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How many hosts are left?
- Thread starter Ravens
- Start date
Are there that many that aren't completely on the bird?
As for talk, we're just talking regular talk radio. Not sports.
Most are local in the morning.
There are quite a few public, non-commercial stations that do local talk.
That's a better scenario than I thought, to be sure. You just see so few openings for those positions. I guess most of those morning shows are "radio mayor" types that have been in the spot for decades.
Exactly...or the small station owner who also works one shift a day. Not a lot of turnover, which is really killing the future of the format.
One of the big issues is that once a talk host becomes successful, he doesn't move to a bigger market, as once happened. He has a wife & kids who don't want to leave the school system or the community, so they park there as long as they can. So there are a lot of older small market talk hosts who've been there for 30 years.
I'd break it down a little further.
In the top 50 or so markets, it will have a local program at 6am, a syndicated program at 9 (or maybe a local host), an extended newscast at 11, Rush at 12 and a local PM Drive show.
In those same markets, the second talk station will have a local host in one daypart, probably mornings or afternoons. The third talk station, if it exists, will likely be all syndicated and possibly partially brokered.
In the next class of markets, 50 to 100, the second talk station will likely have no local staff, and the leading talk station will probably have one or maybe two local programs.
After market 100, the odds of there being any daily local talk are mediocre at best. Maybe a once-a-week program in the spirit of public service.
In unrated markets, there's a good chance the station does an extended newscast once a day.
I would say that 1000 talk show hosts "making a living" (so, excluding the home repair shows, mortgage shows, and other weekend programs) is a fair number.
Actually I say the smaller the market, the more likely there is to be local talk.
Take for example market #186: Binghampton NY.
http://wnbf.com/shows/
They have local talk in morning and afternoon, plus a local news staff. Sure, it's rust belt, older industrial market, but this is a station that's committed to local talk.
Or they have points in the station and make more than the rest of the staff combined. A bigger market would be a pay cut.
At least that's one scenario I've seen.
And if they're not, there's always Bill Bennett.
It's interesting to note that radio has evolved from a collection of block programs in the early 20th century to a very consistent 24/7 listener experience throughout much of the late 20th century to a completely inconsistent experience today. In NYC circa 1980 if you wanted to hear talk you tuned to WMCA, WOR or WABC at any time of the day or night, weekends included. There was no such thing as an infomercial. (Sports preemptions have always been a problem, IMO.)
Whether it's economically feasible to offer a consistent experience anymore is a matter for the bean counters to decide but I don't see anything positive in radio's future if it can't somehow be done. New generations have found that they can reliably what they want on the Internet whether it's noon on Wednesday or 3 am on Sunday. The average person forms opinions of media bases on what they sample. If a talk station plays music on the weekends or infomercials overnight they're very likely to create a serious number of wrong impressions.
Terrestrial radio still has the advantages of ubiquity (with a small u) and convenience. Not so true for AM due to decreasing signal viability and lack of am receiving equipment, but it's generally easier to turn on a radio than to search for stuff on the Internet. You can tune radios all over the house to the same station without latency issues -- try that with Internet streams. You don't need Internet, WiFi or a phone data plan. But we're training people -- especially young people -- to avoid radio because, when they happen to tune in, it sucks.
Whether it's economically feasible to offer a consistent experience anymore is a matter for the bean counters to decide but I don't see anything positive in radio's future if it can't somehow be done. New generations have found that they can reliably what they want on the Internet whether it's noon on Wednesday or 3 am on Sunday. The average person forms opinions of media bases on what they sample. If a talk station plays music on the weekends or infomercials overnight they're very likely to create a serious number of wrong impressions.
Terrestrial radio still has the advantages of ubiquity (with a small u) and convenience. Not so true for AM due to decreasing signal viability and lack of am receiving equipment, but it's generally easier to turn on a radio than to search for stuff on the Internet. You can tune radios all over the house to the same station without latency issues -- try that with Internet streams. You don't need Internet, WiFi or a phone data plan. But we're training people -- especially young people -- to avoid radio because, when they happen to tune in, it sucks.
That only applies to the three AM stations you mentioned. When they tune in to FM music stations, they're playing the hits they want to hear.
But you're making a generalization about radio. Young people don't listen to AM news/talk radio. We already know that. Young people aren't avoiding radio...just news/talk radio.
The folks in San Francisco already know that if you want to attract young people to AM, the way to do it is with sports.
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Maybe that's because of the sorry state of news/talk radio today. Chicken? Egg? I don't know and I don't think you do either.
Remember, Rush wasn't always the angry, irrelevant fossil you hear today. He once attracted a much younger demo, and he did so in a 24/7 news/talk environment run by individual station PDs who gave at least some thought to their audiences.
You make a good point. I looked at some other markets above #175 and found they all had at least one local daily talk show. I still think there's a donut hole somewhere where local talk is unlikely, but it apparently isn't as big as I previously thought.
Remember that I work in radio, and I've worked in a lot of markets besides New York, so I've heard a lot of talk show hosts. Just because you don't like talk radio in New York doesn't mean it's exactly the same everywhere else. There are younger, hipper talk show hosts in other places. And as I said, I know that sports talk appeals to young audiences. But mean, angry right wing talk absolutely does NOT appeal to young people. I've read lots of studies and articles on what millennals like, and here's one you might read. Consider what you find interesting on the radio, and then think of it through the eyes of someone half your age:
http://time.com/2974185/millennials-poll-politics/
We've had success using on-air dating to get millennials to listen to talk radio. But I don't think you'd find it the least bit interesting or compelling.
I didn't say it to impress. I said it because YOU said I don't know why young people don't listen to news/talk. I do. You're also approaching this topic as a listener, not as a professional. As I said, if radio stations go after that younger demographic, you won't like what they do. Right now, there are music stations in NYC that are largely all talk in the morning, and a lot of young people listen. If you were more tolerant of the music they played, or the topics they discussed, you might enjoy it. Or you might not. Talk radio isn't limited to talking about conservative politics, and it's not limited to the three AM stations you identified. You didn't talk about WNYC or the other non-coms that program talk.
If Rush changed his act, it might alienate his current fan base. Older audiences don't adapt well to change. And younger audiences aren't as likely to accidentally tune in their grandparent's radio station. The choice of broadening the programming on AM talk stations to appeal to younger audiences isn't very likely since young people, raised in the digital age, won't put up with the bad audio quality of AM. You didn't mention that either.
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