Posthumous nominees include Phillies announcer Harry Kalas and Chicago fixture Studs Terkel.

Hal Edward

WSB/Atlanta has quietly added a Sunday talk show hosted by parenting and relationships expert  Hal Edward.  Best-known for his “ScreamFree Parenting” books and seminars, Edward is a frequent radio guest, often on female-leaning morning shows.  His WSB show, which debuted in late April,  addresses both personal relationships and the relationship aspects of current events.

WSB clearly has the show in soft-open mode, and that’s good.  Based on his most recent outing, Edward needs a lot more practice if he is to successfully bridge radio’s treacherous guest-to-host canyon.

Newsmax.com

News/talk: the Buick of radio formats.  Man, this really is a list of Little Limbaughs — a group dominated by older white guys who have been behind the microphone for a very long time.  While all the honorees are talented, and many have great ratings, this list fuels concern for the format’s future.  What is being done to insure that news/talk doesn’t meet the fate of Beautiful Music?Are these guys going to attract the next wave of talk listeners?  If so, how?  And when are they going to start?  If not, is anyone investing in the next generation of talkers — and exploring how talk programming must evolve to stay relevant to a younger audience?

WSB's Boortz

Where’s Boortz?  Newsmax might argue that WSB/Atlanta’s  Neal Boortz is a syndicated host, but he’s really an Atlanta talker.  Boortz does an hour-and-a-half of Atlanta-centric talk every day and never hesitates  to bring up Atlanta-generated topics during his network hours.  He is the once-and-probably-forever king of Atlanta talk radio.

Herman Cain?  The WSB evening host is smart and worldly-wise.  But Cain’s presentation and content are a siren-song to the elderly.  The Cox Radio station’s decision to hire Cain instead of building for the future at night was curious, to say the least.

No Bill Cunningham from WLW/Cincinnati?  Which leads to…

Where are the Mid-majors?  Talk radio hosts often have truly amazing influence in cities such as  New Orleans, Richmond and Charlotte.  Yet there is only one Little Limbaugh from outside the top 21 markets –  KFAB/Omaha’s Tom Becka.

Flash prognosis?   Properly conceived and executed, the Washington Times programming could be an excellent option for the third talk station in a large market, or the second talker in a mid to small market.  The timing is certainly right for a decent morning show available on barter.

But TRN faces two big challenges.  First, it needs to hire the right host(s).  Even an information-driven program benefits tremendously from a strong personality at the helm.  Witness Scott Slade, host of WSB-AM’s Atlanta’s Morning News, Scott Simon on NPR’s “Weekend Edition“, and Gordon Deal of “The Wall Street Journal This Morning.”  A good host makes the show more appealing by covering the metal-on-metal clank of news and information with a coat of warmth and humanity.

TRN must also rein-in their ink-stained partners.  The program has to be a radio show, not an audio version of the Washington Times. Pardon the generalization, but newspaper people just don’t understand news/talk radio.  The executives look down on it, and their reporters are often terrible on-air – with little interest in getting better.  This was one of many problems with Washington Post Radio, the Bonneville station that struggled for 18 months and died in September, 2008.  WaPo Radio was built around the idea that people would want to hear more from the Post reporters who penned the day’s big stories.  As a result, the station often sounded like an editorial staff meeting, with less-than-articulate scribblers droning on far too long about who-cares-what. 

TRN needs final control over all aspects of this new show, including content and which reporters get showcased.  It must also commit to endless teaching and coaching of the scribblers and their bosses.  If the radio guys can gain and maintain that upper hand, TRN’s  Mark Masters may have another winner.