Can’t We Talk About Something Else?

It's fitting in 2020 that the most talked-about song of the Summer can't be played on the radio without a "radio edit," not that this is a new thing. Plenty of hit songs have required extensive bowdlerization to be radio-friendly, what with the FCC and all. But it's the song of the moment, the subject of a lot of social media attention. If you're under, say, 35 years old, you're likely to have heard "WAP" by now, or at least you're aware of it and the controversy over its lyrics, which I'll leave you to ponder. But it's a cultural phenomenon of the moment, confirmed when, of all people, Ben Shapiro ran into some derision by awkwardly posting something clinical about the particular condition that "WAP" (non-radio edit) actually means.

And you can't talk about it on the radio in the way the generations under 35 years old are talking about it. That's okay, you have a license to protect, and it might not be in your wheelhouse. If you're on a typical talk radio station, your audience doesn't even know who Cardi B or Megan Thee Stallion are, and all they'd do with "WAP" is clutch their pearls anyway. Still, that's just one thing you can't or won't talk about on the radio that solidifies the talk radio format as something for your dad or grandfather.

A single topic like a controversial hit song isn't the issue. You can skip it and find a million other things to talk about. But it does say something about the future of talk radio and spoken word audio entertainment, doesn't it, when things that are top-of-mind, ubiquitous, and -- oh, okay, I'll use the term, though I hate it -- trending among the younger audiences that generate the most advertising interest are off-limits to your medium? Especially since there are alternatives?

I don't expect this to change. Broadcast radio and television content will always be regulated for "indecency," no matter that podcasts and streaming won't be subject to the same rules even if they become as "pervasive" as broadcast (the justification for FCC v. Pacifica ,the "seven dirty words" case). It doesn't even matter whether you agree with indecency regulation, preferring radio to be family-friendly or wanting total freedom, or speech regulation in general. It's that there's a conversation going on among the audience you want to target, and you think you can't be part of it on the air.

I'm not suggesting you need to be profane or explicit. I am, however, pointing to how talk radio has talked itself out of even trying to address topics and political viewpoints and cultural touchpoints that aren't within a narrow definition of "talk radio," the definition that involves an angry guy yelling over AM airwaves. I get what generations of talk radio programmers and consultants have insisted, that a station is better off being politically and topically consistent, and it makes sense -- especially if you have an AM station, you need to hold onto the audience you have because there's no guarantee you'll be able to draw enough listeners to offset the audience that will angrily stop listening the split second a host suggests that the President isn't all that. Understood. But that leaves lots of opportunity for talk radio that appeals to other demographics, doesn't it?

It should. And while you can't play the non-radio-edit "WAP" on a broadcast station without drawing FCC scrutiny, there's no legal or moral or ethical prohibition against airing talk about things that don't fit the current talk radio profile. You can be liberal or conservative, young or old, political or apolitical. What's more, your competition, podcasts and social media, are already talking about things you've precluded yourself from talking about, and the only reason talk radio hasn't gone there is fear, fear of the audience and fear that it won't work because "nobody else is doing it" or "it hasn't been tried" or "didn't someone do that in Houston 30 years ago and it flopped?" You also can't give up on attracting listeners who say they don't listen to talk on the radio -- they would if you give them talk that appeals to them. They listen to music station morning shows, don't they? Those are often talk shows. ("The Breakfast Club" is a good example -- it's a music morning show, it's a talk radio show, it's a podcast, it's a model.) They listen to podcasts, too -- all talk. Talk radio conceded those audiences to podcasts a long time ago. Can they get them back? I don't know, but it would be worth a try.

Personally, though I'm not in the under-35 demographic, I would love to hear other voices, new ideas, something different. And I can and do, because of podcasts and the handful of talk stations that don't follow the well-beaten path. We just need more of that. We can change the perception of what "talk radio" means by talking about the things we classified as off-limits long ago, and attract a larger and younger audience in the process. Or we can shrug and call it a lost cause. Maybe it is, but it would be fun to try. Just bring a bucket and a mop.

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Next week: A detailed analysis of "Blueberry Faygo.".Or a song-by-song dissertation about "folklore." Something like that.

Perry Michael Simon
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