Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, The Situation, Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga, and Britney Spears. At one time each has captured the attention of Americans with their outrageous behavior.
There was a day when radio morning shows too could capture a listener's attention with outrageous, off-the-wall behavior. The radio industry once had hometown Charlie Sheens throughout America.
They created controversy. They created GM headaches, but they created water-cooler talk. And they produced box-car morning ratings.
Today, most morning shows are like television morning shows without pictures. A little chat, a little news, and the occasional funny story off the web.
Is that any way to fire up an audience? Is that the sort of content that will keep people in their cars after they’ve gotten to work to see how things turn out?
No. Absolutely not.
Local radio morning shows simply cannot successfully compete directly against television morning shows. National TV shows have the big hosts. They have the big interviews. They have the fancy graphics, cut-aways, and on-location reports. And local TV morning shows just ride their coat-tails.
Local radio morning shows can only successfully compete against TV morning shows by doing what TV cannot. That means being more controversial, more unpredictable, and a little more crazy.
Radio needs some tiger blood.
Radio was once the medium that tested the limits of good taste. Radio was once the machine behind many TV newscast kickers. But no more.
Now it is Charlie Sheen, YouTube videos, the Daily Show, Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, and Skins that people talk about and discuss on social networks.
Seems like the rest of the world sped past radio on it’s way to ever-greater attention grabbing crass tastelessness, leaving radio morning shows in the dust.
Today, the average prime-time basic cable television viewer sees more off-the-wall craziness in a single evening than today’s staid radio morning show produces in a year. Radio has become cautious, even prudish, at a time when the country is headed in the other direction.
Morning shows seem frozen in place reflecting the community standards of Happy Days while radio listeners are busy downloading fart apps.
Whatever you think of today’s moral climate, of America’s 21st century sense of humor and entertainment, radio has to be the medium that reflects where America is today, not when The Osbournes were cutting edge.
Want to get some double digit morning numbers? Stop sounding like Fox and Friends.
Bob, you're right about the need for a connection, but the key is relevancy, not necessarily honesty. Today, superficiality and insincerity seem to be rewarded, not punished.
Your point about losing young listeners is well-taken. Even today's CHRs are aiming over the heads of radio's next generation of listeners.
Posted by: Richard Harker | March 22, 2011 at 10:15 AM
The best morning TV show EVER was "Breakfast Time" on the fX network from 1994-1996.
While the program had lots of visual appeal, I think you could have just heard the audio alone and had a good show too.
Posted by: Joel O'Brien | March 22, 2011 at 10:01 AM
Talk radio is already about ONE thing only. Controversy. But empty controversy that the younger demo avoids more and more. The
lewd & crazy guys MAY indeed plump up the PPMs for a while, but without the honest CONNECTION that radio used to have with the younger audience radio's image and position as a growth industry will continue to decline.
Posted by: Bob Green | March 22, 2011 at 09:43 AM