British comedian, podcaster (and former radio personality) Ricky Gervais has grown very popular and rich on the strength of his particular brand of humor. But, as Gervais cautioned in a recent New York Times Magazine profile, pursuing approval and/or wealth is a self-defeating career strategy for media types:

“If you’re chasing after positive reviews, demographic trends or a lucrative box office, Gervais said, ‘you’ve already failed.” But, he added, “if your only ambition is to get something off your chest and render it exactly as you wanted it, then you’re bulletproof.’”

That advice applies to radio personalities perhaps more than any other type of entertainer.

Read the entire NYT  piece HERE.

Some notes and observations from the just concluded 2011 Talk Media Conference and Talk Show Boot Camp.  In many ways the event mirrored the industry.  It was a lean, somewhat subdued event attended by people desperate to figure out what comes next.  Much corridor talk was dominated by the latest round of lay-offs (“Are thy done, now?”), and people lined up to pay their respects to the latest fallen Titan of the Tower and Transmitter Age, Jack Swanson, formerly of KGO/SF.

Attendance:  Organizers Al Peterson, Erica Farber and Don Anthony put the number at 300. That’s probably right.  About 50 of the attendees were guests of The Dave Ramsey Show, which uses TMC to hold its own affiliates meeting. (More brilliance from a smart organization that has the financial resources to put good ideas into action.)

I’m guessing there were maybe 30-40 PDs at the event, along with a smattering of working hosts and aspiring talkers.

The syndicators have clearly cut back their commitment to these meetings, both in terms of sponsorship and staff.

Cumulus was heavily represented by programming people, network staffers and CEO Lew Dickey.  Conversely, very few Clear Channel employees were in attendance.

Mood:  I expected more fear and anger given that the event was held in the wake of yet another wave of lay-offs at Clear Channel and Cumulus.  Instead, I felt more of a “glad to be alive” vibe from the attendees.  They aren’t happy about what’s happening and are clearly concerned about the future of radio.  But they seem to have reached a Zen-like state.

Highlights:  Dave Ramsey’s on-stage interview with Lew Dickey was valuable for the insight it provided on Dickey.  Ramsey tried to humanize Dickey by teasing out childhood stories and lifestyle nuggets.  But most of the talk after the interview was about Dickey’s repeated shots at Citadel (“We bought it off the trash heap”) and gratuitous smack at Mel Karmazin’s Sirius/XM.

I do admire Dickey’s honesty and consistency.  He again made it clear that for Cumulus managers it is, indeed, the Atlanta way or the highway.  Said Dickey: “If you cash our checks, you run (our) plays.”   Dickey also offered some tough-love advice for programming types:  Learn about the business of radio, and don’t reflexively criticize big-picture management decisions that you don’t really understand.

Lots of folks hung around til midday Saturday to hear Randy Michaels and Water Sabo talk about their Merlin Media adventures.  But that was kinda disappointing.  There were some funny lines, but not a whole lot of insight.  Jack Swanson provided the session’s highlight.  After hearing Randy and Walter hold forth on their vision for a new generation of all-news radio stations, Swanson took the mic to ask, “If you two cowboys fuck this up, is that going to accelerate our decline into syndication hell?”

Michaels, tacitly acknowledging that Merlin’s New York and Chicago stations are struggling, responded: “We’re not going to fuck it up – at least not for much longer.”

The Sessions:  You’ve been there, slipped out of that.

Kudos to Al, Erica and Don for having the courage to produce this event in the midst of unprecedented industry upheaval.  It was a high-risk undertaking.

Will there be a 2012 TMC?  We’ll see.  As one senior group exec told me, “This business is going to experience cataclysmic downsizing in the coming year.  Who knows how many news/talk PDs jobs will still exist next year?”

In the meantime, take Randy Michaels’ advice: “Go where the wind is blowing the business, and have fun along the way.”

For more tidbits from the TMC, check out my Tweets from the event, which you can see at TalkFrontier.com

Don't be him. Be you.

In the days since Apple founder Steve Jobs’ death, I’ve been trying to put words to the lessons he offers for talk radio hosts.  I can’t say it any better than Nilofer Merchant did in the Harvard Business Review.  Bottom line:  To thine own self be true.  Attempting to please or imitate others leads to mediocrity.

Says Merchant: “When we define ourselves by what others want, we are trying to kiss a moving butt. To live in a box defined by someone else is to deny our uniqueness. Each of us is standing in a spot no one else occupies. That unique perspective is born of our accumulated experience, perspective, and our vision. When we deny these things, we deny that which only we can bring to the situation, our onlyness. And that is surely not the way the world is made better.”

Read the full post here.

Randall Bloomquist

Effective this week, I’m no longer writing the News Talk Edge newsletter for Radio-Info.com.   The September 15th issue was my last.  No scandal here, no falling-out.  It was my decision based on a need to devote more time to my growing business.

The Radio-Info team is fantastic.  I thank them for the opportunity to use their platform for 15 months.

I also want to thank all of you who signed up for News Talk Edge, read it faithfully, and shared your feedback — both positive and negative.

While I’m done with News Talk Edge, I’m not done sharing useful advice and insight on talk media.  I’ll do that right here on TalkFrontier.com.  I’d be flattered to death if you would sign up for the RSS or email feed.  I’ll do my best to make it worth your time.

All the Best,

Randall