...with Perry Simon.

Q & A

From his perch running the radio industry's premeire website, AllAccess, Perry Simon has seen (and heard) it all. He shares his views on the state of the industry in this installment of Round the Horn.

BMS: I know you listen to radio personalities all over the country. What advice do you have for the talk-show host who is unable to connect with the audience and doesn't understand what the audience needs to hear?

Perry: For one thing, get out of the house. Talk to fans, get to local sports bars and events and talk to people. Make mental notes of what topics get response and which fall flat. Do your research – talk to people, read local and national sports blogs, get a read on what’s going on. And, most of all, know your market. If you’re in a town where college football is everything, you’d better be talking college football.

BMS: We know hosts need to be opinionated, however, many people can't deliver their opinions without sounding pompous. How do these hosts lose their arrogance?

Perry: I don’t know if I could convert an arrogant person into a humble one. And I don’t know that I’d want to – there’s value in the character of a know-it-all. Lord knows, some of the successful syndicated hosts are truly pompous and arrogant. I’m not a fan of that in real life, though.&n bsp; If someone acts like that OFF the air as well as on, that’s just a deep-rooted psychological problem. A few bad ratings books, a couple of firings, and perhaps a stint working in a “real job” might cure that.

BMS: If you were building a station, what type of personality would you look for in mornings, mid-days, and pm drive?

Perry: The criteria are the same for all: entertaining, funny, knowledgeable, relatable. I’d look for maybe a little more energy in mornings, but I’d like to fill all dayparts with people who are just plain entertaining. Oh, and one more thing: they should be unique. Give me something that nobody else can give me – a unique viewpoint, a particularly interesting personality, something that people will go out of their way to hear. If the listeners in your market all know you by name – if you’ve established some notoriety from your style and personality – that’s what I’d look for.

BMS: In your travels, do you find talent stands out more in one region of the country?

Perry: Not anymore, not really. There are strong and weak hosts everywhere. What’s most interesting are the stations that have really established a sound that’s unique to their markets, that SOUND like the fans in that city. Not to ignore others that do it right, but WIP, The Ticket in Dallas, WEEI, WFAN, and KNBR come to mind. Listen to WIP for 30 seconds – or less -- and you know precisely where it is, and who the audience is.


BMS: Overall, how would evaluate the talk-radio talent pool?

Perry: Getting shallower, primarily from people leaving in frustration and others not receiving proper instruction or coaching. It’s hard to evaluate someone who’s gotten by for years without ever really being shown the way to do this right. And the industry has not placed a premium value on coaching, much to the detriment of radio in general.

BMS:Why do you believe many hosts are not being coached by their PD's?

Perry: There are some excellent PDs who do coach their talent. There are some excellent PDs who have no time to coach, because they’re saddled with so much paperwork and other duties (and, sometimes, with multiple stations to program) that they can’t set asid e time to work with the talent except on the shallowest level. And there are way too many PDs who just aren’t coaches, and don’t know what to look for in an aircheck to begin with.

BMS: As a PD, what were the main points that you addressed with your talent and how often would you coach them?

Perry: It depended on the talent. I wasn’t big on formal aircheck sessions, but I would always listen to shows live and give the host one or two points to address every day if warranted. I’d tell them what I heard, give them the tape, and tell them what to listen for and how to do it right the next time. That seemed to work well. Some talent needs more work, and for them, aircheck sessions a few times a week and show prep coaching were necessary. I tried to sit down with talent before the show to work through topics and hone them to where I thought they’d work best, and that was effective as well.


BMS: The program director needs to be the person to correct on-air mistakes, however, he also needs to make sure he doesn't destroy the confidence of his talent, and we all know how fragile egos are in this business. How would you walk that fine line between being critical and massaging the ego?

Perry: Again, it depends on the talent, and that means that the PD has to be something of an amateur therapist. You have to determine how each talent responds to different forms of criticism. In my case, I’m not a screamer, and I don’t have a wide range on this: I treated all talent as adults, with some leeway for the hosts who occasionally didn’t behave like adults. But one thing I found was that harping on the negative didn’t fix anything; all it did was make hosts more aggravated and hostile. And if I had to point out problems, it helped to also point out what worked well. Otherwise, you end up with a constant stream of negativity, and no employee will respond well to that.


BMS: People often say a talent has ''it.'' What is your definition of ''it.''

Perry: While I could take the Justice Potter Stewart cop-out route and tell you “I know it when I hear it,” I’d say that whatever “it” is lies in the host’s personality. If there’s something unique and interesting about the host that stands out… that’s “it.”


BMS: The truth is, not everyone can be Rush Limbaugh, however, everyone can learn from his success. What are elements of the Limbaugh success story that others can apply to their show?

Perry: Entertainment is Job One. If you’re entertaining, you can talk about anything, and take almost any position, and people will respond. And don’t be afraid of a little controversy (assuming that the management is on the same page with you on that; even if they aren’t, sometimes you have to stir the pot to get noticed).


BMS: There are many reasons why people are unable to generate ratings. What advice do you have for those who consistently maintain poor numbers?

Perry: It depends on the circumstances. If you’re doing the night show on a station that powers down to 75 watts at night and nobody can hear you, you have an excuse. But if all else is equal, you have to ask yourself what it is that you’re doing that would make someone want to come back and listen. Again, there are a million reasons why someone’s ratings might suck, but if you’re doing it right, the ratings will come in time. If the ratings just aren’t coming, get someone independent of the situation to listen and tell you what they hear.

BMS: We know a talk-show host must be well rounded. What would you insist your hosts do on a daily basis to prepare for their show?

Perry: Consume media – read and watch and listen to everything. Know what they’re saying on the blogs, on websites, in the papers. Talk to people outside the station. Do your homework. And have more material prepared every day than you have time allotted: chances are you’ll burn through it all.

BMS: Many PD's micro-manage. At what point should a PD back off and allow the host to be him or herself?

Perry: I’m a firm believer that you set up the framework – the formatics, the topic parameters, the clock – and then let the host be him or herself within that framework. As long as he or she follows the basic formatics and has an understanding of what I want the station to sound like, everything else should be open to the host’s own personality and style. And if I’ve done MY job of hiring the right people, the sound should end up fitting what I’m looking for.


BMS: Final question. Where do you see the talk-radio industry 5 years from now?

Perry: I think it’ll be where it is now, only a few steps closer to trouble. Ultimately, companies will have to adjust and increase the amount of news, talk, and sports programming they do on both a national and local level, because that’s the only way they can compete with new media encroaching on their territory, like Ipods/podcasts, streaming, and satellite. But we’re not quite at emergency level yet, and it may be more like ten years before the tide turns for talent. We’re in a strange position now: we know that new technology is where we’re headed, and it’s impacting revenues and jobs in terrestrial radio right now, but the revenue hasn’t grown for, say, podcasts or streaming to the extent necessary to provide us with salaries large enough to pay the mortgage. We’re in-between media eras. I don’t know how long this will be the case.

Perry Simon is the editor of News-Talk-Sports for AllAccess.com. Additionally he's been a PD and logged time in various roles at numerous major market stations, including WKXW, NJ 101.5 in Trenton, NJ, and both KLSX & KLYY in Los Angeles. Perry also works as a consultant

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