Nonpartisan Talk is BACK!

Appeared in JPS Magazine – March 2011 Edition

Watch for honest, straightforward talk radio to make a major comeback in the months and years ahead.

There are several reasons for this, and it isn’t just that people are so tired of dishonesty they crave pure truth like an addict craves drugs.  There are many smaller reasons, but together they make for a compelling push for the pendulum to finally swing back to reality:

1. There can only be so many Rush copycats out there, and truth is many of them are pretty predictable and much less talented than he is at sustaining a listenership.
2. People tend to want to be surprised if not shocked, and the partisan nonsense that used to shock them is starting to be so predictable as to bore them.
3. Life generally goes in cycles.  People seem to be missing getting if not unbiased news and talk, certainly less biased news and talk.
4. Little at a time people are realizing one side isn’t always right, even if that side is coming from the right!

Is this just our opinion?  Are we hoping for change because we started the Independent Voice Project, left our old station and dedicated our future to the straightest talk available in the area?  Nope.  Check out some of the quotes a simple search online will bring up.

Michael Harrison of Talkers Magazine was quoted recently as saying he thinks there’s a ‘great vacuum out there for non-partisan objective political commentary’.  We knew that already, but the real trick is to be non-partisan and still be entertaining. That takes a host with a sense of humor and some in traditional news just are too straight to be fun to listen to.  And make no mistake, research shows you want to have fun when you tune in your favorite host.

“There are a lot of program directors whose radio ‘spider-sense’ is tingling,” says Randall Bloomquist, president of Talk Frontier Media.

“What they say is, ‘we need somebody who can talk about a variety of topics, somebody that can connect with people who can do humorous topics, somebody who can have some fun on the air.’ It’s the circle of life, the wheel turned and in the process of turning pinned this format in the corner of all conservative talk all the time and I think there’s a sense of fatigue there.”

OK so the above quote was found in a liberal-leaning blog (The Daily Beast), but it was coming from a long-time talk executive who has seen his share of ratings books over the years.  Oh, and speaking of ratings, many of the Rush copycats have stopped growing audience.  Several in the talk business for example are not thrilled with Sean Hannity’s numbers the past two years. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have his success, but the point is the ratings for guys like Sean are shrinking in some markets, and he isn’t holding the numbers that Limbaugh gets as his lead-in.

So what does this mean?  Will left-leaning talk start making its move?  Probably not.  The generation of future talk radio listeners grew up with the Internet.  They are far more savvy when it comes to recognizing ‘spin’, and many believe there is no such thing as fair news coverage, or fair talk radio.  That is the sad part.  As journalists, the last thing we wanted to do for our children is leave as our legacy our reputation for slanting the news, for simplifying it, exaggerating it.

The pendulum is swinging, and that can only be good for our country and the business of hearing some truth for a change.  Now that’s change we can believe in.

Jim Parisi
The Jim Parisi Show