What We All Need - A Good Producer!

I've been working in radio news/talk for a long time, and I thought I had a pretty good sense of what it takes to get a show on the air and make it sound semi-decent.

But I can tell you now after working three days as a show host that I have a whole new appreciation for producers. Show producers are the people who work behind the scenes, busting their tails to make the talent sound intelligent and the rest of the program to sound slick and polished.

The show I'm hosting this week on Sirius/XM, "The Morning Briefing" on the POTUS channel, could not possibly get on the air without its excellent producer, Joanna Welch. Even as I'm working on pounding out my news copy and inserting audio into the script, reviewing guests and preparing interview questions, Joanna is working behind me to make sure the show stays afloat.

She'll see what I'm doing and suggest a piece of audio to make it better, or replace one of my ideas with a better idea. Or find nat sound for a story that I'm doing to make that story sound alive. She's also a safety net. When I don't know the exact format that's needed, or when I say something wrong, she is able to step right in and gently make a course correction. And she is constantly pushing me to make the show better - even when I'm trying to focus enough merely to keep the show on the air without bringing everything to a crashing halt!

If you listen to any talk radio programs on a regular basis, you will frequently hear show hosts referring to their producers - and occasionally, the producers' voices will even get on the air. Don't be folled into thinking those people are merely there to be stooges or sidekicks. They are every bit as important as your favorite talk hosts - the show would NOT go on without them.

I have worked with many good producers at WMAL over the years. Andrea Perry put up with Chris Core for many years - more than he deserved! Dan Loukota produced WMAL's morning show for nearly a decade, and kept it sounding young - a big challenge on WMAL. And the current morning show producer, Ann Wog, deserves every penny she gets and much more by trying to corral Grandy and Andy.

I had always been aware of their knowledge, wisdom and patience. But until I put on the "talent" hat myself, I never realized how integral producers are to making the shows go! Imagine how nice it would be to have someone like a producer in your personal life, helping you choose what to buy at the grocery store... setting up your job interviews for you... calling the plumber and whatnot. And think about how much more interesting your life would be if you had someone to put a soundtrack behind you!

Thanks, Joanna!

It's Getting Crowded On The Beach

Actually, if we have just a couple more days like yesterday's 679-point debacle for the Dow, the beach is going to look like Normandy on D-Day.

I'm still trying to come to grips with the fact that my former industry is crumbling before me, even as I scramble to get back in to it. Stock values in radio companies are dropping faster than the Dow is, but the big difference between radio and most other industries is that there's little reason to think old media like radio and newspapers are going to recover any time soon.

My former employer, Citadel Broadcasting, now has its stock selling at 37 cents a share, and it is set to be de-listed by the New York Stock Exchange any day now. Sirius-XM, which was created in a merger a couple of months back in a bid to keep the satellite radio companies afloat, is now selling at 45 cents a share. And these are just a couple of examples. Both companies are facing enormous debt loads, and it's unclear why investors would take a shot at buying them. It's clear that advertising is going to take a huge hit, and when it does recover, radio and newspaper are not going to get the lion's share of ad money. Sirius, in particular, depends on people buying new cars to survive, and that won't be happening in acceptable numbers anytime soon, either.

I worry about my friends at Citadel, and I fear that another wave of layoffs like the one that cost me my career is now underway. The longtime Program Director at WABC-AM in New York was shown the door yesterday, as was one of the Human Resources people at WMAL/WRQX/WJZW. Those are the only two I know of so far, but I'm sure there are more. I know there is little-to-no fat left to cut, so it's frightening to think of what might happen next. I just hope there's enough money left for everyone to get a decent severance when the ax falls.

Hang in there, friends - and keep your heads down!

XM AND Sirius Merge - WHO CARES?

In what has to be the most overblown story in radio history, the FCC has finally blessed the marriage of XM and Sirius Satellite Radio. Sure, this forms a monopoly, and hurts the consumer in the short run, but it will ultimately be a virtual non-story in the timeline of radio. Here's why!

• First of all, satellite radio is already a failure. Yes, many of you have it in your car, and you enjoy it a lot, and yes... you do keep hearing stories in the news about how many people are subscribing to it. But consider this... If you add up the total of XM and Sirius subscribers in the U.S., you will still get just a tiny fraction of the entire radio universe. These companies are only merging because they are desperate to stay afloat, and they had to agree to a number of hardships in order to be allowed to merge, uincluding several years of price freezes.


• Most new XM and Sirius radios are sold through new car sales, which are not exactly booming in this economy.


• Most importantly - even as the two companies merge, satellite radio is already becoming obsolete. You may be willing to shell out 13 bucks a month for the service now, but in another year or two (at most), you'll be able to get all the same stuff (and much more) for free - once internet car radio arrives. It's just a short matter of time before that technology arrives, and once it does, it might just boost terrestrial radio instead of killing it. Stations that currently have signal problems in their far-reaching suburbs will now be able to potentially reach millions more listeners by simply streaming their audio, which listeners will be able to hear while driving. In fact, internet radio is already arriving. Looky here:
  

By the way - one technology I have not mentioned is HD radio. For those of you who pay no attention to the business, HD radio was terrestrial radio's answer to satellite - a way to give you hundreds more listening options commercial-free. I personally think HD radio is dead on arrival... Several companies have rolled out HD stations, but both the programming and the signal for those stations have been spotty at best. There's been a ton of money spent on technology and marketing, but despite all that, virtually no owns an HD radio, and for now, there's really little to no incentive to own one.

Just stick with AM radio, people... yeahhhh THAT'S the ticket!