Well, You Can’t Believe Everything You Read on the Internet

The Daily Beast recently posted a list of talk show hosts who are supposedly poised to be “the next Glenn Beck.” This apparently means a personality capable of transcending radio to become a political or cultural force. You know, somebody who will one day be the subject of a fretful Time magazine cover story. Daily [...]

Share

Exposed! What Really Killed Air America! (And Why Other Liberal Talkers Should Be Afraid)

The recent demise of Air America Media reignited the debate over why liberal talk radio has struggled to find a viable audience.  You’ve heard all the theories: bad business plan; putting politics ahead of entertainment; the mainstream media provides enough liberal news and comment, et cetera.  Now former liberal talk host Steve Young puts forth a [...]

Share

“Maverick! Engage, Dammit!”

Boston Phoenix blogger Adam Reilly offers an insightful post-mortem on talk radio’s role in Scott Brown‘s election to the U.S. Senate. The bottom-line: Relationships and engagement matter — a lot. True, most Beantown talkers were ideologically pre-disposed to support the Republican Brown.  But Brown also benefited tremendously from his long-time courtship of  the radio crowd. [...]

Share

Callers: PPM’s Next Victim?

A recent column in Toronto’s Globe and Mail reports that Canadian sports-talk stations have developed a serious bias against callers, with some shows banning them all together, and others limiting listener participation to special “hot-button topic” segments or post-game shows. The most eyebrow-raising observation in the column comes from Bob McCown, host of an afternoon [...]

Share

Five Take-Aways from Talk Show Boot Camp

Don Anthony‘s first Talk Show Boot Camp was an excellent event — 36 hours of laser-focused discussion on what it takes to create great talk radio.   It was both educational and motivational.  If there’s a 2010 edition (and there probably will be) you need to be there.  In the meantime, here are five themes [...]

Share

Welcome to Talk Frontier — The Next Generation

Dear Friends and Colleagues –  I started  TalkFrontier.com eight months ago as an experiment, as a way to learn about New Media while continuing to share my opinions and ideas about talk radio.  At the time, I took a pretty dim view of radio’s prospects.  But a funny thing happened across those eight months and 95 blog posts.  The more [...]

Share

Rush and Jay-Z: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Excellent insight in this NYT opinion piece on what talk radio hosts and rappers have in common. Hint: A lot, including a hunger for financial success and its rewards. Jay-Z could have been talking about Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck when he wrote, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.”

Share

The Dangers of Going Too Far Out on That Limb

In a recent post on the libertarian website reason.com, Michael C. Moynihan offered this analysis of the situation in Washington: The Obama administration keeps fumbling, but the Republicans can’t seem to scoop up the ball — in part because the GOP seems focused not on providing alternatives and legitimate criticism, but on scaring people to death with extreme scenarios and [...]

Share

Don Anthony Steps Into the Talk Seminar Void

Don Anthony, the man behind the highly-regarded Morning Show Boot Camp, has announced a similar event aimed at talk radio pros – and music personalities looking to segue into spoken-word radio.  This is great news for the format.  Anthony’s willingness to jump in provides a much needed demonstration of confidence in talk radio’s  future.  What’s more, Talk Show Boot Camp could prove [...]

Share

Talk Radio Shoots Off Another Toe

From yesterday’s Taylor on Radio newsletter… Emmis breaks up KLBJ, Austin’s Todd & Don Show, after the “wetback” protests. That’s considered to be a particularly objectionable term of derision by many Mexican-Americans, and Don Pryor kept employing it on last Tuesday’s show… Wetback? What broadcaster in his right mind is using that kind of language in 2009?  The answer [...]

Share