I’m no cheerleader for the radio industry, which isn’t investing enough in talent and ideas and continues to cut personnel because its bottom line is getting crushed by too much debt. But the hype this year for podcasts becoming the new way for Americans to consume audio content has been completely out of proportion. As […]
In today’s NY Times, David Carr writes about the success of “Serial,” a podcast from Ira Glass and his colleagues behind “This American Life,” which has become a runaway hit in terms of downloads and listeners. But Carr doesn’t address the bottom line — is it making money? Here’s why I ask. I’m still on […]
In the last two weeks, I have been at a stage musical and a movie screening which were both introduced by DJs from local radio stations. I’ve had some experience with this in my long career, and both of these occasions made me cringe. Let’s start with the musical by saying that no one should […]
Another excellent column on how talk radio got into the trouble it’s in, by Perry Simon: See, at some point in the consolidation process — early, I’d say — the goal ceased to be winning. Back in the days when you had an AM and an FM, you went to war with the competition. You […]
You’re not aware of it, but there’s quite a lot of hand-wringing inside the talk radio industry these days. The audience is aging without attracting younger listeners, many major national advertisers have avoided the format completely since the Sandra Fluke controversy, and there are fewer and fewer places to listen without being bashed in the […]
Three years ago, my friend Kipper McGee, who I worked with at KTRS/St. Louis and WLS/Chicago, conceived of a new radio show that would be an antidote to the brokered programming that now dominates talk radio on the weekends – personal finance shows, fix-it shows, gardening shows, travel shows, etc. Some of it’s good, most […]