How Mike Gallagher is Helping to Destroy the Radio Industry
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Did you ever have one of those lightbulb moments when the concept you've been searching for suddenly becomes well defined in your mind? For those charged with making decisions that affect many people in their company, it can be an exhilarating feeling. Problem solved, move on.
I just had one of those moments concerning the radio industry, actually three of them in succession. Only there was no problem solved. Instead, it was problem fully understood. Imagine, three successive moments of lightbulb clarity over the course of one-half hour. It happened that fast as it became crystal clear to me why radio is having trouble with everything from audience loyalty to advertiser acceptance. Throw in a measure of credibility loss to this mix and only a deaf person would fail to hear how to fix commercial radio.
That's a fairly hefty goal, fixing the radio industry. It's not that the subject hasn't been broached before. It's been ignored to a point where what I'm about to show you demonstrates swimming with the fishes, defined as being bottom-feeders, or that famous line from "The Godfather" movie about Lucca Brazzi sleeping with the fishes (radio is dead). Take your choice.
My day started with a trip to the grocery store. It was 5:10am, Sunday August 24. Typical public service time on most local radio stations, has been for years, I thought. This morning, though, I joined the middle of a Purity Products paid-program, which was about losing weight with some type of product used in Europe. Though it wasn't stated, this product couldn't pass muster with the FDA in the USA. The program's production value was mediocre. The program's format had a talk-show host type of person discussing this amazing product with some person who was connected by a phone line to the studio. The host's sincerity was questionable, at best; snake oil salesman, at worst.
At 5:20am the first program ended, and another paid-program began after a station jingle. The second show concerned some colon remedy that would help make you regular when going to the bathroom. It was obvious - although never mentioned - what these bathroom visits were for. (Are you becoming a little queazy yet? I did after spending about the same length of time on this topic that it's taken you to complete this paragraph.) "Bathroom" must have been mentioned 7 times, in the context of, you know... I just can't force myself to say it.
This station, WJMI Cleveland, is Clear Channel-owned. It's a safe bet to say that it was not the only CC station carrying this combination of programs. It's also safe to say that the topics of programs like these are one reason why the radio industry is being painted as dying. It's not, and it won't die. But it has gained the same prestige earned by some of your finer supermarket tabloids, like National Enquirer.
I've come to expect this from radio over the past ten years. Dwindling program quality has been invading the turf once dominated by trusted names, in a very credibile industry. I just wasn't prepared for what came next.
In an attempt to escape hearing how this one program host "wouldn't be myself if I couldn't go to the bathroom for three days," I switched stations to WNIR FM, a Klause-owned talk station out of Akron. After the first three minutes listening to this host (remember that word, "host" - I'll get back to it), I was introduced to an act so desperate for attention that it was apparent in the arrogance of delivery.
In case you haven't heard of Mike Gallagher, he has an SRN radio show. Within three minutes he proved himself such an obnoxious individual that my decision was to quit listening and start writing.
Being a talk show host is something I'm familiar with. I did a stint with that job title at WWWE AM (now WTAM AM) in Cleveland in the 1980s. A clear signal of 50,000 watts gives you the power to reach out and touch someone. Thankfully WNIR FM has a much less powerful stick, so the reach isn't as broad - until you realize that whoever this Mike Gallagher thinks he is, he is syndicated. Obviously it's a problem, because you have a stench like his being spouted across multiple cities.
Here's the main point of disdain: Mike (and I know you'll end up reading this but it won't end up on your web site on the "Articles About Mike" page), people are not calling in to hear you speak. They are listening to hear what your listeners have to say and, then, to hear your response. So let your listeners talk. Cutting off a person who disagrees with you, after giving that person only a few words of time, shows how insecure you are. Calling that person a "jerk" shows that you haven't learned anything about civil discussion. Acknowledging that you "don't want to even listen..." also shows you never learned how to respond in contentious discussions.
Sounding like you are soooo right, is, well, (as anybody knows who's been exposed to a person with similar traits at a party) making you come off as the jerk. And you did this in under three minutes of open mike time, Mike.
You may have had a valid point about Supreme Court Justice Thomas. However, I'm sure that the individual who was calling in to disagree with your position also had some valid points. He was about to explain why what you said about Justice Thomas wasn't correct. (As a "beside," the caller did not call the Justice an Uncle Tom. It was a comparative statement that you, in a very arrogant and derogatory manner, never let him finish. Your caller stated "I can see how some would call him an Uncle Thomas....") Pull the program tape. Listen for yourself because it was evident that you were not listening to the caller when he was talking. You were formulating how to attack this apparently liberal-minded individual.
But, back to the word "host." It is defined as a noun in Random House dictionary as: 1) "a person who receives or entertains guests in his own home or elsewhere"; 2) "the landlord of an inn"; 3) "a living animal or plant from which a parasite obtains nutrition" and 4) (as a verb) to plan or calculate without taking all important factors into account."
Listening to Mike Gallagher conjures up definitions #3 - he, as the parasite - & #4, as do most talk radio "hosts" today.
Radio doesn't have a problem with the technical end. There's no need to chase HD Radio. Being analog in a digital world is fine. I still use a cast iron skillet in the kitchen. It serves its purpose better than high-end sauce pans and skillets with teflon coating.
There was a time when the radio industry wasn't judged so much by what it put on the air as by what it kept off. Some things have not changed, yet radio isn't keeping its "hosts" in check like it once did. That's too difficult.
With radio programs talking about non-FDA approved ointments or pills (which do not appear at the Purity Products web site) plus how many times a day a person needs to sit on the toilet, not to mention shows with a pompous syndicated host (as in the case of Mike Gallagher), do we need to dig any deeper to uncover why radio is sinking?
Get with the program; that is, get back to "serving" the public with programs. You'll find that when radio again becomes a gracious "host," your listeners will start hanging around longer.
If not, we're all stuck with Mike and the on-air trash that he represents.
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From: C. Reynolds
Yes Ken it's a septic tank... but since CC is able to sell their studio like it's a football stadium, 'From the Ed Stinn Chevrolet/WMJI
Studio's this is Majic!' ('Ed' was only used as an example, he and Charlie Miller invented local TV commercials) I was surprised that the bathroom show was on WMJI, just part of the legacy Kevin Metheny left us? [Recently ousted VP Programming for Clear Channel Cleveland.]
Now, Mike Gallagher is a professional, smooth, right wing idiot, who has probably had some more intelligent on air moments... but you should really check out the 10am-11pm weekday offerings of local talk, on WNIR. That is the largest collection of misinformation ever assembled on one frequency...so much that it bleeds over to 100.3, 100.5 (figuratively, not technically) :-) That is a station begging for a program director. 'We don't need no stinkin program director, the boys will handle it.'
Check it out, aircheck it and send it to Bill [Klause], it makes him real paranoid when people tape it. That said, Klaus still 'built it', at least somebody is doing live and local talk...even though, a local host was told a joke by a caller on-air about Barack Obama arriving at the pearly gates, and being lauded for being President, Obama said, "oh yeah, how long ago was that, and 'Saint Peter' said 10 minutes." To me that's something to BLEEP! The host, claimed he didn't understand the joke... and he didn't mean he didn't think it was funny...he was totally clueless!
And back to Metheny. This may tie it all together. I just recalled an article Kevin Metheny wrote for allaboutcountry.com a few years ago, he was making a case for radio being better under consolidation; checks didn't bounce, each market had a real Drake station (G98 in Cleveland) and a wannabee (WLYT)... he had me buying in to his theory...then he wrapped it all up...'Radio stations are like toilets, they just flush differently'. And I was totally lost.
Yup, the architect of 'The Big One', (Cleveland's a beer-and-a shot town, let em have Triv) and the cluster that entertains us for quarter hour after quarter hour was truly a visionary. Makes me wonder if Metheny had what John Wayne was alleged to have had.
Nice article.
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From: Paul V.
'Everything about HD is a lie.' So said a poster a while ago. Thus far, BigRadio with its penchant for firing talent, retaining mediocrity, and embracing a failed 80's jamming techno-jalopy known as Radio, has validated that poster.
I tried listening to Gallagher. Gave it my best, there. Also enjoyed the privilege of listening to callers, engaging them, at times duelling with and always gratefully enjoying them as a radio talk host.
How many times I've heard Michael Savage, as with Gallagher, abruptly dump good callers, many of whom agreed with the host.
Why? It's all about them. What a recipe for rampant listener apathy.
And BigRadio thinks by some alchemy, State Sponsored Jamming known euphemistically as HD Radio will overcome that fatal flaw?
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From: Greg S.
'Radio doesn't have a problem with the technical end. There's no need to chase HD Radio. Being analog in a digital world is fine.'
iBiquity/NAB/HD Alliance convinced broadcasters that HD Radio would be an easy way out of having to actually put some real work in making terrestrial radio remain viable. But no, they thought that 'digital hype' would convince consumers to come back to radio. In Stuble's latest monthly column, he hypes the digital hype:
'So let's stop mulling over false choices. Like every other consumer medium,
AM/FM must be digital, online and over the air.'
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