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Future of talk radio in Philadelphia now that Trump is President-Elect

Oscar Madison said:
Progressive talk failed because (1) The radio establishment and advertisers did not want it to succeed and (2) They tried to do liberal content with the same approach used by right-wing hosts. To use the music format analogy, that would be like having Top 40 jocks on a classical music station.
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Everyone wanted Air America to succeed.

Owners saw it as a way of having another potentially profitable format for AMs. Many groups had acquired multiple AMs in the larger markets and often had one less viable format than available stations.

Advertisers liked the idea a lot. They saw it as a way to stress rates if true competitive situations arose. It is always easier to negotiate rates if there are multiple buying options.

The opinion you give on content and style is simply your opinion. Many believe that the issue was that Air America did not do its variety of content more like the style of the best conservative talkers; they were perceived as too serious and intense and not fun and entertaining.

But even that analysis neglects to mention that perhaps progressive / liberal listeners don't want a talk format directed at them. The ratings for MSNBC vs those of Fox News could be, in some part, evidence of either less interest or a highly fragmented left.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
The "Radio Establishment" is obviously Clear Channel who eventually stopped flushing money into Air America.
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And, to give them credit, Clear Channel kept on trying for way too long on way too many stations. The potential revenue lost on big signals like WINZ in Miami and KGW in Portland is astounding.
 
TheBigA said:
It's not about political party. It's about creating an entertaining format that attracts a core audience. Two different things. And truthfully, conservative talk radio isn't the dominant format it was 10 or 20 years ago. It's become a smaller and older format, and isn't attracting new listeners. That's not good for the future of the format. As we saw with this election, younger people don't necessarily want to talk about politics, regardless of party. They say a pox on both your houses. That's the audience radio wants to reach. Perhaps that's a format for the future.
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Then might the so-called alt-right have a future on over-the-air talk radio? The movement seems to have more appeal to disaffected whites in younger age groups than traditional conservatism or even the brand of conservatism championed by Rush and company does. A Breitbart radio show? Alex Jones adding AM to his significant internet presence? There are elements of alt-right in Michael Savage's show (minus the anti-Semitism, of course, since Savage himself is Jewish). Would full-blown alt-right fly with advertisers, or is that a step too far even with younger demographics?
 
CTListener said:
Then might the so-called alt-right have a future on over-the-air talk radio? The movement seems to have more appeal to disaffected whites in younger age groups than traditional conservatism or even the brand of conservatism championed by Rush and company does. A Breitbart radio show? Alex Jones adding AM to his significant internet presence? There are elements of alt-right in Michael Savage's show (minus the anti-Semitism, of course, since Savage himself is Jewish). Would full-blown alt-right fly with advertisers, or is that a step too far even with younger demographics?
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Alt-right has been tagged with too many aspects of bigotry and racism to be palatable to advertisers. And that's irrespective of the truth.
 
CTListener said:
Would full-blown alt-right fly with advertisers, or is that a step too far even with younger demographics?
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We're already seeing advertisers pulling their ads from Breitbart and similar sites. So you can have an audience for something that won't be appropriate for most major advertisers. I'm really more interested in finding talk and spoken word programming that isn't political in nature.
 
TheBigA said:
We're already seeing advertisers pulling their ads from Breitbart and similar sites. So you can have an audience for something that won't be appropriate for most major advertisers. I'm really more interested in finding talk and spoken word programming that isn't political in nature.
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Well, "hot talk" was a flop a couple of decades ago. It targeted younger men, primarily. Would it work today?
 
CTListener said:
Well, "hot talk" was a flop a couple of decades ago. It targeted younger men, primarily. Would it work today?
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The core of hot talk was Howard Stern. He is what made it a hit. Find a host with the appeal to younger men that Howard has, without sounding like a copy-cat (because that would be the death of it), and you might have a format. But talk radio is all driven by the hosts, not the topics. So whatever talk idea you have, it has to be built around popular and charismatic hosts.
 
The hot talk stations that were anchored by Stern collapsed the minute Stern moved to satellite. The only thing even close that I know of is Real Radio in Orlando.





TheBigA said:
The core of hot talk was Howard Stern. He is what made it a hit. Find a host with the appeal to younger men that Howard has, without sounding like a copy-cat (because that would be the death of it), and you might have a format. But talk radio is all driven by the hosts, not the topics. So whatever talk idea you have, it has to be built around popular and charismatic hosts.
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Breitbart does have a radio show. "Breitbart News Daily" airs for 3 hours on SiriusXM. They advertise on TALKERS so I presume they're looking to expand to terrestrial.
 
Air America at first was staffed by TV people who had no clue about radio. They didn't know it wasn't TV without pictures. They boasted of 100 writers and producers. Even the big content-intensive morning shows don't have that. I heard an early Franken show and he went on for 45 minutes without taking a break, and in that time never said who his guest was. At the same time, some potential hosts wouldn't pledge to never criticize the DNC. Lyn Samuels I believe was one. They never called Jay Marvin except for fill.

Those Democratic voters are more interested in Jon Stewart "eviscerating the GOP with just one glance" than a 3 hour long-form show. It's not so much that that audience is more apathetic than dedicated liberal.

Except for Glenn Beck, most of the national conservative talkers will be the Trump Information Ministry, going after liberals and the Republican Congress who stands in Trump's way. (Liberal meltdowns will be epic and make fodder as well). Alex Jones is on some 2nd or 3rd tier FMs, but once Trump takes office he'll have to tell us the government isn't poisoning us with chemtrails after all.


DavidEduardo said:


Everyone wanted Air America to succeed.

Owners saw it as a way of having another potentially profitable format for AMs. Many groups had acquired multiple AMs in the larger markets and often had one less viable format than available stations.

Advertisers liked the idea a lot. They saw it as a way to stress rates if true competitive situations arose. It is always easier to negotiate rates if there are multiple buying options.

The opinion you give on content and style is simply your opinion. Many believe that the issue was that Air America did not do its variety of content more like the style of the best conservative talkers; they were perceived as too serious and intense and not fun and entertaining.

But even that analysis neglects to mention that perhaps progressive / liberal listeners don't want a talk format directed at them. The ratings for MSNBC vs those of Fox News could be, in some part, evidence of either less interest or a highly fragmented left.
Click to expand...
 
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