-
10 Questions with ... Perry Michael Simon
December 9, 2008
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. -
NAME:Perry Michael SimonTITLE:Editor, News-Talk-SportsWEBSITE:All AccessCOMPANY:All Access Music Group and IndependentBORN:Paterson, NJRAISED:Wayne, NJ
BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
Program Director, producer, and host at a buncha places, including KLSX and KLYY (Y107)/Los Angeles, WKXW (New Jersey 101.5)/Trenton, Comedy World Radio Network, and others. Also worked in corporate at Press Broadcasting and wrote some comedy material that got bought by some TV shows and worked on other projects and have consulted for Sabo Media. I've been with All Access since 1997, and have served as Editor of the News-Talk-Sports section since 1999.
1. Why are you interviewing yourself? Didn't you already do this once before?
I did it before, a few years ago. I'm doing it again because it's the end of the year, there are a lot of questions that I get asked on a regular basis by a lot of people, and I thought it might be a good opportunity to address some of the issues that have been coming up in conversation.
2. Isn't that cheating? Are you just filling space with a cheap column to finish out the year and get out of town?
Perish the thought. And that counts as a second question.
2a. No, it doesn't. Say, what should those who find themselves out of a job be doing now to get back in the game?
Good question, because the game seems to be changing. I'm concerned about the prospects for the near future. I'm concerned about the prospects for the future, period. but if you find yourself unemployed, the first thing to do is to get the word out to everybody you can, including everybody in your various networks -- you have been building your personal networks, haven't you? -- and through All Access, like in a Net News item. You can drop me an e-mail to get that going for you. And you can start looking at all of those job listings on this site and elsewhere, and send out tapes and resumes to everybody in your format.
But those are what people in this industry have always needed to do when looking for a job. The problem that we have right now is that the number of jobs available is, obviously, shrinking radically. That makes networking even more critical, because it's far more likely that you'll get another job through people you know rather than through an ad.
And this is the most critical part: stop thinking of yourself as just a talk show host or just a producer or just one whatever in just one medium. You can't limit yourself like that anymore. It doesn't matter how old you are or what your experience is or how many stations you worked at or what your ratings were. We're seeing people with good ratings and driven you getting canned because the business just can't support them anymore. If you think you can just stick to business as usual, you're making a mistake. Develop other things you can do and sell. Can you write? Then you're a writer, too. Can you do web work? Can you mix drinks? Can you take dictation? Whenever you have to do to pay the bills, be prepared to do it. We're in a bad economy, it's going to be hard to find ideal jobs, and if you have a good job, you'll probably want to keep it for as long as you can. Now is not the time to be complacent, nor is it the time to quit a job and pulse of Lee with the expectation that other stations will jump to hire you. Take nothing for granted. And be prepared to work in something other than radio if you have to.
It could be worse. You could be working in newspapers.
3. When do you think podcasting and streaming will become viable alternatives for talk show hosts?
Alternatives for what? If you're asking whether they'll be a good place for you to do a show without editorial interference, the answer is that they already are. You can do a show on the Internet. That's already here.
If you're talking about making money at it, that's a different story. I know of a few isolated situations in which people are making some money with podcasts. Some streams are starting to show up in the ratings. But nobody is going to pay you a living wage to do a podcast, and the revenue from advertising isn't close to being adequate to support actual salaries.
That being said, if you have other means of paying your rent, it doesn't hurt to stake your claim by developing podcasts or streaming shows right now. Maybe by the time people start paying for that material, you'll have developed a strong enough audience to sell. But be aware that we're in a different age, and the Internet is not a purely audio medium. Younger generations have moved on to video entertainment. and it's exceedingly simple and cheap to do creative things on video rather than as audio. Not that anybody is making money doing "guy gets hit in the balls" videos on YouTube, but if you want to do what the larger audiences are looking for, we're talking video. And considering that you can get adequate quality out of a cheap hundred dollar USB video camera, there's no need to restrict yourself. But if your artistic muse points you towards "theater of the mind," go ahead and create your podcasts. Just don't expect to make a living at it right now.
4. So, what do you think the future is for radio? Is there a future?
Sure, there's a future. Just because people might gravitate towards video on the Internet, that doesn't mean that people have totally rejected the idea of audio-based entertainment. besides, there are many situations in which radio is the most practical means of delivering entertainment and information. You can put as many screens as you want in a car, and, yes, it can hook up your cell phone or iPod, but, right now, the vast majority of drivers have radio as their easiest, most accessible entertainment medium, at least when they're not adding away on their cell phones. Even with more options, we're still talking about a massive audience listening to radio. The biggest problems have been in retaining advertising in any era when advertisers are more interested in extremely targeted, per-click options, or, even worse, totally free options like creating phony viral videos. None of that is going away.
On the other hand, people do listen to the radio. There are advertisers' who value radio advertising, because, quite simply, it works. You may not be able to count the clicks, and you may not be able to so precisely target your audience that every dollar is being spent purely on 23 year old left-handed male Raiders fans in Rancho Santa Margarita who drive Honda Civics, but ads on the radio still do work. That's not going to get thrown out because there are other options. It may impact pricing and inventory, but it's not going to mean that the radio dials will go blank.
5. What about talk radio -- is it true that, as has been extensively written elsewhere, talk radio has to change because the election was a repudiation of the right-wing political talk that dominates AM radio?
You know, I see that coming from all quarters, and I see reactions from conservatives insisting that the big problem was that talk radio is a conservative enough. And everybody's wrong, of course. I guess we don't learn from history, because it seems that everybody's forgotten how talk radio thrived with Bill Clinton in the White House. It also thrived with Bush in the White House. It doesn't really matter who's in the White House. At least, it shouldn't, if you're good at what you do.
What you need to be good at is entertaining. The shows that run into trouble because of political movements in the country are the shows that believe they've been put on the air to get somebody elected, or to throw somebody out of office. Helping get somebody elected, or helping change the government... those are ancillary to being entertaining, getting big ratings, and selling plenty of advertising (assuming you're in commercial radio). You are not teaching a college course. You were not running a protest rally. You're doing a radio show. You have a relatively short time to keep people's attention. You do that by being entertaining. You can do that no matter what your political preference is. You can do that whether "your guy" wins or loses. We've learned this over about 20 years during which talk radio has grown by leaps and bounds. Yet I see people -- including people within the industry who should know better -- who roundly reject the idea that the primary goal of a talk show host is to entertain the audience. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: it's called a "show" for a good reason.
I think that talk radio should be changing, but I don't think it has anything to do with politics. If anything, I think we have too many strictly political shows as it is. In a bad economy, with precious little good news out there, I'd like to be able to turn on the radio and hear something that makes me laugh, makes me think, compels me to listen. That's talk radio's challenge.
6. Should talk radio be doing anything different because of the PPM?
It's hard to say what the meters really mean for talk radio, because I'm seeing contradictory results in different markets and in different demos. The first thing I think everybody should do is take a deep breath and stop overreacting. Hosts are getting fired and programming changes are being made based on a limited amount of data. And generalities are being taken as gospel. If the numbers don't look good for a long time morning star in a major market, suddenly, people are assuming that the days of a strong local host or personalities who don't talk about politics are numbered. Every monthly rise and fall is being assumed to indicate grave problems. and everybody has his or her own hard and fast rules: the PPM hurts talk radio. The PPM helps talk radio. The PPM hurts "personality" radio, so let's talk about politics. The PPM hurts political talk, so let's talk about something else. Sports does well in the PPM, except where it doesn't.
Oy.
Right now, I'd just do the best, most compelling radio I can. If I'm programming, I might tweak the clock to shorten up the stop sets, and I'd keep an eye on the numbers, but if you're doing a good show, you should perform well no matter how you're measured.
7. Okay, then, what makes a good show?
The general answer is that a good show was an entertaining one. But you don't need me to tell you that. I should be more specific.
So here are a few things you can do. Number one, get to the point. If you're starting your show with a meandering, pointless monologue, you're giving people a good reason not to stick with you. It doesn't matter when they tune in; you should always be getting to the point, hitting them with passion, and being as entertaining in the middle of the show as you are at the beginning or end. Maybe there's one thing that the meters are telling you: There is no such thing as a disposable segment or a time to slack off. You are now being measured at every moment. Every second counts.
Two, put yourself in the listener's position. Imagine yourself behind the wheel of that Toyota on the freeway. What matters to that person? Talk about that. And if you have a topic that you KNOW that the listener would care about if only he or she knew about it, well, then, sell it. Dazzle 'em. Tell them WHY they should care. Entertain them. Do NOT just drone on with esoteric details. And if you find yourself mentioning inside-the-beltway people or inside-the-beltway issues or you find yourself earnestly debating what you saw on the Sunday morning news shows, slap yourself. Hard.
8. What do you expect to happen in radio in 2009?
Some people will lose their jobs. Somebody will go bankrupt. Everybody will have an opinion on whose fault this was, and what to do about it. Only mine will make sense.
On the other hand, radio will continue to survive. A large number of people will remain employed, because somebody has to do this. somebody will take a chance on a unique format or programming idea, it will succeed, and everybody else will copy it. There will be more talk stations moving to, or starting up on, FM, because it works.
And at the end of 2009, I will be writing another column like this, repeating some of the same things.
9. What are you grateful for this year?
I'm thankful to be employed. I'm thankful for Fran's and my health. I'm thankful for the "World F'ing Champion" Philadelphia Phillies. I'm thankful that, despite everything that's been going on in the industry, the economy, and the world, we're still here, the sun is still rising every morning, and, as long as all of that is still true, there's hope.
10. Is that enough for this year?
Yup. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.
-
-