When you talk to radio broadcasters about their podcasting strategy, they tend to see it from the same perspective: The one that relates to their own content. But there’s another way to see podcasting strategy, one that is right in front of your ears. I have a secret podcast project (B2C, not B2B) launching this spring (it’s gonna be killer), and that has given me the chance to chat up some of the key figures in the “business of podcasting” space. I encouraged one to reach ou

It’s not about having a voice, it’s about being heard. This is the fundamental truth being lost on the tribe of progressive activists in Milwaukee who bemoan the lack of opinions from other-than-conservative voices on the local airwaves. As anyone familiar with the dynamics of radio (not to mention the history of progressive radio network Air America) knows, there is a strong symbiosis between the slant of political talk and the available audience for political talk. Both lea

What if your News/Talk station could have a mobile app that not only replayed your linear over-the-air stream, but also created something new? That is, what if you could personalize the content to the individual consumer – news, traffic, weather? And what if it could be presented in a non-linear stream, unique to every individual? That’s the promise of NewsBeat, a new platform built to give consumers the content they want whenever they want it – not just whenever it happens t

Where was News/Talk radio when hackers reportedly representing the North Korean government nuked Sony Pictures and scared major theater owners into locking out the latest movie from Seth Rogen and James Franco, The Interview? With stations labeled “Freedom” and “The Flag” and “The Truth,” News/Talk crows daily about the dangers faced by “free” Americans from their own government, so what did N/T broadcasters do when those same freedoms were abjectly denied to Americans due to

Why is Talk Radio so angry? And does it remind you of anything? Particularly a certain classic film, released in 1976 and called Network? You know the one. With the scene featuring a waterlogged anchorman played by Peter Finch, desperately imploring his frustrated viewers to go to their windows, throw them open, and shout at the top of their lungs: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” How is it that the satirical vision of screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky

Republican soul-searching followed the demographic slam to the gut from younger voters, African Americans, and Hispanics in the election earlier this month. And the reverberations from that punch have resonated through the ranks of News/Talk programmers and talent nationwide. While I can’t be specific about the research I have done in that area (it’s both extensive and proprietary), I can tell you this much: It should come as no great surprise. Interest in Talk per se – as e

“Will you talk to me?” I mean, one-on-one? It’s my observation that most program directors spend infinitely more time talking to the ratings reports than talking to actual listeners.  Needless to say, this confuses input (listeners) and outcome (ratings). As a practitioner of consumer research, I’m not foolish enough to believe that one conversation with one listener represents a fact, but it does represent a story.  And the sum total of all listener behavior is the sum total

Too many News/Talk broadcasters just don’t get it. What can they learn from Amazon’s new Kindle Fire? Quite a lot, I think. This is not a piece about Amazon vs. Apple.  Nor is it a piece about the merits and prospects for Kindle Fire.  Those are all discussed ad infinitum elsewhere. This is a piece about strategic thinking, specifically the strategic thinking that makes Kindle Fire different from the zillions of other tablet alternatives to Apple’s groundbreaking iPad. Amazon

Here’s my understanding of how PPM works: In any given quarter-hour under diary methodology, you used to have to listen at least five continuous minutes for that listening to “count” you as a listener and to “count” your listening as an “occasion.” Under PPM however, I’m told that those five minutes no longer need to be continuous.  That is, if I flip back to the station several times in a quarter-hour I count as a listener and my listening counts as one occasion as long as a

What do you call a News/Talk station that’s investing in original web video programming? You call it a station that understands “news” is what the consumer wants, the way he wants it.  “News” is not a newscast or the kind of news that limits itself to audio. And Bonneville’s KTAR has one such station.  They debuted a modest investment in video equipment (and I mean more than Flip cams, thank you) during the recent election.  This represents exclusive video content – not a cam

So says David Hall, one of the best known names in the Talk Radio business. And David doesn’t just mean that it’s too Conservative.  He also means that the political dimension of Talk Radio is simply too thin to support every “spoken word” station in America, and I can’t imagine anyone disagreeing with that. Where is the new talent?  Where are the broadcasters who are taking risks?  Where are the experiments? David and I have a wide-ranging conversation about the prospects fo

Last week I was honored to be part of a panel at Al Peterson’s NTS MediaOnline Talk Show Boot Camp in Marina Del Rey. The topic was, as ever, the future.  In this case the future of News/Talk radio. Besides me, the panel also featured D: All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher, Sound Mind LLC’s Brian Glicklich, and Paragon Research’s Mike Henry. Erica Farber was our fabulous and able moderator. This audio is the full session, including Q&A (I was holding the mic so that explains wh