When you turn on the AM dial, conservative news/talk stations are often littered with hosts featuring an angry persona. Some listeners, as evidenced by new data showing a drop in news/talk listening in recent years, are turned off by the vitriol. That’s why Armstrong & Getty strive to never feature that style of talk on their nationally syndicated program.
“I just know, in real life, I’ve had several friends say that politics and the news have just gotten so ugly they’ve had to take a break from it,” Joe Getty said during a Zoom interview earlier this week. “They find themselves getting angry all the time, which is one of the reasons we try not to serve up a never-ending buffet of anger and bitterness.”
“We’ve found an audience that doesn’t want that, apparently, because we don’t do that and we’ve never done that,” added Jack Armstrong. “My dad’s a big fan of the show and he also watches and listens to the Fox (News) people, and he says ‘You know what I like about your show? You talk about a whole bunch of different things. If I tune into other hosts, you know you’re going to hear only one topic the whole show.’ We’ve never done that. We get bored ourselves. We personally couldn’t do that. That’d make me nuts.”
Show prep is often a fixture for news/talk shows, especially those on a national scale like Armstrong & Getty. However, the longstanding duo admit their programs are rarely premeditated.
“We literally take in the world and come in and talk to each other about it,” Getty said. “There’s also a part of us that realizes that’s everywhere all the time, that sort of discussion. As a musician, always playing the popular style of music? I’m too contrary for that. I don’t want to be one of a thousand shows that’s doing the same thing. It’s not satisfying and my ego won’t have it.”
“There’s plenty of people of people doing one topic every day, all day, making gazillions of dollars and are world famous, but we’re just not built that way,” Armstrong continued.
There’s a chicken and the egg riddle that comes with news/talk radio success. Has the success of the program been sustained because of the unique style showcased by the duo or are they simply providing a program to an underserved audience?
“We used to have a boss…he used to remind us all that time that once you have a listener base, the big story is whatever you tell them it is,” Armstrong said. “If we emphasize something, that’s the story they think is the story to emphasize.”
“When we started we had a very specific idea of what we wanted to be and what we didn’t want to be. At this point now, the audience has come to us for what we do. We just try to remind ourselves ‘Hey, let’s do what we do and not get swept away.’ For instance, because everyone’s talking about Trump all the time,” said Getty. “So let’s stay true to the show we wanna do. We just lay it out there, and the audience either comes to us or they don’t.”
During the interview, the pair joked that they’re “megalomaniacs who want to bend the world to our will”. However, that doesn’t mean they’re willing to pander to the audience in search of greater fame or riches.
“In conservative radio, it’s a somewhat stressful time now, because everyone’s so impassioned whether you’re in favor of Trump or against him,” Joe Getty revealed. “We will say ‘Ok, how do we approach this in a way that’s not going to drive away really hardcore Trump fans?’ One of our running jokes during commercial breaks is ‘When are we going to get smart and start pandering? That’s the way you make the real money.’ We just do what we do, and if people like it, great.”
Armstrong & Getty has seen a noticeable expansion of their program in recent months. The show has been added to stations in Buffalo and Tampa, among others, in recent months. They attribute their success to the unique approach they bring to the medium.
“I would like to think that people are tired of the spin or the ‘My side’s always right and the other side’s always wrong’, regardless of the facts. And we don’t do that,” said Armstrong. “We have our own ideologies. We’re conservative people. But we don’t ignore facts to try to shade stories one way or the other. I’m hoping there’s a growing crowd for that, that has found us.”
“It’s the same thing that got us traction at the beginning and in the middle,” Joe Getty added. “The show is different, it’s a little weird, and people — including radio executives — have a little trouble describing it. It just takes people discovering it. And that process can be a little slow.”
Ultimately, Armstrong & Getty are using a simple guiding principle for their show.
“It’s just a function of you don’t wanna do radio you wouldn’t listen to,” Joe Getty admitted. “Going back to the music analogy, you wanna play songs you enjoy playing. I can’t take it.”
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
