Been to a Starbucks lately? Chances are that your local store removed all the seating, or replaced the plush chairs with less comfortable seats, sometimes lined up on one side of a narrow table. Where the stores used to be inviting for spending a lot of time there, perhaps working on your laptop or chatting with friends, they’re now designed to deter you from hanging out there. That’s deliberate.
Even before the pandemic, Starbucks decided that they would make more money by concentrating on app orders and drive-thrus, and having people spend hours in the store without buying a lot of coffee wasn’t generating that kind of income. The Starbucks that sold CDs of its music soundtrack and encouraged community is a thing of the past.
The same thing is happening to Barnes and Noble. You know the sad story of bookstores in the past two decades, and how the big chains hurt or destroyed local booksellers, then got hammered into oblivion themselves by Amazon. But you may also have noticed several articles about how Barnes and Noble seems to have turned a corner and is, from all appearances, resurgent. In fact, the chain recently opened a new store around here, halfway between two existing stores, and other locations are on the way. The difference, though, is this: The new stores are much smaller and don’t have chairs and cafés – they’re not like the older stores, with people sitting around drinking coffee and reading magazines without buying them (you know you did that). Now, it’s go in, find a book, buy it, and get the hell out of there. No lingering.
This is part of a trend that got accelerated in the pandemic: the loss of what are called “third spaces,” places where people gathered away from home. That’s a sociological term that encompasses everything from coffee houses and bookstores to barbershops and salons, shopping malls and bars, churches and libraries. Think “Cheers,” a place where you can gather to just be with other people and “everybody knows your name.”
Or not- maybe you’d be anonymous in a shopping mall, but you’d be surrounded by people walking and chatting and chowing down at the food court: a familiar and comfortable place to be that’s not home. Third places are not entirely gone, but there are fewer and the experience is not the same, and if Starbucks and Barnes and Noble are finding success by making their stores the kind of places you want to just go in, grab what you want, and go away, and malls continue to sport more empty storefronts, the future may find people increasingly in need of a place to be part of a community. With many people still working from home and having little or no in-person interaction with other humans, the need to have places to gather and see others seems to be urgent, just as those places are diminishing. The Covid Effect is real, and it’s not over (and may never really go away).
Some say that video gaming streaming online is a form of third space. Social media strives to be a third space, though, as with X/Twitter, the community aspect tends to be swamped by trolls and bad people, the online equivalent of that sketchy bar where the local Nazi contingent holds its meetings. But talk radio used to be another form of third space, back when it took phone calls, a place where you could hear all kinds of people spout all kinds of opinions, and it can be that again. Social media has that, too, but you don’t HEAR those voices, you read them. It’s not the same. Even if you don’t directly participate (calling in yourself or texting to the host), just hearing a variety of voices and opinions makes you feel less solitary.
As we’ve seen in Jacobs Media’s research, companionship is one of the reasons people use radio in the first place. The live interaction between caller and host is something podcasts can’t easily replicate. It’s one case for taking calls and text exchanges more and filling time with interviews less. No, it’s not the same as a latte and free Wi-Fi at Starbucks, but if it offers even an artificial connection, it’s something talk radio can do to remain relevant well after the election cycle.
Just remember to frequently give out the phone number. They’ll know what to do with it. And they can make their own coffee.
Perry Michael Simon is a weekly news media columnist for Barrett Media. He previously served as VP and Editor/News-Talk-Sports/Podcast for AllAccess.com. Prior to joining the industry trade publication, Perry spent years in radio working as a Program Director and Operations Manager for KLSX and KLYY in Los Angeles and New Jersey 101.5 in Trenton. He can be found on X (formerly Twitter) @PMSimon.
