This Christmas, Santa is bringing my son tickets to his first concert. Somehow, his three favorite bands are all touring together, so of course we’re going. It’s Fall Out Boy (I will spend their entire set reminding myself that I love my son and that sometimes being a good dad means having to do things you hate), Weezer (whatever), and Green Day (one of my favorites).
His Weezer obsession is a pretty new thing. Recently, when my kids are in the car, Weezer has been in pretty heavy rotation. I was never a huge fan of theirs. They have a couple of songs I like (“Hash Pipe” and “Keep Fishin'”), a few songs I love (“Pink Triangle,” “Dope Nose,” and “We Are All on Drugs”), and then a bunch of crap I could take or leave.
As my kids have gotten into Weezer though, one thing I have noticed is that their Weezer sounds nothing like my Weezer. The Blue Album came out when I was 13. “Buddy Holly” and “Undone” were power pop anthems filled with sarcasm and angst, something between punk and arena rock. Now that I have kids that are within spitting distance of the age I was when Weezer first broke through, the band sounds nothing like I recognize.
Weezer is just a straight up pop band now. They release cover albums. They perform songs from Disney movies. They have their eyes focused clearly not on selling vinyl, but on racking up Spotify streams.
It is an interesting phenomenon, but something sports radio hosts could take a lesson from. If you want to grow your audience you have to evolve. Even the stuff you have done well your whole career cannot sound in 2019 the way it did in 1995.
A good example of this is in how we interact with listeners. Nothing sounds more archaic in sports radio than a show that is just a never-ending stream of phone calls. Chris in Greenville is on the line yelling about how the College Football Playoff committee doesn’t show Clemson enough respect while Jason in Spartanburg is on hold waiting for his chance to yell about how the nation is so obsessed with Ohio State that they are going to be shocked when Clemson wins the Fiesta Bowl. It is so damn repetitive and spins the show in circles.
In 2019 we can turn to texts or Tweets. If you’re a Hubbard station, maybe you take advantage of the company’s mic drop program. Whichever you use, the point is that a good host and producer can screen quicker and not risk turning over multiple minutes of the show to someone that doesn’t really have anything to say. You can still be just as interactive as you were in the days of phone calls, except now you have all the tools you need to keep the conversation moving and hold the attention of everyone, not just Chris in Greenville and Jason in Spartanburg.
Think about where else it is time to you for evolve. This isn’t just an exercise for talent. PDs need to be thinking about contesting and imaging. Sales staff should be thinking about live reads and ad packages. Promotions staff should be thinking about what happens at their remotes.
Look, I may not like what Weezer sounds like now, but the band knows it can count on nostalgia to bring me into the fold at least a little bit. It’s far less likely that my kids were ever going to discover the band if all they had to go on was a 24-year-old song about a singer that has been dead for sixty years.
I use news talk radio all the time as an example of what the worst version of sports talk’s future looks like. Every spot break includes at least thirty seconds of Larry King yelling about Garlique. Why? Because their listeners are older than dirt. Why? Because every host has sounded exactly the same since 1985.
They are all recapping Fox News talking points and living on the far right fringes of every conspiracy theory they can imagine, because that is what their audience wants. No PD or network has ever stopped to think about what the next generation of news talk listener looks or thinks like, so the format is going to ride this angry white guy act straight into its apocalypse.
Weezer could have done the same. They could have been the new Kiss or Möley Crüe or Lynyrd Skynyrd, never releasing music and touring on the greatest hits. They could have watched as the crowds and venues got smaller until eventually there was no demand for their bullshit music anymore.
That’s not what Weezer did and sports talk radio needs to take notice. Hell, radio in general needs to take notice. There are new audiences out there that we can bring into the fold, but they aren’t coming if we insist on only doing the kinds of things that they have already proved they have no interest in.
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.
