Our week-plus-long rollout of industry top 20 lists begins today by recognizing the best morning shows across the country. I think it is appropriate to use today’s column to give those guys their due. I’m not going to single out my favorite shows. I just want recognize the folks that are doing great radio at the toughest time of day to do great radio.
I’ve been a part of shows in every day part except for middays. They all come with their own unique set of challenges, but no team faces as many challenges as the morning team. Hosts have to experience and digest all of the necessary news and results by 6 am. Producers have to be in the studio by 5 am gathering audio and planning for any direction the host may want to take the conversation. To add to the challenge, you have to form and maintain relationships amongst a group of people that never get good sleep.
Morning radio is an unhealthy lifestyle. I’ve never seen someone drink more cups of coffee, so strong that they might as well have been liquified cocaine, than my old morning show partner Mike Maniscalco.
On top of the coffee intake, there is the aforementioned lack of sleep. That leads to it being hard to want to get any exercise. Oh, and the diet is usually awful because it is impossible to maintain any sort of normal eating schedule. Have you ever found yourself sitting on a bench outside of a Chinese buffet at 10:45 in the morning because you know they’ll be open at 11 and maybe if the manager sees you outside she’ll unlock the doors ten minutes early?
I have. A LOT!
Those are just the professional hassles of the morning hours. You also have to figure out how to have a normal relationship with the world around you.
Do you have kids? Well, the good news is a morning radio schedule means you’ll always be available for their various activities. The bad news is you are going to struggle not to choke out the other parents sitting around you. You’ll run into people that hear what you do for a living and can’t comprehend why you would ever complain. All you have to do is watch and talk about sports right? They would love to stay up all night if it meant they got to do that in the morning.
Then there is the actual show prep. Again, sleep is going to play a role here. My wife’s colleagues used to ask me all the time how I got used to waking up at 4 am. I would always tell them that you never get used to it. You just get used to being tired all the time.
You have to be up late enough to see the games. You have to be up early enough to consider the various angles before settling on the right one to bring to air. Remember, morning radio gets started before the first morning SportsCenter has hit the air. The best known hot take artists probably won’t have had their say on last night’s results yet, so unlike the other day parts, morning shows won’t have deep well of ridiculous quotes to react to.
You have to know your best sources of material. You know where to go for play-by-play and stats, but do you know who is putting out the think pieces that will generate the most debate early in the morning or overnight? Do you want a lot of listener interaction? You have to structure your show around when the phone line, text line, and Twitter is most active.
Do you need a guest on the fly? How early can you call even someone you consider a “friend of the show” without disrupting their routine or pissing them off? The hardest thing to get used to in a morning schedule is remembering that not everyone else is getting used to a morning schedule.
So in addition to tipping a cap to Toucher & Rich and Bernie Miklasz for topping our respective morning show lists, tip a hat to them and everyone else on the lists of best morning shows for figuring out how to thrive in a lifestyle no human is meant to live.
Also, remember that a morning show sleep schedule is difficult to just turn off. There’s a good chance “sleeping in on the weekend” means like 5:30 or 6 am to these guys. I am not saying that makes them heroes. I am just saying that makes them better than you.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
