A highly biased take on putting the news in news talk.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have a confession to make.  I am a horribly biased radio newsperson.  That is to say, I have a heavy bias towards the importance and utility of news on the radio.  I was “the newsguy” for almost all of my 15 years in radio, and I believe it is still a vital component of any news/talk station, AM or FM.

There’s a school of thought that says the Portable People Meter system of measurement ruined the content of talk radio (there’s another technical argument about PPM and talk radio, but that’s a discussion for another time).  Format clocks were re-engineered based on what was learned from the first round of PPM testing 10 years ago.  News, traffic, and commercial breaks were strictly defined.  The old days of “we’ll get to the news when we’re done” or “we’ll take a break when we’re done” were replaced by “traffic on the sevens” and “you hit the news exactly at the time tone.”

When I arrived at WGN in 2005, I heard stories about the “glory days.”  In the good old days, Bob Collins rarely kept track of his commercial breaks.  He was done at 9:00 or 10:00, and if he didn’t finish playing all of the commercials for his show, the traffic department simply sent a notice to the advertiser saying they will make up the spots at another time.  Uncle Bobby also took his news and traffic breaks whenever he damn well pleased.

That’s what you could do when your show

A) rolled up double digit shares in morning drive

B) was responsible for tens of millions of dollars in revenue

That’s not to say Bob Collins wasn’t an unbelievably talented talk show host.  Had he lived, there’s a real good chance that he would still be going strong today.  He was a radio artist in the truest sense of the word.  He knew how to put on a good show.  Want proof? Here’s an hour of Collins filling in for Wally Phillips in March of ’79:

The masters of talk radio also had the benefit of working when ratings were determined by people filling out diaries.  There was a reason why WLS paid JAM Creative Productions in Dallas a pretty penny to produce memorable jingles.  They wanted to make sure you remembered….

“Double-youuuu-ellllllll-essssssssssssss”

When you filled out that diary.

Talk show hosts could play around with service elements and commercial breaks because the ratings didn’t accurately reflect listening.  It reflected what people remembered hearing.  Memorable names and memorable jingles were worth their weight in gold.

When the PPM hit major markets in 2008, the world changed overnight.  Stations that were overcounted in the diary watched their audience share disappear.  Stations that were undercounted zoomed up the charts.  The one thing we learned the the news/talk world is that the audience isn’t nearly as forgiving as we thought.

People punch out.  Quickly.

The 45 minute commercial-free ramble (followed by 15 straight minutes of commercials) was replaced by news on the hour and half hour, traffic every quarter hour, and talk segments that didn’t run longer than 15 minutes.  Service elements were “appointments,” and hitting the appointments on time was the most important thing you can do as a host.

You may remember when we would start a show by listing the exact times when we were doing certain things –

It’s 5:11 but stick around at 8:39 because we’ll discus what bears do in the woods.

That was an appointment, and if we told you the exact time of an interview or discussion segment, you were more likely to come back.  Or so we thought.

For some talk listeners, this devotion to the clock ruined the format.  They felt the host was buried in sea of commercials, traffic reports, and news.  They also felt that traffic reports and news were redundant in an era when both are available on smartphones.

They’re right…..kinda.

Service elements and strictly defined breaks do serve as an editor.  As a host, I knew I had to stay fast and focused because I knew I had seven minutes until the first break.  Seven minutes disappear quickly.  It forced me to “pitch from the stretch,” as it were.

The show is also more than just the host yapping.  The show is everything – programming, news, traffic, weather, and commercials.  Every second of the hour counts.

Radio news that is nothing more than a simple headline service can be replaced by a smartphone.  The “news” app on your iPhone is basically a headline service.  A traffic report that exists for the sales department to sell commercials next to the traffic report can be replaced by the traffic app on a smartphone.

But, this is news/talk radio we’re talking about.  These stations should have a news department staffed with talented anchors, clever reporters, and specialized traffic reporters.  Newscasts SHOULD be full of information not available on a smartphone. Traffic reports SHOULD be delivered by traffic reporters who can provide information above and beyond the red and green lines on a traffic app.

From 2001 to 2004, I had the good fortune to work with Jon Belmont.  Before moving to Milwaukee to host the morning show on WTMJ, he had been the midday anchor for ABC News Radio (the former ABC Information Radio Network).  At ABC, he said, the top of the hour newscast wasn’t a newscast.  It was a “show.”  The five minute “show” had to be as compelling as the 55 minutes of programming that followed it.

I thought that was a great way to view a radio newscast.  It was a show within a show.  It was the anchor’s job to weave together information and sound through the connective tissue of great writing.

The most extreme example, of course, was CKLW in Windsor, Ontario.  CK was a Top 40 station at AM 800 that served both Windsor and Detroit.  The teenagers who listened to rock radio weren’t inclined to listen to the news reports that were required to run twice an hour, so station management gave them a reason to listen through the news.  The end result was something called “20/20 News.”  It combined sound, a hard-charging delivery, and incredibly clever writing:

Most radio newsrooms can’t dredge up the “Motor City Murder Meter,” but they don’t have to treat a newscast like a serving of vegetables.

LISTEN TO THIS NEWSCAST BECAUSE IT’S GOOD FOR YOU

Good writing and good showmanship keep newscasts from becoming a tune-out.  The same thing goes for traffic and weather.

Everything is available on a smartphone, so the service elements available on a radio station need to go above and beyond.  A “break” in the show doesn’t have to be a break if it’s entertaining, informative, or relevant.