successful FM talk show. What DOES make a successful FM talk show? The same thing that makes a successful AM talk show....
3. ...Get hosts with something to say. Get hosts with a unique point of view. Get hosts who can talk about anything, but always have a lot to get off their chests. Here's how you want it to go: something big happens in the news, and your listeners feel like they just HAVE to tune in to hear what your hosts have to say about it. It doesn't matter whether you're known for lifestyle talk, either; if your target audience is into, say, "Heroes," you want to be the place they all feel compelled to tune into the next morning so they can find out what your hosts thought of the episode. It's not just about guys talking about what they did the night before, it's about hosts who make the audience CARE what they think and do and say, whether it's what they did the night before or illegal immigration or a movie they saw. Or a movie they saw last night about illegal immigration. Is it easy to find people like that? No. But that's no excuse to put someone on who just isn't that interesting, unique, or different.
4. Local is good. That's not to rule out any syndication, but it's good to have at least a couple of shows on which the hosts talk about what's happening right there in town. We've talked before about why this is important, so I'll leave it at that. Also, I'm very, very tired.
So I'm hoping that this year's terminations (and, in some cases, mercy killings) of FM talk stations aren't the end, that soon we'll see companies regroup and try again. It's worth the effort. And I promise that when it happens, I won't do the Happy Dance over the corpses of the music stations that get the axe.
Since I'm too cranky and tired to do a clever segue into the plug for Talk Topics at All Access News-Talk-Sports, I won't even try. Just go there and enjoy the show prep magic, with a big pile o' stories and topics and cheap jokes for your talk radio broadcastin' pleasure, including items on the Great Thai Food Terror Scare of 2007, why you do NOT want to take a dip in the Gowanus Canal, why you should always view guys in Yankee caps with suspicion, how not to get out of going to the class reunion, why Vince Carter might be sporting alligator shirts and Dock-Siders this season, a pregnant 60 year old, the joy of at-bat music, who's selling magazines this year, why professors are rebelling against laptops in class, the tyranny of the pitch count, a teacher who assigns homework to parents, a story that combines the essential topics of strippers, tips, and fertility, and a guy running around Nicolas Cage's house naked except for Nicolas Cage's leather jacket, and that's just a tiny sampling of what's there. There's also a particularly entertaining and hyperlink-laden "10 Questions With..." WXYT/Detroit "Deminski and Doyle Show" phone screener/sidekick/rock star/legend Rudy DeSantis and the rest of All Access with industry news, columns, features, charts, ratings, job listings, all that stuff, all great, all free. Go look.
Next week: Some rambling diatribe about radio with a pessimistic non sequitur about Philadelphia sports somewhere in the middle. At least I'm consistent.
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