Why Rush Limbaugh Shouldn’t Be The Future Of Podcasting

One of my favorite radio analysts, Scott Fybush, recently posted about the on again/off again love affair between Boston’s WRKO and Rush Limbaugh. Break out the tissues because, for the second or third time, WRKO has canceled Limbaugh’s show.

On second thought, let’s just yawn together.

Today, a station manager can cancel Limbaugh and still wake up the following morning with a job. With talk-show ratings plummeting, these managers are shoving Limbaugh aside for less-expensive, and less-experienced, hosts who do mediocre jobs of filling up airtime.

Why Radio’s Problem Could Be Podcasting’s Problem, Too

In his post, Fybush had this to say about talk radio’s collapse:
It’s just not a pretty picture for Limbaugh, nor for talk radio overall, where no star has emerged in the last couple of decades with anywhere near the dominance that Rush exerted at his prime.

No star has emerged in the last couple of decades? From what was once the number one or number two radio format? What happened to all those bright-eyed, hopeful kids who flocked to radio hoping to be the next Rush Limbaugh or Dr. Laura?

No Training, No Gaining

I asked Neil Ross, a former major-market disk jockey who worked at legendary radio stations including KCBQ (San Diego), KYA (San Francisco) and KMPC (Los Angeles), if he was at all surprised at the lack of new talent in radio. Unfortunately, as you can hear in this clip, Ross was not.

Today, stations in Nowhere, Arizona, and everywhere else,  fill their schedules with syndicated content. A rookie’s first job is more likely to be programming the automation system than working behind a mic. With no training system for developing new talent, the old talent recycles itself, the format cannibalizes itself and talk radio programming hemorrhages listeners.

It Can Happen Here

We’re in a fairly new business, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t time to turn our attention to the next generation of podcasters. What positive actions are we going to take to develop new talent, besides writing blog posts (oops) or offering online instruction?

Unless we want to find ourselves in Rush Limbaugh territory, with thousands of similar-sounding, tired podcasts, we have to take a more personal approach. As podcast evangelists we’ve got to go one-on-one and get our hands dirty. Here are some thoughts about what we can do:

• arrange with a nearby university about getting some interns for your show;
• teach a podcasting class at a local community college;
• visit a local elementary or middle school on career day and talk about being a podcaster;
• help local high school students produce their own podcasts.

What suggestions do you have to make sure the next generation of podcasters aren’t fillingn thousands of web servers with of Serial clones? Share your ideas.

We’re talking about our future.