Your Obligatory 2017 Year-In-Review Column

And I thought 2016 was tough to get through.

This is the last column for 2017, and as such, it's the obligatory look back on the year in talk radio and podcasting, which would be a very easy thing to write if my memory was better than it is. Nevertheless, I did remember enough to be able to pontificate on the good and bad in the medium for the year, so let's get to it right away so I can get this thing done and not have to think about it until January:

GOOD: Radio ain't dead yet. In fact, even with one major bankruptcy and another seemingly inevitable, radio keeps chugging along, shrunken but not invisible, still able to crow about reach at all the radio conventions even if some demos are spending less time with it, hopeful that new technology won't freeze it out but might offer some opportunity.

BAD: It's still not the kind of growth that investors want, and it's going to take a lot more changes in ownership to get to the point where slow and steady will sustain the business. We're not headed into another Golden Age of Mom and Pop -- the consolidation-friendly Pai FCC will make sure of that. This could be the beginning of radio being allowed to do what it does best, or it could be time for more cost-cutting, if there are any costs to cut.

GOOD: Podcasts are still gaining attention from the general public, and there were a few breakouts -- "S-Town" didn't quite gain the cultural currency its parent "Serial" did but it was a big success, and the daily morning news briefings by NPR and The New York Times became morning radio for a new generation. Even if there still seems to be way too many podcasts through which one must sort to find the gems (geez, even I have one now), the fact that some ARE breaking through is encouraging. (Did you ask what my favorites were this year? No? Okay, I'll answer anyway: "Heavyweight" was terrific, like the best parts of Jonathan Goldstein's old CBC show "Wiretap" but with stronger storytelling, "The Dollop" took warped history to another level, and "The Rights to Ricky Sanchez" did a great premature victory lap over the culmination of The Process and the ascendancy of the Sixers. These are not radio shows; they're the new radio. And they're good.)

BAD: In all the reporting about podcasts, you'll note that few point out that growth has slowed. That's because it's still an iPhone phenomenon. Google did not, as had been hoped, release a native Android podcast app this year, and that's a majority of the market having to find and download an app and figure it all out themselves, which we know they generally aren't going to do. Meanwhile, have you seen what Apple did to its iOS Podcasts app? It's... not good. Subscribed podcasts don't automatically download, it randomly unsubscribes you from shows, it's hard to find anything and harder to discover new shows... like I said, not good. That's going to have to get fixed in 2018.

GOOD: Smart speakers -- Amazon's Alexa devices, Google Home -- are becoming more and more commonplace, with support for voice control coming to cars soon. This year, you could finally just say what you wanted to listen to and it worked.

BAD: It's still cumbersome. Unless a station has a dedicated skill, you might not get what you want. "Alexa, play (station slogan)" might work, or it might get you a similarly named station from elsewhere, or it might just tell you it can't do anything with that. Remembering to say "on TuneIn" or "on iHeartRadio" is a pain when all you want to do is hear a radio station. And not enough stations developed skills, or let people know how to add them to their devices. That's going to be increasingly important. (Same for podcasts, although "Alexa, play the Evening Bulletin podcast" works- try it with your Echo or Dot! Try it repeatedly! Try it every day!)

GOOD: Some political talk stations saw continued ratings boosts as the Trump Effect lingered. It provided plenty of material, that's for sure.

BAD: The effect didn't linger long enough for most stations. And it highlighted something that could be very bad for the talk radio format moving forward: too many stations and hosts have forgotten that they're at their best and most widely appealing if they take the side not of a particular politician or party but of their listeners. 2017 was the year hosts and PDs became afraid of their core audience and pandered to them, becoming cheerleaders for politicians instead of representatives-of-the-people. And that led to hosts having to defend the indefensible, over and over. I'm not taking sides here, I'm just calling for honesty. At some point, there will be a reckoning, and if people identify you or your station with having sold them a bill of goods, there will be no recovery. I'm hopeful that 2018 will bring more sanity and clarity to talk radio, but I fear that some have gone too far down the wrong road already.

GOOD: Turned out that social media hadn't replaced sports radio. Some sports stations had high ratings even in an age when fans live-tweet games and trade their own "hot takes" directly with athletes and big-name media types.

BAD: Oh, those ESPN layoffs, which at least hit radio less than they hit TV. Sports radio is in better shape than TV, mostly because rights fees are more affordable and production is more affordable, but play-by-play is still more of a share-grabber than the actual daily programming. With WFAN's Mike Francesa departing, the format could use some more breakout stars. Wait 'til next year, I guess.

GOOD: Podcasts are increasingly diverse, not just in race/gender but in topics and politics and every other way. It's what happens when there is no gatekeeper.

BAD: On the other hand, talk radio, the broadcast kind, is still not all that diverse. It's still mostly white, mostly male, mostly older. Even a lot of the young hosts sound like the old guys. We did not see a new breakout star in 2017 talk radio, and I'm increasingly concerned that broadcasters just don't know where to look or what they're looking for -- it's still frustrating that the primary job requirement is "has to be a Trump supporter" rather than someone whose talent and entertainment value make his or her politics secondary or even beside the point. The people in charge of the format are playing it safe, and that's too safe. Everyone is afraid to swing for the fences. We're bunting more than a Ned Yost team.

There was more, but my memory is shot and it's time to go. Let's hope that at the end of 2018, we'll see such positive change that I won't be tempted to copy and paste this column and just change the dates....

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The end of the year doesn't mean the end of the supply of topics you'll find at All Access News-Talk-Sports' unimaginatively named Talk Topics column, which will continue being updated through the middle of next week and then on a less stringent schedule until mid-January (after CES). See it by clicking here and/or by following the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. And there's the Podcasting section at AllAccess.com/podcasts.

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Now, it's time for the holiday break. So, may you and yours have the happiest of holidays (I'm ending the War On 'Happy Holidays' right here!) and a wonderful New Year's, and I'll meet you here in January, okay? Okay.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
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