Industry Views

The Power of Appealing to Aspiration

By Walter Sabo
Consultant, Sabo Media
A.K.A. Walter Sterling
Radio Host, Sterling on Sunday

WABC - Bruce MorrowIt was a cruel trick. Hulu started streaming “For the People” from Shondaland Productions last month and I bit. It is a show about Manhattan, ambition and really well-tailored clothes. Then I looked at the more information tab and discovered that the show was cancelled… in 2018. Crushed. Two seasons on ABC. Cancelled.

Why have I fallen so hard for a show about the lawyers of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York? Two reasons: “For the People” is aspirational TV (at least to me) like, “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.” Every character in “For the People” has an enviable 20s-in-Manhattan lifestyle. It is easy for me to embrace the warm pool fantasy of a good job, cool sushi bars, easy sex. I also miss a character in the show named Kate Littlejohn played by Susannah Flood. She says what needs to be said and does not care what people think of her in the workplace! That’s my aspiration too!

“Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” is also aspirational (again, at least to me). The star, Guy Fieri, lives off the grid and off the menu. He eats any deep-fried dish he wants in the kitchen with the chef for free! I eat Lipitor. I aspire to be Guy Fieri, a man who has no negative consequences for his cardiac arrest diet.

When a show taps into your aspirations on any level, it becomes your show. Radio entertainment did that for you, that’s why you work in radio! You and I can do that for a listener. The founding Top 40 jocks tapped the aspirations of teens every day. Dewey Phillips on WHBQ, Alan Freed on 1010 WINS, Bruce Morrow on WABC and many more. What did they do? They said the names of their listeners for hours and hours, they formed an exclusive club of cool kids. These pioneers compelled their listener to buy the record, the ticket and come to the dance.

“Hey cousin, you’re captured.”  Bruce Morrow said that phrase MILLONS of times going into breaks. He captured the listener behind the velvet rope of coolness and that’s where they aspired to be and to remain.

The moment you share a story your listeners absolutely relate to, they will aspire to join your club. Say a listener’s name, and you instantly become a part of their personal history. Radio’s star making power is radio’s magic. Secretly, every listener wants to be a star, make their aspiration come true and you have a listener for life. Or, as the pedantic say… a P1!

Walter Sabo, consultant, can be contacted at Sabo Media: walter@sabomedia.com. Direct phone: 646-678-1110.  Check out www.waltersterlingshow.com. Meet Walter Sabo at TALKERS 2023 on June 2 at Hofstra University.

Industry Views

According to Research…

By Walter Sabo
Consultant, Sabo Media
A.K.A. Walter Sterling
Radio Host, Sterling on Sunday

Jim Bohannon - Talk radioOh, excuse me, hold on. Here it is! The hourly report from quasi research companies or real research companies like Nielsen declaring that radio is just fine, thank you! Massive surveys (choose one) reveal that radio works! Radio appeals to younger demos! Radio moves product! Radio has more listeners in AM drive than the “Tonight Show” has viewers! A landslide of data proves that after 100 years of success, radio is a viable medium.

Crazy stuff.

As both a radio executive and host, I don’t need to know that radio works. I see the sales results from your show and from “Sterling On Sunday.” No advertiser gives us money for the heck of it. The checks clear; there’s your proof. The research that is desperately needed would support innovative, disruptive programming. Radio will grow its place in American media by surprising listeners with new formats, new forms of presentation and things that are… new.

Radio exists today because of innovations like Top 40! Urban! Progressive Rock! AOR! Modern Country! FM Talk! and The Seven-Second Delay!

Today, however, there is nothing harder than selling a radio executive a new idea. Any new idea. It is hard for a very good reason. Radio stations are major investments and failure is expensive. In 1977, the most expensive radio stations in history sold for $11 million. (WMAL/WRQX-FM, Washington DC.) In absolute dollars, experimentation was a minor financial risk. Risk would be manageable if owners had sophisticated research tools to test new ideas.

State-of-the-art new product research is required to take radio safely onto the golden path to innovation. How’s your research and development budget? Oh.

Each television network invests about $100 million a year in developing and testing new shows. Those networks deploy stunning techniques to find and test new ideas. There will be new formats and techniques when the collective “we” is finally convinced that radio is a success. Then our research investments can be focused on cutting-edge product research tools that can guarantee a successful pilot season and future.

Walter Sabo, consultant, can be contacted at Sabo Media: walter@sabomedia.com. Direct phone: 646-678-1110.  Check out www.waltersterlingshow.com. Meet Walter Sabo at TALKERS 2023 on June 2 at Hofstra University.

Industry Views

The Uniqueness of the American Radio Talk Show Host

By Walter Sabo
Consultant, Sabo Media
A.K.A. Walter Sterling
Radio Host, Sterling on Sunday

WABC - Bruce MorrowTalk show talent, program directors, show producers and broadcast business decision-makers represent the core readership of this publication. Sometimes we are so close to something that we fail to see it for what it really is. That is the case of the “talk show host” in American radio. Michael Harrison refers to the often-shameless targeting of audiences as “the daily dance of affirmation.” I view the daily process of radio talk show hosting at its very core, as “the daily dance of freedom.”

Talk show hosts are a rare breed and endangered species who enjoy a unique freedom in American radio. Hosts can actually talk about whatever they want! Of course, they are subject to both the rewards and consequences of this freedom – but the process of doing a live talk show, sparked by opinion and controversy, is so spontaneous and uniquely dynamic that it cannot be controlled on a minute-to-minute level without losing the flavor that makes it so special and long-lived.

During a decade as a top-five market and network talk show host, no one has ever told me what to talk about. And for zillions of years as a programming executive prior to that, I never told a host what to talk about on their next show.

Talk hosts are granted remarkable radio freedom!  Music jocks haven’t had that freedom since the 1960s. Music jocks have to get up the courage to ask permission to merely change the order of songs on their play list. Talk show hosts “own” three or four hours a day on a significant station or stations to say whatever they wish. That’s amazing! At first that freedom was a daunting, humbling challenge for me. However, I have been guided by my experience in programming or having launched some of the world’s most successful talk stations.

Based on that experience from both sides of the mic, here’s what works: Talk can entertain a listener of any age and demographic if the host talks about the listener’s day. I talk about my day framed for a listener, one listener – water in the basement, trouble with the sister-in-law, the parent-teacher conference, more trouble with the sister-in-law, the check engine light in the car never wants to go out, life at Walmart. I talk from a place of trust.

Trust that events that poke the landscape of our lives are a very big deal. Trust that I will never find the “right” topic on any editorial page. Trust that you, dear listener, already know who you are going to vote for in any election and that this English major does not have the magic wand to change your mind. Trust that my on-air opinion must never waiver or we have no show.

Listen to talk shows and stations that reach demos under 50:  WMMS, Cleveland; KFI’s John and KenCasey Bartholomew at WBAP, Dallas; KMBZ, Kansas City; KFBK, Sacramento; the Elvis Duran Show; and streaming with Bubba the Love Sponge or Phil Hendrie. Those successful shows embrace the scope of conversation two best friends would have on the phone today. If two best friends would discuss a topic, why wouldn’t you share it on the air? If two best friends would never discuss it, why would you ever put it on the air?

Walter Sabo, consultant, can be contacted at Sabo Media: walter@sabomedia.com. Direct phone: 646-678-1110.  Check out www.waltersterlingshow.com. 

Industry Views

NAB Out of Step on Non-Competes

By Walter Sabo
Consultant, Sabo Media
A.K.A. Walter Sterling
Radio Host, Sterling on Sunday

Bruce Morrow - WABCIt’s tough enough for radio talent to navigate stable careers in these days of consolidated station ownership, personnel cutbacks and drastic salary reductions – but the NAB’s newly stated stance on non-competes adds insult to injury and is out of step with the interests of beleaguered professionals still hanging on for dear life in the programming sector of this industry. I understand that the National Association of Broadcasters is at heart a lobbying group representing the interests of the medium’s ownership but, c’mon – non-competes really are of another era and egregiously unfair.

This week the NAB announced that they were not in favor of the FTC ruling to ban non-compete clauses that prevent radio talent from crossing the street. The FTC is proposing the ban on non-competes for a broad section of industries compelling dozens of industry lobbies to sign a letter to Congress in opposition to the ban.

The lobbyists’ letter says that the FTC’s rule would invalidate millions of contracts around the country that courts, scholars, and economists have found entirely reasonable and beneficial for both businesses and employees. “Accordingly, we ask you (Congress) to exercise your oversight and appropriations authority to closely examine the FTC’s proposed rule-making.”

Government interference with the practices of any industry, especially in the area of freedom of competition, is never a good idea. The NAB and other industries believe banning non-competes constitutes FTC overreach. And that is a solid argument. However, the NAB also suggests that broadcasters present a unique case for non-compete clauses due to the “substantial investments broadcasters make in promoting on-air talent.” That’s where they are grossly behind the times.

Maybe in TV. But it has been decades since any radio company has made any investment in promoting their on-air talent. Do you have a $500 “name” jingle? Where are the billboards? Whatever happened to TV and newspaper ads?

Non-competes are deployed in most industries to protect trade secrets. All of radio’s trade secrets are on the air!

Walter Sabo, consultant, can be contacted at Sabo Media: walter@sabomedia.com. Direct phone: 646-678-1110.  Check out www.waltersterlingshow.com.