Talk radio

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Talk radio is a

While talk radio has historically been associated with broadcast radio, starting around 2005 the technology for Internet-based talk-radio shows became cost-effective in the form of live internet website streaming and podcasts. Now, an individual can use a variety of services to host an Internet-based talk-radio show without carriage by a traditional radio station. Also, TV programming from talk and news outlets such as BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, and Fox is now often available expanding the world of talk radio further. Talk radio listening is enjoyed not only on radios but a wide variety of other devices and services including PCs using iTunes, station directories such as TuneIn, show directory smartphones with apps such as Stitcher, and time-shifting services like DAR.fm.^[1]

Africa

In Australia, talk radio is known as "talkback radio".

The most popular talkback radio station historically was Sydney's 2UE, whose populist programs like The John Laws Morning Show, were widely syndicated across the continent. In recent years though, 2UE has been eclipsed by its Sydney rival 2GB after the defection of 2UE most popular talkback host, Alan Jones.

As a result, 2UE and owned by the same company as 2GB) abandoned most of its rigid

Melbourne, 3AW is the highest rating talkback radio station and has also been the highest rating Melbourne radio station for several decades in a row.

6PR personality Garry Meadows was the first announcer to use talkback radio in early 1967.^[5] 'Talkback' radio, using a seven-second time-lapse mechanism, began in Australia in April 1967, simultaneously on 2SM, Sydney (with Mike Walsh) and 3DB, Melbourne (with Barry Jones).

In the 1990s and 2000s, "talkback" on FM was attempted. The Spoonman was a program hosted by Brian Carlton on the triple m network in the late 1990s and returned in 2005 for three and a half years, the show wrapping up in 2008. It was a show that covered many topics, but the "hot talk" format in the U.S. would probably be the best way to describe the program.

Talkback radio has historically been an important political forum in Australia and functions much like the cable news televisions in the United States, with live and "saturated" coverage of political issues.

Brazil

The most important talk radios in Brazil are CBN, Band News and Jovem Pan, which has also sports and news broadcasts.

Canada

In contrast to talk radio stations in the United States, where syndicated programs tend to make up a significant part of most schedules, privately owned Canadian talk radio stations tend to be predominantly local in programming and focus. There is no Canadian content requirement for talk radio, or "spoken word", programming unless the individual station's license expressly stipulates such a requirement; most do not. (In Canada, prospective radio stations may propose certain restrictions on their license to gain favor with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and have an easier time obtaining a license.)^[6]

The most recent nationally syndicated, politically oriented weekday talk radio show in Canada was Charles Adler Tonight, hosted by

• The George Stroumboulopoulos Show airs on Sunday nights on stations in Toronto and Montreal.
• The Home Discovery Show, a call-in home renovation program hosted by Shell Busey.
• Love and Romance, a
  relationship
  advice program hosted by Sue McGarvie.
• Prime Time Sports, a sports talk program hosted by Bob McCown. A three-hour program originating from CJCL, usually only the third hour is broadcast nationally.
• Renovations Cross Canada, a weekend program about home renovations hosted by Ren Molnar. It is the most widely distributed talk radio program in Canada.
• The Roy Green Show, a political and entertainment-based show hosted by Roy Green that airs on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, primarily on the Corus Radio Network.
• The 'X' Zone, a nightly show about paranormal topics hosted by Rob McConnell. It is also syndicated throughout the United States.

The two largest talk radio networks in Canada are the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's English language CBC Radio One and French language Ici Radio-Canada Première. These stations typically produce their local morning and afternoon programs and regional noon hour programs to go along with the network programming that is aired during the rest of the day. Both networks are commercial-free. CBC Radio One's flagship national talk program is the weekend Cross Country Checkup, which has been broadcast since 1965.

CFRA (580 AM) in Ottawa (formerly part of the CHUM network, which is now part of CTV) has a large and dedicated listening audience. The station is heard throughout the Ottawa valley and on the Internet. Several key programs focus on local political and world issues.

Privately owned talk radio syndication networks in Canada are generally formed to share programs across a group of stations with common ownership, although some are formed to distribute their one or two talk radio programs to several stations regardless of ownership. The largest of these is the Corus Radio Network. TSN Radio, the successor to the long-defunct the Team, is one of the newest national networks in Canada, with operations in several major markets.

Syndicated programs from the United States which air on Canadian radio stations are typically non-political shows such as

).

Local talk radio plays a significant role in the politics of Newfoundland and Labrador. Political parties have systematically coordinated call-ins by Members of the House of Assembly when public opinion pollsters are known to be in the field.[9]^[10] The provincial government routinely purchases transcripts of calls.^[11]

Finland

A state-owned public channel called

YLE Puhe.^[12] is broadcast throughout the whole country in the Finnish language. The programs include sports and news broadcasts. Its weekly listenership is about 550,000.^[13] Finland's first commercial talk station, Radio Rapu, started operations on March 1, 2014.^[14]

France

Talk radio is a popular form of radio entertainment in France, exemplified by Europe 1, RTL, and RMC, plus state-owned France Inter. A premier English language talk radio in France is the Gascony Show. Launched in early 2011, this show is broadcast weekly to the Gascony region of the southwest of France, as well as to the rest of France via Internet streaming.

Germany

Radio talk shows are popular in Germany and have a long tradition. The first talk show on public radio was Werner Höfer's Der Internationale Frühschoppen [de], a political talk begun in 1952. The talk show on wheels Hallo Ü-Wagen ran from 1974 to 2010, begun by Carmen Thomas for WDR.

Italy

Talk radio in Italy is popular.

crowdsourced storytelling. State-owned Rai Radio 3

is mainly dedicated to literature, the arts, classical music, and general cultural issues. Several regional stations use a format combining that of all-news and talk radio.

New Zealand

In

Radio New Zealand National

have a large component of talk-based content but do not have talk-back (i.e. listener phone-ins).

Newstalk ZB is the New Zealand market leader, but Radio Live is continuing to try to establish itself with a greater presence in the talk radio market since its inception in 2005.

Philippines

Almost all

Bombo Radyo are on FM. Radyo 5 News FM

(now True FM) is the first talk radio station in the Philippines.

Poland

There is two talk radio station in Poland, called

Agora SA, a Polish media company. Its programmes are broadcast in 10 large cities including Warsaw, Kraków, Gdańsk, Poznań, and Katowice. The programme is also available via the Internet and transmitted by the Hot Bird constellation

. It was founded in 1998 as "Inforadio"

Second talk radio station called

Grzegorz Wasowski, Katarzyna Adamiak-Sroczyńska and Monika Makowska-Wasowska, Wojciech Cejrowski and Jerzy Jachowicz

.

Spain

Talk radio in Spain is very popular, where the most important radio stations are exclusively dedicated to talk shows, such as Cadena Ser, Cadena Cope, Onda Cero, Radio Nacional, or Punto Radio. There is a very wide variety of topics, such as politics, sport, comedy, and culture.

Sport talk shows are particularly relevant, since football attracts a massive interest in Spain, with a special focus on FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF, and the men's national football team. Typically the programming of main talk radio stations is modified whenever there is a major football event, such as a La Liga or a national team match. Daily late-night sport (football) talk shows are also very relevant, with a very intense competition of the radio stations in this time slot which typically starts around midnight.

Comedy morning talk shows are also very popular in music radio stations (40 principales, M80 radio, Europa FM, and others), where there is strong competition since it is also a very important time slot, when typically people going to the workplace listen to the radio in their cars early in the morning (around 7 am to 8 am).

As Spain has large English-speaking communities from many different countries, it is a natural place for English language talk radio broadcasting.

The first Talk radio station in English was Coastline Radio broadcasting from Nerja, Costa del Sol. It is now a music station. A group of English expats set up OCI International in the early 1990s. Based in Marbella on the Costa del Sol, it was owned by the ONCE National Spanish Network. It provided a link for the English-speaking expats living on the coast, as well as some content for Scandinavian expats. OCI was closed down in 2007 to make way for Radio Europa music. In 2004 REM FM began broadcasting, with shows mostly fronted by former OCI presenters. The station closed in 2008.

In 2008, Talk Radio Europe began broadcasting.

Costa Almeria, Costa Blanca, and across the island of Mallorca

in English. It is available on the Internet and all smartphone platforms.

United Kingdom

Talk radio in the United Kingdom is popular, though not as much as music radio. Nationwide talk stations include BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio 4 Extra, Talkradio, Talksport and Times Radio. Regional stations include BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Radio Wales. Many BBC Local Radio stations and some commercial stations offer a talk format, for example, BBC Radio London, the BBC's flagship local station. Other notable commercial talk stations include London's LBC which pioneered the newstalk format in Europe. LBC currently operates two services – LBC, a newstalk station on FM (London) and via several digital platforms nationally including DAB and Freeview; and LBC News, a rolling news station on AM in London and DAB+ nationally. There are many specialised talk services such as Bloomberg, a financial news station, and Asian Radio Live.^[16]

Talk radio expanded dramatically when the BBC's monopoly on radio broadcasting was ended in the 1970s with the launch of Independent Local Radio.

Some notable British talk radio presenters include

CityTalk is also known as the DJ who rushed to the aid of a regular caller who died live on air during a call.^[17] Previously, he had kept a teenager talking for 45 minutes before meeting him to convince him not to commit suicide.^[18]

United States

Talk radio is most popular on the

ABC News & Talk

is an example of "repackaging" for the digital airwaves shows featured on their terrestrial radio stations.

History

Expressing and debating political opinions has been a staple of radio since the medium's infancy. Aimee Semple McPherson began her radio broadcasts in the early 1920s and even purchased her station, KFSG which went on the air in February 1924; by the mid-1930s, controversial radio priest Father Charles Coughlin's radio broadcasts were reaching millions per week. There was also a national current events forum called America's Town Meeting of the Air which broadcast once a week starting in 1935. It featured panel discussions from some of the biggest newsmakers and was among the first shows to allow audience participation: members of the studio audience could question the guests or even heckle them.^[19]

Talk radio as a listener-participation format has existed since the 1930s. John J. Anthony (1902–1970) was an announcer and DJ on New York's WMRJ. It was located in the Merrick Radio Store at 12 New York Boulevard in Jamaica, Long Island. After some marital troubles, refusing to pay alimony and child support, he sought professional help and began his radio series where listeners would call in with their problems in 1930. Radio historians consider this the first instance of talk radio.^[20]

While working for New York's

Barry Gray was bored with playing music and put a telephone receiver up to his microphone to talk with bandleader Woody Herman. This was soon followed by listener call-ins and Gray is often billed as "the hot mama of talk radio". Herb Jepko was another pioneer.^[21]

Author Bill Cherry proposed George Roy Clough as the first to invite listeners to argue politics on a call-in radio show at KLUF, his station in Galveston, Texas, as a way to bring his political views into listeners' homes. (He later became Mayor of Galveston). Cherry gives no specific date, but the context of events and history of the station would seem to place it also in the 1940s, perhaps earlier. The format was the classic mode in which the announcer gave the topic for that day, and listeners called in to debate the issue.^[22]

In 1948 Alan Courtney – New York disk jockey and co-composer of the popular song "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio" – began a call-in program for the Storer station in Miami, Florida (WGBS) and then on Miami's WQAM, WINZ and WCKR. The "Alan Courtney Open Phone Forum" flourished as an avowedly conservative and anti-communist political forum with a coverage area over the Southeastern U.S. and Cuba.

Jerry Williams (WMEX

-Boston) were among the first to explore the medium in the 1950s.

A breakthrough in talk radio occurred in 1960 at KLAC in Los Angeles. Alan Henry, a broadcaster in his early thirties, had been hired by John Kluge, president of Metromedia in 1963. Henry had previously worked in such diverse markets as Miami, Florida; Waterloo, Iowa; Hartford, Connecticut; and St. Louis, Missouri. KLAC was dead last in the ratings but Kluge wanted a big Metromedia presence in Los Angeles. He sent Henry from New York to Los Angeles to turn KLAC into a success. The first thing that Henry did was hire the legendary morning team of Lohman and Barkley. Henry had built a strong relationship with programmer Jim Lightfoot, who had joined Henry in Miami. A unique opportunity presented itself when Joe Pyne, who had begun his career as a radio talk personality in Pennsylvania, was fired by KABC in Los Angeles. The speculation was that Pyne was too controversial and confrontational for the ABC corporate culture. Henry hired Pyne on the spot and paid him $25,000 a year, which was then a huge salary for a radio personality. Pyne was given the night show on KLAC. Part of the agreement with Pyne was that Henry and Lightfoot would give him broad control of his program content.

The show was an immediate success. Henry encouraged the confrontation with listeners and guests for which Pyne became famous. Pyne coined the line "Go gargle with razor blades," for guests with whom he disagreed. The Pyne show was the beginning of the confrontational talk format that later spread across the radio spectrum. At one point in the 1960s, the Joe Pyne show was syndicated on over 250 radio stations in the United States.

In an odd turn of events, Pyne's radio show led him to television. Henry suggested to John Kluge that Joe Pyne should be put on Metromedia's newly acquired TV station in Los Angeles, KTTV-TV. Kluge told Henry to speak to KTTV-TV general manager Al Kriven, but Henry had already done that, and Kriven had adamantly refused. Kluge telephoned Kriven, and Pyne soon became the nation's first controversial late-night talk television host. The Joe Pyne Show on KTTV-TV quickly shot to the top of the ratings. The format later proliferated on cable television with a variety of new hosts, many of them taking on a similar persona to Joe Pyne. Joe Pyne and Alan Henry were major factors in establishing a new trend in radio and television programming. Alan Henry elaborates on the launching of Joe Pyne on KLAC radio and KTTV-TV in his memoir A Man and His Medium.

Two

KABC, 790 AM in Los Angeles – adopted an all-talk show format in 1960, and both claim to be the first to have done so. KABC station manager Ben Hoberman and KMOX station manager Robert Hyland independently developed the all-talk format. KTKK

, 630 AM in Salt Lake City, then known as KSXX, adopted a full-time talk schedule in 1965 and is the third station in the country to have done so. KSXX started with all local talent, and KTKK, which now airs on 1640 AM, has a larger portion of its schedule featuring local talent than most other stations that run a full schedule of talk.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, as many listeners abandoned AM music formats for the

Sirius XM Radio, and the numerous variations of the iPod

, talk radio has been expanding on the FM side of the dial as well.

Shock

Hot talk, also called FM talk or shock talk,

FM radio rather than the political talk found on AM radio. Hosts of hot talk shows are usually known as shock jocks

.

Clear Channel Communications (which became iHeartMedia in 2015) has a select few hot talk stations under the moniker Real Radio, while CBS Radio once had a larger chain of hot talkers known as Free FM, though the brand was abandoned after a post-Howard Stern attempt to network the format failed within a year. It is usually found on FM radio active rock, classic rock

, and country stations in morning drive, as the actual hot talk formatted stations have only achieved mediocre success as a whole compared to AM or conservative talk radio, or even FM music radio. It is also effectively a format that is unviable during an average workday in North America, due to the format's tendency to discuss topics wholly inappropriate for a workplace setting, and outside of discussions of attractiveness, entirely repels women as regular listeners.

In March 2018, CBS Radio's corporate successor Entercom (now

Coronado Bridge) was criticized for glorifying suicide by bridge jumping. The ensuing controversy prompted the Padres to scrutinize KEGY's direction; executive Ron Fowler voiced concerns over the team being associated with KEGY's "shock jock" content, threatening to possibly cut ties with the station and Entercom.^[24][25] Kevin Klein's program never premiered, and the hot talk format was ultimately dropped on April 12, 2018, in favor of a conventional sports format as 97.3 The Fan.^[26]

In 2019,

The genre has also shown up on satellite radio and in podcasting, which typically have more creative freedom due to the lack of indecency rules and lower reliance on corporate advertising.

Other U.S. hosts specialize in talk radio comedy, such as Phil Hendrie, who voices his fictional guests and occasionally does parodies of other programs.

Political

The

It had required the holders of broadcast licenses to "present controversial issues of public importance" and to do so in a manner that was, in the commission's view, "honest, equitable and balanced". Its repeal provided an opportunity for a kind of partisan political programming with commercial appeal that had not previously existed.

The most successful pioneer in the early 1990s' talk radio movement in the US was the

The Salem Radio Network syndicates a group of religiously oriented Republican activists, including evangelical Christian Hugh Hewitt and Jewish conservatives Dennis Prager and Michael Medved; these are mostly distributed in a 24-hour network format among Salem's stations, and they generally earn ratings much less than their syndicated counterparts.

In the summer of 2007, conservative talk show hosts mobilized public opposition to the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill, which eventually failed.^[31] Conservative hosts Limbaugh, Ingraham, Bennett, Prager, Hannity, Beck, Levin, and Hewitt coalesced around endorsing former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for president at the end of January 2008 (after Fred Thompson, the described favorite of some of the hosts, dropped out), to oppose the nomination of Senator John McCain;^[32] however, Romney suspended his campaign in February of the same year and endorsed McCain. During the primaries, Limbaugh in particular had endorsed a plan to do whatever it took to prolong the Democrats' nomination by encouraging political conservatives to cross over to the Democrats and voting for the trailing candidate, a plan he called "Operation Chaos".

Conservative talk show hosts also lent their unified support for congressional candidate

In some markets, local liberal hosts have existed for years, such as the British talk host Michael Jackson (who was on the air at KABC in Los Angeles beginning in 1968 and is currently at KMZT); Bernie Ward in San Francisco; Jack Ellery in New Jersey and Tampa; Dave Ross in Seattle, and Marc Germain in Los Angeles. A few earlier syndicated programs were hosted by prominent Democrats who were not experienced broadcasters, such as Jim Hightower, Jerry Brown, Mario Cuomo, and Alan Dershowitz; these met with limited success, and Air America has been faced with various legal and financial problems.

Air America was sold to a new owner in March 2007, hired well-known programmer David Bernstein, and began its "re-birth." Bernstein subsequently left in early 2008, but the struggling network remained on the air with a revamped line-up.

On January 21, 2010, Air America radio ceased live programming citing a difficulty with the current economic environment and announced that it would file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy production and liquidate itself. The network ended operations on January 25, 2010.^[37]

Clear Channel/iHeartMedia, with nearly 1,300 radio stations under its ownership – along with other owners – has in recent years added more

While politically oriented talk is still heard on the AM dial (mostly the conservative format), it has seen some expanding onto the FM dial. One notable example was WPGB in Pittsburgh, which switched to a talk format in 2004 after years of having several different music formats, branding itself as "FM News Talk 104.7" due to the relative uncommonness of politically oriented talk on the FM side of the dial even in 2013 while FM talk, in general, has expanded. Owned by Clear Channel and stylized as one of Clear Channel's typical conservative-leaning AM talk stations, WPGB's ratings were steadily high during its time as a talk station, whereas the station's numerous music formats were among the lowest in the Pittsburgh market before switching.^[40] Clear Channel, which owns WPGB, has shifted some of their talk stations from full-power FM signals to lower-range translator stations which use AM or HD Radio subchannel stations to originate those broadcasts; WPGB fired its morning show in December 2013 and switched back to music in August 2014, selling the format rights to AM station WJAS.

Insults, advice and mystery

There had been some precursors for talk radio show stars, such as the Los Angeles-area controversialist Joe Pyne, who would attack callers on his program in the early 1960s – one of his famous insults was "gargle with razor blades"; the similar Bob Grant in New York City; and Wally George in Southern California.^[41]

Talk radio also included personal relationship consultants such as Laura Schlessinger and Barbara De Angelis both heard on KFI AM in Los Angeles. Host Larry Elder on KABC (AM) was a lawyer before entering the talk radio market. Leo Laporte offers consumers computer advice. Business and real estate advice shows, paid health supplement presentations and religious programs are widely available.

Paranormal radio shows have had a place on radio for several decades; while the format has never been successful on a full-time basis, it has proven popular in the overnight graveyard slot. Long John Nebel's program was one of the first to devote itself to the concept before it was further fleshed out by Art Bell, whose Coast to Coast AM went on to have comparable popularity to daytime talk hosts of his era. Bell had a long-running, on-and-off relationship with the show he founded, often leaving the show and returning on an erratic basis, also starting up new shows such as Dreamland, Art Bell's Dark Matter, and Midnight in the Desert only to quit them a few weeks into their run; Bell died in 2018. Coast to Coast AM continues with George Noory as the permanent lead host, with a rotating host on weekends. Clyde Lewis and Jason Hawes also host nationally syndicated paranormal shows.

Sports

Local stations may also hire personalities with polarizing opinions about sports topics and athletes to make some kind of national impact that might turn off listeners, and in large markets, sports talk stations may be made up of personalities who pay stations for their show time and their advertising, disallowing any natural flow between each program, along with in-station competitions about whose show has the most impact.

Ratings

Pew researchers found in 2004 that 17% of the public regularly listens to talk radio. This audience is mostly male, middle-aged, and conservative. Among those who regularly listen to talk radio, 41% are Republican and 28% are Democrats. Furthermore, 45% describe themselves as conservatives, compared with 18% who say they are progressive/liberals.

Some of the most-listened-to radio programs in the United States are talk radio shows or have talk radio elements like The Sean Hannity Show and All Things Considered.

See also

• Mass media and American politics

References

Further reading

• History of talk radio
  • Halper, Donna L. (2008). Icons of Talk: The Media Mouths That Changed America. Greenwood Press.
• Hot talk:
  • Fisher, Marc (2007). Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation.
    ISBN 978-0-375-50907-0
    .
  • Jurkowitz, Mark; Globe Staff (2000-02-13). "Talk Radio's Blue Streak as Political Issues Lose Their Pull, Programmers Are Wooing Younger Audiences with a Mix of Shock Talk, Jock Talk, and R-Rated Banter". The Boston Globe.
  • "War of the Words More FM stations switching from hard rock to all talk". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 1998-11-01.
  • Goldstein, Patrick (1995-07-16). "Yakity Yak, Please Talk Back: Inside the Intense and Screwy World of Talk Radio and the Search for the Next LarrykingrushlimbaughhowardsterngordonliddyWhomever". Los Angeles Times.
• Politically oriented talk radio:
  • David C. Barker; Rushed to Judgment: Talk Radio, Persuasion, and American Political Behavior Columbia University Press, 2002
  • Stephen Earl Bennett; "Americans' Exposure to Political Talk Radio and Their Knowledge of Public Affairs" in Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Vol. 46, 2002
  • Jeffrey M. Berry, and Sarah Sobieraj. The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility (2014)
  • Randy Bobbitt. Us Against Them: The Political Culture of Talk Radio (Lexington Books; 2010) 275 pages. Traces the history of the medium since its beginnings in the 1950s and examines its varied impact on elections through 2008.
  • Christopher L. Gianos and C. Richard Hofstetter; "Political Talk Radio: Actions Speak Louder Than Words", Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Volume: 41. Issue: 4. : 1997. pp 501+.
  • Ian Hutchby; Confrontation Talk: Arguments, Asymmetries, and Power on Talk Radio Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Talk radio.

• Talk Radio at
  Curlie
• "The Top Talk Radio Audiences". Talker's Magazine. Spring 2010. Archived from the original on 2011-09-24.
• 1 Radio News app and directory of global talk and news radio stations in English