Towards An Improved Widget

What happens if your media company is run by people who don't really understand or even care about the ultimate product?

Oh, we can tell stories about that, can't we, radio folks? That's what came to mind for me when following the recent implosion of Deadspin, in which the parent company's new private equity investors brought in a new CEO and an Editorial Director who decided that the site, which built its reputation on being a sports site with an attitude and a penchant for covering non-sports topics that somehow fit the ethos, should now just "stick to sports." The entire staff quit in protest, and now the site's frozen in time and the brand damaged, likely beyond repair. The new owners destroyed what they bought, because they thought they knew better. Spoiler: They didn't.

It's a story that's repeated itself across the media industries for many years now. Private equity comes in, makes the top people rich, and proceeds to preside over severely cutting back on operations to the point that the product suffers, and it results in bankruptcy, folding, fire sales, lost jobs, and good products turned to, well, not good products. Websites become clickbait farms. TV stations load up on infomercials. Newspapers... well, you know. Podcasts go the "me too" route, copying other shows because, hey, they're on top of the Apple chart. Radio stations strip out local content, news content, creativity and load up on spots. It's the same in other industries, like retail, when customer service and selection are the first things to go. The owners don't understand what makes what they're buying successful, and they often don't particularly care. The mandate isn't quality. It's cranking out the widgets. A widget's a widget, after all.

Quality, of course, is what you need for long term success. I know that investors in media aren't thinking long term. That's not a good formula, is it? It's nice and smart to expand radio, for example, into podcasting, because it's clear that on-demand audio is a large part of the media future, but buying into the medium is one thing and creating content that's particular to the medium is another. Some are doing it, others, not so much. And figuring out monetization to the point where we can see that long term success forming is going to require ownership willing to put up with short-term volatility, because we are not there yet and there are no quick solutions or ways to cut and slash your way to profitability in that space.

There's promise out there, and I am not among those proclaiming radio dead, not yet, not by a fairly long shot. But in order for radio to break out of its slow-growth or no-growth malaise, for podcasting to finally generate the kind of revenue that would make it more than just a promising line item buried in the "digital" part of a company's financials, for any medium to move forward in the 2020s, it will take ownership and management willing to take chances and put up with short-term volatility. It will take management and ownership that understands the product their companies are producing, and what works and what doesn't. It's not just having, say, radio companies run by "radio people," it's about radio people who aren't stuck in the "back in my day" "bring back WABC" way of thinking. Times have changed. The listeners have changed. Competition has changed. A radio station that could withstand the Spotifys and Pandoras and video competition will need to sound a lot different from what's on now, and what was on in the past. Different content, different advertising, different clocks, different everything. It can be done.

And maybe it will. It might be my insanity talking, but I haven't given up that someone somewhere will grasp the essential differences between radio and other media and create a radio station that is so different and so worth listening to that it spawns a new age of compelling content on the medium. I haven't given up hope that podcasting will find the monetization, both for big hit shows and for independent, niche shows, to encourage more producers to try new ideas and, even more importantly, stick to them instead of giving up in frustration after a few episodes. As long as the people with the money and the power are detached from the end product, it's just a dream. But I can dream anyway. Some widgets matter more than others.

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Speaking of different, you can find different things to talk about on your show -- you want that, right? -- on Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, which also happens to be free in case your management won't pay for show prep. Click here and/or follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. And there's also "10 Questions With" Mark Kaye, who hosts a talk show on WOKV/Jacksonville right after doing the Top 40 morning show across the hall at WAPE; coming from music radio to talk, he has some great insight as to the joys of getting to talk on the radio. He's also a fellow alumnus of Jersey Shore radio, so there's that. Go read it now.

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My podcast is "The Evening Bulletin with Perry Michael Simon," a quick (two minutes or less) daily thing, and you can get it by just clicking here, which should take you directly to the page or app that will work best for your device. It's also on Spotify; just search for it there, or ask for it on your Amazon Alexa-enabled device by saying "Alexa, play the Evening Bulletin podcast."

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Another reminder if you're in Southern California to join me and a lot of A-list radio and podcasting people at the west coast edition of the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System conference on Saturday, November 16th at California State University-Long Beach. I'm on at least one and possibly two panels. I'm still not sure about that, but I will be there. My wife Fran is on a panel, too, so it's a family affair. And it's for anyone interested in building their careers in radio, podcasting, TV, whatever. Find out more at mediaconferences.org. See you there.

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