Never talk about the one that got away

Radio and TV talker Ed Schultz is carping about how President Obama hasn’t appeared on his show(s).  Big Ed’s most recent outburst came  at the Netroots Nation conference of liberal bloggers, as detailed in a post on Mediaite.com.

This is a huge mistake; one that reveals an all-to-common failure to understand a core principal of successful talk programming: The show will rise or fall on the host’s own ability to entertain, inform and intrigue the audience.  Complaining about a person’s refusal to come on the show, or their failure to call-in at the scheduled time, makes the host look small, weak, ineffectual and petty.  Talking about the guests you CAN’T book is also a waste of the listeners’ time. When a guest fails to show, or bails at the last minute, the host should simply move on with a minimal explanation and perhaps the observation that the would-be guest has missed a great opportunity.

On a related note… any talk personality who depends on guests to drive his/her show is extremely vulnerable.  As one observer recently noted, Larry King‘s fade to oblivion stemmed from his guest-dependency.  Larry himself never provided a reason to tune-in on a regular basis.  Instead, viewers stopped by only on those occasions when Larry was chatting with someone they were interested in hearing from.  Conversely, while Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Sean Hannity’s radio show all devote significant time to interviews, their guests don’t drive the program. Instead those visitors provide grist for host’s mill — be it comedic or political.