Talk radio scrambles for new talent

Talk recently overtook country music as the nation's most popular radio format. But with the genre losing Dr. Laura Schlessinger and possibly Howard Stern at year's end, it could be a short-term victory given the dearth of top talent that could fill such large voids.

The situation highlights what insiders say has been a mounting problem in the industry: a lack of any type of infrastructure for supporting talented up-and-comers.

"The top talk-radio hosts are not replaceable; it would be like trying to replace a best friend," said Kraig Kitchin, the former president and COO of Premiere Radio Networks and founder of management firm Sound Mind.

"It's hard to duplicate a unique personality," added Michael Harrison of Talkers magazine, an industry trade paper that boasts 10,000 subscribers who pay $75 a year.

Sirius XM says that talk is so popular among its 20 million subscribers that it has added several niche stations through the years, like OutQ for gays and lesbians, the Catholic Channel, the Doctor Channel and Book Radio.

Still, in the world of spoken-word radio, there are just a handful of superstars, the big dog being Rush Limbaugh, who attracts more than 15 million different listeners a week, according to Talkers. He's followed by Sean Hannity (14 million), Glenn Beck (10 million), Mark Levin and Michael Savage (8.5 million apiece) and Dave Ramsey and Schlessinger (8 million each).

"After those seven, who are on 600 stations apiece, you've got 25 people you can rank next," quipped Al Peterson, publisher and president of NTS MediaOnline.

Talk's rising audience has been a bright spot in an industry dealing with an advertising recession and competition from the rise of digital music. Revenue in the radio industry fell for four consecutive years until recovering with a 6% gain during the first half of this year to $8.24 billion, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau.

Arbitron crowned the category of "news/talk/information" America's No. 1 format in its most recent "Radio Today" report, which says that -- in no small part because of a historic presidential election that had newbies tuning into talk -- the genre garnered 12.6% of the radio audience. That's up from 10.7% two years earlier and one-tenth of a percentage point ahead of the runner-up, country music.

At 2,634, news/talk/information also leads all 57 categories in terms of station count. Harrison estimates that about 100 million Americans listen to some form of talk radio, be it political, sports, finance, medical, relationship, comedy or what have you.

But insiders say that if talk is to continue its roll, it needs to identify and groom hosts who can attract Limbaugh-size audiences at reasonable salaries while learning not to skimp on the marketing of as-yet-unproven talkers.

It used to be that talkers would hone their craft during weekends and off-hours and in small markets, then work their way up. But cost-saving measures have led to filling those hours with syndicated shows.

"This is exactly the right time to promote new talent because nobody else is," said David Katz, a former agent for Phil Hendrie, Tom Leykis and Jay Thomas who's now CEO of the Elvis Duran Group, the company behind Duran's syndicated radio show.

"There is no clear next generation, and that is very sad for the industry. Radio has a chip on its shoulder because it's treated like a bastard industry in the shadow of film and TV. The only way to lift it is to celebrate the talent."

Just don't celebrate it too much, counter other insiders who prefer to remain anonymous -- otherwise, you might create more aberrations like Limbaugh and Stern, who command such massive salaries that there's little left over for partners to claim as profit.

Limbaugh earns an estimated $58.5 million annually, amounting to almost $4 a listener, and Sirius XM pays Stern and company $100 million each year, of which Stern gets 80%. Lesser but still popular talk-radio talent earn a lucrative but far more modest 10 cents-$1 a listener.

Like all performing arts, breaking into talk radio never was a matter of simply earning a degree from the Columbia School of Broadcasting and mailing out tapes to perspective employers, notes host Michael Medved. Today's stars arrived in myriad ways.

Stephanie Miller, for example, is one of the nation's most popular liberals in political talk, which is dominated by conservatives (the Top 10 talkers all lean right). Miller was a theater major at USC and got her radio start as a wacky music DJ before she had much interest in politics. Asked how one might break into the industry these days, she quipped: "There's no more room for you, kids. Good luck."

Medved, a Top 10 host with nearly 4 million listeners, got into radio after appearing on numerous shows to promote his books. He substituted for Limbaugh for the first time in 1993, got his own show in Seattle three years later and went national the year after that.

"To be successful, you have to be emphatic, intriguing and engaging without being unduly repetitive," Medved said. "The challenge is keeping it fresh. If there are listeners saying, 'I got it already. I've heard you talk about this for five days,' then you're risking your audience."

Added ESPN and ESPN Radio's Scott Van Pelt: "I was a guy on TV who thought, 'How hard can this be?' "But it's so difficult to flush out topics and come up with opinions the audience hasn't already heard."

Said Andrew Breitbart, the conservative new-media mogul who substitutes for several national hosts: "Anyone who thinks doing three hours of radio is easy is insane. The first time I did it, I had a panic attack."