The following text and audio are detailed coverage of the 2008 New Media Seminar:

News/Talk Radio and Politics

The seminar began on Friday afternoon with TALKERS magazine publisher Michael Harrison introducing Salem Radio Network talk show host Bill Bennett, who spoke on the topic of news/talk radio and politics. Bennett stated that talk radio is a perfect profession for him because, “All I ever wanted to do was teach and have conversations with the American people. Now I’m able to do that every morning on the radio.”

Bennett said the fact that people can’t see you on the radio makes it that much more effective as a medium. “It is a very cerebral medium. I’ve done a lot of TV and most of the comments I get are on my physical appearance. On radio, people hear you and can’t see you so the only thing they can do is weigh your words. If you can cash in on that, it’s a terribly cerebral medium.” But Bennett also said that the political divide seen in the current state of the news/talk genre concerns him. “The worry about talk radio is that we’ve become so segmented that we only talk to people who share our point of view. I think it would be better if more talk radio tried to reach beyond those who already agree. But still, radio is profoundly democratic and among one of the most democratic media there is.”

 

TALKERS publisher Michael Harrison delivered the welcoming address accompanied by Clear Channel senior vice president of news, talk and sports, Gabe Hobbs, who addressed the seminar from his office in Tampa via Paltalk. The attendees were able to see Hobbs on the screen in the theater and hear him as he conversed in real time with Harrison. Harrison noted, “If Gabe and I say nothing of substance today, the mere fact that he’s there and I’m here, he’s looking at us, we’re looking at him is quite a message unto itself.” Hobbs spoke on the current state of talk radio, stating that at one time people were in the business of creating great radio content. “Now, it’s creating great content. But number two is figuring out how to distribute that content to where the people are living – where they are consuming information or entertainment. As John Hogan always likes to say, ‘We have to be platform agnostic.’ It doesn’t matter whether it’s coming through your laptop or through an AM radio or your toaster, we have to figure out how to get this content to the public.” But Hobbs conceded that budgets in the corporate entertainment world are tight right now and that can make it challenging to broaden the reach of your content. I think we have to figure out how to monetize it as quickly as we can. Corporate patience is not as long as it once was – we all know that.” He said that talk radio people are the best at two-way radio so they should be better than the FM music people and non-radio people at two-way content but usually they are not. “Now we have to be experts at two-way content, two-way interaction, two-way town hall meetings, two-way community and localism. We have to find new ways to do all of this.”

 

What You Need to Know About Sports Talk Radio

The next presentation was delivered by WFAN, New York’s Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton. The duo was introduced by fellow WFAN talk show host and New York City radio pro Richard Neer. He summarized the station’s search for a replacement show for Don Imus and how the pairing of Boomer & Carton was something few thought it would be: an instant ratings hit. Neer said, “They are up in every demographic, the station is healthier than ever and in a lot of ways it was a surprise because we didn’t know sports would work in the morning.” Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton told the attendees the behind-the-scenes story of how they came to be chosen to work together as the team to replace Don Imus. Esiason said as soon as he began working with Craig Carton he knew it was going to work. “The fact of the matter is radio should be entertaining and informative and most importantly, the two people who are working together really have to sound like they like each other.” Craig Carton said he felt uncomfortable talking about “how to do sports talk radio” because he believes there is no answer to that. “We don’t know how to do sports talk radio. There is no one way to do sports talk radio. What I do know is that what we have together works. I worked for Tom Bigby at WIP, Philadelphia and although I didn’t see eye-to-eye with everything Tom did, he gave me the foundation for what we do successfully today. We’re not going to bore you with x’s and o’s sports. We’re two regular guys talking about sports.”

 

Words from the Wise: Legends and Pioneers

The first panel discussion of the 2008 New Media Seminar featured legendary talk hosts Barry Farber of Talk Radio Network; Joe Franklin of WBBR, New York; Bob Grant of WABC, New York; and Bruce Williams, then of Lifestyle TalkRadio Network. The panel was moderated by WOR Radio Network’s Joey Reynolds and was sponsored by The Allen Hunt Show. Talk host Greg Knapp of Radio America introduced the panel. As part of his introduction he said, “I know that in my own career I’ve learned about how to tell stories, how to engage listeners, to pull them in and make them your friends by listening to legends who helped pioneer talk like all the men sitting right here.”

Moderator Joey Reynolds opened the panel discussion by sharing personal recollections and observations about his fellow pioneering talk hosts’ careers.

Bruce Willlams told the attendees that although each person in the panel is a very different sort of talent, they have a common skill. “The thing these guys can do is sit down at a microphone and for an hour – not leaning on a guest, not doing an interview – they can talk for more than that period of time and be interesting and keep your attention. That’s a rare quality. The fact is that there are very few of you who can do a quality talk show without leaning on somebody else.”

Bob Grant said with heartfelt gratitude that he’s very lucky people have taken him so seriously over the course of his career because otherwise he would have had to get a nine-to-five job. He observed that the unique nature of the medium of radio and the way people connect with it was instrumental in his success. “What is it that makes them [the listeners] take us so seriously? With all due respect to our talents, the fact is, it’s the medium itself. This has been the most incredible medium that has ever come along – with all due respect to television – because of the intimacy that people develop. The listeners always say, ‘I feel as if I know you.’ And that’s the best thing a listener can say to me.”

Following up on what Grant said, Joe Franklin told the crowd the subtle differences between television and radio make it a special medium. “On TV you’re seen and when you walk the streets people recognize you, whereas on radio you’re this disembodied voice – people don’t recognize you.” That difference affects how people perform on the air.

Barry Farber said he envies the talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and his contemporary Bob Grant who made careers out of expressing their opinions on the radio. “When I was at WOR we had the freedom to do whatever we wanted. And what did we do? We interviewed people like Erik von Daniken, the dog lady, the exercise lady – we interviewed them all. Along come Bob Grant, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity talking about real things that matter to people. Why didn’t I think of that?” Farber noted the railroad executives of yore who failed to get into the airline business because they viewed themselves in the railroad business instead of being in the transportation business. “’Think outside the box’ may be the most important cliché of our day.”

 

If You Can’t Stand the Heat…

Consultant Walter Sabo of Sabo Media addressed the sticky contemporary issue of controversial programming, pressure from special interest groups and government regulation in his presentation. Sabo related a story about when he spoke with a woman who runs the top station in the large, competitive market of Athens, Greece. When he asked her what the rules are about content and language she didn’t know what he was talking about. Sabo said, “I asked her, ‘Do you ever have trouble with the people in the government?’ She replied, ‘We put the government into office. We don’t have trouble with the government or we’ll take them out of office.’ Right answer. How many people in this room have helped put people into office and when have you called in your marker when it comes to broadcasting and FCC regulations? I know. Never.” Sabo also addressed tactics for standing up to special interest groups citing real-life examples from stations that have fought back and won.

 

Digital Media Workshop

This final segment of the Friday afternoon program was a comprehensive presentation facilitated by Talk Radio News Service bureau chief Ellen Ratner and featured a number of expert speakers, each with a specific focus relative to the broader topic of utilization of digital media by talk professionals.

Ari Zoldan of Quantum Communications led off with his presentation titled, “The Future of the Internet: WiMAX Wireless.” Zoldan described WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) as “WiFi on steroids. Today you have about 30 feet where you can pick up a frequency from a router. In the next couple of years we’re going to be looking at about 30 miles per base station focused on municipalities. We’re going to be looking at entire cities that are going to be considered ‘hot.’” Zoldan said obviously Internet radio is on the rise with the growing number of people with broadband access to the Internet. A future widespread availability of WiMAX access could blow that wide open. “In terms of mobility and accessibility, certainly WiMAX is going to be the technology of the future and will be delivering most of the content we have today.”

When it comes to Internet access for automobiles – a key to delivering Internet-based audio content to commuters – Zoldan said, “American auto manufacturers will begin by offering a cellular-type service in the next year or two and as WiMAX gets deployed, the car manufacturers will upgrade.”

Darcy Knapp of Network Solutions spoke to attendees about getting yourself, your station or your show noticed on the Internet with her presentation, “How to Make Your Website Visible to the Search Engines.” Knapp said that when broadcasters are trying to build traffic to their site their main targets are the search engines and that means not just Google although the Google results index feeds over 300 different search engines. “Eighty percent of all Internet traffic starts at a search engine…you want to strive to be on page one on Google because then you will be on page one on those 300 other search engines.”

Among the many valuable points Knapp made was that “keywords” are of paramount importance when it comes to getting the people you want to find your site. “Is there information on your site relative to the terms you’re using on your site? If your show is a political talk show you don’t need to be talking about sports in your keywords. Google knows all and Google will never return you on a search if what you’ve put in your site is not what your site is about. Google considers that spam.” Knapp also said the best thing hosts and stations can do to please the search engines is update constantly. “You’ve got to give Google what it wants and Google wants fresh content. Have lots of text on the front page and update it frequently.”

Paul Vogelzang is the president of the popular and profitable website and podcast MommyCast, whose address to the New Media Seminar was titled, “Make Your Podcast Work for You.” Vogelzang stated upfront that the story of MommyCast is not that different from most talk radio success stories except that it took place entirely online. MommyCast is co-hosted by Vogelzang’s wife Gretchen and her friend Paige Heninger and is credited with being the first independent podcast to sign a major client – Dixie paper products – as its advertiser. Vogelzang says they began getting demographic information from visitors to the website and listeners to the podcast by offering them free items in exchange for information about them and their habits. They were overwhelmed with response and that allowed them to present hard metrics about their visitors to companies like Dixie. “Since the Dixie relationship, MommyCast has been sponsored by Disney, has had a wonderful relationship with Apple Computer, been sponsored by Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard – really top-line sponsors that are very interested in this medium in much more than a niche fashion.”

David Armon, COO of PR Newswire, spoke to the attendees about, “Accessing Sound, Guests and Preparing for the Political Conventions.” Armon said his company has been chosen by both the DNC and RNC to serve journalists and the media in disseminating information from the conventions, and talk hosts and stations can take advantage of his service. “We’re providing real-time text feeds to journalists and the world at large – anyone who registers for our RSS feeds. What we’re doing is giving the advisory of who’s available for interviews and what time, what the schedule of events is and we’re also on site to help out journalists who need help.”

D. Keith Casey of CaseySoftware.com enlightened the attendees about “How to Use the New N95 Phone and Do Live Streaming.” Casey described the various ways a newsperson, station employee or talk host could use the Nokia N95 to not only take photos, capture video and sound but also to stream video directly to the Internet. “To connect to the Internet you can either plug it in like a computer, hook up using a standard Wi-Fi network or via your cellular phone company’s service.” Casey said the phone allows the user to upload directly to YouTube, Blip.tv or you can stream it through YouStream or a number of different options.

Talk Radio News Service’s Dan Patterson and Jay Tamboli gave an illuminating presentation titled, “Using Social Media Including Twitter, Friendfeed, Flickr and Others to Enhance Your Talk Show Impact.” Dan Patterson told the attendees the primary reason for hosts or stations to care about social networking technology is to create better top-of-mind awareness (TOMA) about their brand. Patterson says, “It’s about staying competitive in this exceptionally crowded and busy online marketplace.” Patterson and Tamboli explained the potential uses and benefits of direct interaction sites, social news sites, media sites and sites that assist with distribution of content.

Part 1: Digital Media Workshop

 

Part 2: Digital Media Workshop

 

Opening Night Cocktail Reception

The first Friday evening party was sponsored by Talk Radio Network and in addition to brief comments by TRN CEO Mark Masters, also included WABC, New York’s presentation of its Lifetime Achievement Award to talk host Bob Grant. The award was presented by WABC program director Phil Boyce. In accepting the award, Grant stated, referencing the occasions he’s been fired, “I have no complaints. In spite of the cynicism some of us may be tempted to develop, this business we call radio, this incredible enterprise is full of a lot of good, caring people and I ought to know. I’ve been around a long time!”

 

After the cocktail party, seminar-goers attended an intimate event sponsored by ABC Radio Networks called “Hannity After Dark” at which ABC Radio and Fox News Channel superstar Sean Hannity rubbed elbows with fellow industry professionals while everyone enjoyed ice cream, desserts and refreshments into the wee hours of the morning.