I'm having difficulty with a topic, namely personality talk.
The way my brain interprets it, there are times when people enjoy hanging out talking with each other. Being "social". A group of friends hopping topics, making small talk, kicking around concepts, just BSing.
Radio, aside from phones, chat, email interaction is pretty much a push media. Content originates at the studio and gets broadcast to listeners.
In "personality talk", what I see happening is that the listener is sitting in on a social environment and although they aren't directly involved in the social chatter, the show gives them the feeling of social involvement.
Am I close in this?
What makes for good personality radio?
I believe that I know exactly what you are talking about KenFisher.
There have been some excellent "conversation" shows that have fallen by the wayside, including "The Sam and Deidre Show," with two law partners sitting at Deidre's kitchen table at home in Alabama chatting back and forth about what they'd heard on the news, the dogs and cats that roamed freely in the house, the country wildlife outside the open window, and it was like you were there just listening to two friends talk. They gave up after failing to find enough stations or sponsers to keep them afloat.
The Ruth Kosielak Show from Minnesota was done in Ruth's kitchen at home with a male and female friend from past radio experience chatting up everything from movies, radio, the news, food, pets. Ruth had been the main daytime personality on WCCO Minneapolis for 17 years. Her internet show ended without explanation and the website went down.
From time to time I've done a show at a restaurant with a buddy who is a videographer, deep sea diver, and educator... we called it "Breakfast Conversation" and talked about everything except mutual gossip about people we know, which I had to edit out.
Other shows, like the "Ralph Nader Radio Hour" are truly conversational in style, but with a definite push to cover topics in politics and news.
As I think through all the talk shows I use I find it disappointing there aren't more conversation shows.
Oh, and I've rejected a few because of too much F___ word.
I just thought of a good one... it's free for use from twit.tv called "Security Now" with Leo LaPort and Steve Gibson all about the latest security events and fixes involving computers and software. They are very conversational.
Come to think of it twit.tv has a bunch of good "personality" radio shows.
Helpful, thanks.
I never did that sort of programming myself. I was a board op, promoted to weekend air staff, then overnights. Towards the end I did on location ads (remotes) but nothing chatty.
We had a morning team that did a good amount of personality stuff. Sometimes chatting 15 mins or so between breaks. As a listener it's not my style as I'm more into music, rip n read news and weather.
I guess where I'm going with this is that to me one area where live air staff can compete with automated music streams is the personal relate. Pandora has no personal anything.
One I heard on a low power hour was an air team chatting about futuristic jet packs. That got me thinking on this topic. It wasn't news, sports weather, music or news-sports talk. It was just casual chatter, and struck me as very good radio with a fresh style.
They say I do personality radio. I've done this show for 26 years on this station, and basically the same show on three stations before that. These mp3's have all the local news, sports, Minnesota News Network, ABC news, and most of the other BS edited out. We generally keep five days worth posted and each week the new show for the day replaces the one from the previous week. At least this might give you something else to listen to! Each day has a different theme and there are a lot of running gags and stories, and you get a lot of listener call ins on Tuesdays. This is what I do every morning before coming home to Part 15. Jason, my "sidekick" is pretty much interested in sports only and doesn't get a chance to get a word in edgwise most of the time.
http://www.kozyradio.com/kozy/kozymmessmon.mp3
http://www.kozyradio.com/kozy/kozymmesstue.mp3
http://www.kozyradio.com/kozy/kozymmesswed.mp3
http://www.kozyradio.com/kozy/kozymmessthu.mp3
http://www.kozyradio.com/kozy/kozymmessfri.mp3
Tim in Bovey
Excellent, downloading now.
That's one long running show, congratulations.
So, if I may ask, what do you think makes for GOOD personality radio?
Skimmed Monday's show. Fun listen. Reminds me of what Paul Harvey might have sounded like after a bit too much coffee. 🙂 Meant in the best possible way, of course.
Tim has the right idea of how to keep an audience as part of the program, a natural pace with one topic leading to the other.
The sidekick is actually wonderful because he sets the tone that Tim isn't just alone talking to himself, he's got company on the mic, but the sidekick is just a bobbing head that utters just the few words not to get too entangled in an elaborate conversation... it is Tim who sets the topic.
I like the Paul Harvey on hyper-coffee description.
There was a streaming station.
It was in a town with a funny
name like "Parumph," or something
like that. These 2 guys were very
funny. They just talked about their
town. It was the way they did it that
made the difference.
They gave out a phone number and I
called it around 9 or 10 in the morning.
(My local time: EST.)
i woke up some lady who was asleep.
She was very nice, but she wasn't
really awake. It turns out this streaming
station was running a recording of a past
show, and it was earlier in the morning
there. (Far to my west.) I told her I thought the station was
great, and she sort of said, "...er OK, I'll
tell them."
That was it.
Oh, Carl, I have always loved
the shows where you interview the gentleman in
the diner. Those were really nice. Didn't
you have a guy on one of your shows that
ws mowing his lawn?
".............Paul Harvey...................Good-Day!"
Bruce, Monitoring Post, CT
Oh the station in Pahrump is a super story among Part 15 operations, KPAH 1700 AM built as a retirement thing by career TV engineer Harvey Kaplan who has a radio hut up on the side of a mountain with his Rangemaster antenna on a 60-foot tower along with his HAM antennas.
The shows he organized brought townspeople onto the air where, like you said Bruce, they would hold conversations and have a fine time while airing their grievances or stories about town business.
He had a silly show with Advice to the Lovelorn with two women who got so wild they mostly laughed for a whole hour.
Recently Harvey finally got a licensed station, but it's not in Pahrump but somewhere else in Nevada, but he keeps KPAH in operation.