What are you thinking about while sitting on the beach, somewhere between your 600th potato chip and your (insert number)th beer? AM Radio? Not likely.
How to pay for college? Maybe something about the, ahem, ocean view in front of you?
To swim or not to swim? How much you want to throw a rock at that seagull? Steak or shrimp on the grill for dinner? (Answer: Both)
Not me. I have been continually thinking, all summer, of one thing.
Not about God or death or marriage. Even in middle age, those topics remain tedious.
So, what is it?
OK, brace yourself:
How to actually grow my audience.
You see, I love my show. At its best, our interviews provide what local news cannot: Space, time, and actual answers. The obligatory 90 seconds for a local story on the six o’clock news is puddle deep and only a yard long. The Sunday political shows try to do better, yet still won’t waver from the 3-5 minute mostly scripted interview.
Ideally, we go longer and deeper with the issues, and hopefully, humanize the topics and people we are covering. Assuming this happens with regularity (stay with me), we have this unique content that would be universally loved if only it could reach the masses.
In reality, though, it’s on AM radio, with no digital media personnel and no advertising budget.
The headline of this piece should be “Growth: Can It Be Done?!?!”
Inquiries with multiple question marks and exclamation points inherently don’t have easy, non-frustrating answers, but I am ready to exhaust all options
And I want to know what you think.
I host an AM radio show on a legacy station with an aging but robust audience. Can we get bigger? Younger? More diverse? It may necessitate a suspension of reality, but for the purposes of the next five minutes of your read, let’s all say yes.
To all of the above questions.
Then, the conversation turns to the question: How?
Yes, listeners can stream the show, and we actually have listeners in far-flung places like Michigan, Washington D.C., South Carolina, and Florida. But not enough.
So, here’s what we are going to do. I am going to put forth some of the basic ideas of how an AM radio show (Did I mention I think it’s awesome?) can grow, and you will tell me which ideas are good … and which are crap.
Simulcast: I am not sure who did it first. Was it Mike and the Mad Dog in New York? It seemed that simulcasting radio shows onto television began in sports. The logic was simple. Put cameras on the hosts, cover them with some video and graphics, sync up the breaks, and see what happens. No need for scripts and writers. Sure, you need some production, but it’s minimal compared to a full-fledged studio show for broadcast television. It’s less expensive, and the ratings results were good enough.
On the news side, Imus did it on MSNBC with success, until he said something he could not walk back (Just Google “Imus” and “Rutgers” and you will know what I am talking about.) But locally, in news, you just don’t see it that much. And it may not even have to be live, which would make it even more cost-effective. Each day after the show, you could wrap around the best 3-4 interviews of the day, cover it in post, and boom, you have an interesting 30-minute news program to drop in wherever you like.
Status Update: I love this concept but have yet to convert the still-in-the-20th-century local television executive to bite. Granted, I’ve only taken it to one of the four stations in my market, so I am saying there’s a chance; and with that one station, the concept got in the red zone but stalled, and now, the decision is whether to go for it on fourth or kick.
Streaming Service: This is a similar concept in that it will be a broadcast of the radio show. In this situation, whether it be Twitch or YouTube TV, the product will have lower production value but be 100 percent authentic and in the moment.
Status Update: Cameras are going in before the fall, and we shall see. Anecdotal evidence in other markets is that without marketing or promotion, this idea, though interesting and creative, often garners little traction in terms of overall audience numbers.
Crossover to FM: This has happened with a lot of stations with a mixed record of success. The logic of course is that the percentage of terrestrial radio listeners on FM dwarfs AM, so either play on both or jump entirely to FM.
Status Update: My station group already owns FM signals so the FCC would not approve an acquisition, and the ones we do have are too successful to fold. Let’s move on.
Syndicate: The thinking here is that even for a regional show, there would be plenty of small stations in a state-wide area that may take the programming and have some sort of revenue share on the advertising.
Status Update: It seems so simple. But it’s not. Most likely, I would have to leave my company, create an LLC and try to put it all together on my own. This, however, could work because there’s a strong argument in favor of being able to attract a few stations to partner with the show, yet ultimately, I have three kids not yet in college, and this feels too risky.
Status Quo: Beginning each day with a smaller audience potential solely based on fewer people paying attention to AM radio feels problematic. The goal here is to do remotes, in-person outings with listeners and build the audience one person at a time.
Status Update: This is what we are doing right now. I enjoy it, and we are getting a positive impact, both in terms of loyalty and growth. Unfortunately, it’s a slow process, and the question is whether the gains outweigh the losses in time for it to make a lasting impact.
For now, we keep doing the show as best we can and will keep experimenting.
As for you, let us know what you think.
Brian Shactman is a weekly columnist for Barrett News Radio. In addition to writing for BNM, Brian can be heard weekday mornings in Hartford, CT on 1080 WTIC hosting the popular morning program ‘Brian & Company’. During his career, Brian has worked for ESPN, CNBC, MSNBC, and local TV channels in Connecticut and Massachusetts. You can find him on Twitter @bshactman.
