As has long been the tradition since George Washington sent a letter to Congress in 1790, President Joe Biden will hold his State of the Union address this evening.
In what will likely be more than an hour-long speech, the 46th President will speak on a number of issues, including both the opportunities and challenges that await our great nation in the coming days, weeks, months, and years.
The President’s words will be heard and viewed by millions of interested Americans, and something he will or won’t say is likely to drive topics throughout the news media industry on Friday.
With the President’s annual address on the near horizon, it begs the question: What is the State of the Union of news/talk radio?
The medium — like our country — can be divided on certain issues. Everyone — whether it be the executive in the corner suite or the producer in the booth — has an opinion on where the industry is headed and what challenges await.
“Well, the number one challenge I think for not only…radio in general and news talkers for that matter is that the post-COVID hybrid working situations,” said WTOP afternoon news anchor Shawn Anderson. “I mean, our audiences have been very much car-based. Washington has been hit probably as hard as any city in the country as far as number of people who have stopped commuting to work.
So, when you’re going from having a large, large listenership of people who commute five days a week to people who are only commuting a couple of days a week, two, three days a week, or not at all, it’s a challenge for all of us to figure out where the audience is and try to bring our product to that audience.”
Anderson continued by adding that he believes news/talk radio must provide what listeners have grown accustomed to, while also being available in different avenues and platforms.
“It’s important not only to maintain what we’re doing as far as things like traffic and weather, but we have to be relevant to people who are now going to be at home and maybe want to listen to us or want to listen to something,” he said. “We have to be in places, we have to be on apps, we have to be in social media. We have to be on every platform where people are to bring our product to them.
“So that is, I think, the number one challenge for all news, radio, and news talkers for that matter. I think trying to rebalance that audience in a new America that isn’t driving in the community as much.”
It is no secret that the attention span of the general public has waned in recent decades. What was once acceptable from a radio perspective has been completely reshaped by PPM ratings and the advent of social media apps like TikTok, which command a user’s attention for short periods.
Is news/talk radio in a position to capture the shorter attention spans of listeners?
“That’s an excellent question,” admitted Anderson. “I’m a contrarian about a lot of things in news radio and one of them is story count for the sake of story count. There’s a philosophy that you should jam six stories into two and a half minutes. One of our big concepts at WTOP is providing compelling content and answering the question of every story we do, ‘Why should I care?’
“And I think if you do six stories in two and a half minutes and people only don’t care about three or four of them, you’re not really doing the audience much service even if you’re ‘paying attention’ or if you’re placating their attention span. I think that you’re better off if you spend two and a half minutes on a topic that is of great interest to a large segment.
“I think that people are going to stay with you even in a shorter attention span era. That doesn’t mean you want to waste their time,” Anderson continued. “You want to make sure that the questions are relevant. You want to make sure that you are hitting all the points, but I think people still want context. I think the context is still important, even in a TikTok era.”
The news/talk radio world has seen dynamic shifts in recent years. The format is no longer found strictly on the AM band. With the advent of on-demand audio and video — both with podcasts and video simulcasts on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and Rumble — what was once relegated to evening airtimes and the AM dial are now as accessible as ever.
But harnessing those platforms for brands will be one of the biggest opportunities, outgoing KDKA Brand Manager Dave LaBrozzi believes.
He shared that “embracing digital and making it work for you,” which he believes Audacy has done a great job of, is one of the biggest opportunities for news/talk in the future. Getting a better “understanding how it works and how we can get younger people to these properties,” remains at the forefront of the industry’s possibilities.
However, the younger audience that LaBrozzi mentioned has long been a challenge for the industry to capture. The perception of the average news/talk radio listener is an older, white, conservative male, which can make finding future stars a challenge.
“Finding the next generation of talent,” LaBrozzi said when asked what the biggest challenges in the industry are. “A lot of the smaller markets aren’t there anymore. That was our ‘farm system,’ so I think that’s a challenge for us moving forward is where are we going to grow the talent and where is it going to come from.”
Former CBS News Radio Vice President Craig Swagler currently serves as General Manager of Baltimore Public Media — A Your Public Radio Company. Swagler made the jump to public radio last year after 22 years at CBS News Radio, and shared that while public media has similar challenges to that of commercial news/talk, the State of the Union for public radio shows there are some different opportunities for the sector.
“I think that public radio has challenges that are no different than commercial radio does, in the sense that we’re affected by ad rates in a different way,” said Swagler. “But I actually think we’re in somewhat of a better position and that mainly is that we have diversified forms of revenue that come in the door.”
He mentioned that while public media is mainly listener-supported, it also relies upon donations, both one-time and major, as well as corporate underwriting. And that diversification makes it a unique situation compared to other commercial news/talk stations.
“We want to make sure we’re healthy as a company. And then we have the longevity to be here for the long run so that we can continue to make that impact. I do think that public radio is probably in a much better position, as community broadcasters, than some of my brethren across the street in the commercial world are facing the challenges as market conditions affect them more directly. They don’t have a lot of other mechanisms or levers to pull.”
The State of the Union address will be held at 9 PM ET Thursday. President Joe Biden’s speech will be carried by every major news organization both on television and on radio. Let’s hope, however, the news/talk radio State of the Union is more universally received.
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.
