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Talk radio

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Talk radio is a radio format which features discussion of topical issues. Most shows feature a regular host, who interviews a number of different guests.

Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting conversations with listeners who have placed telephone calls to speak with the program's host or guest. Listener contributions are usually screened by a show's producer(s) in order to maximize audience interest and, in the case of commercial talk radio, attract advertisers.

Generally, the shows are organized into segments, each separated by a pause for advertisements. (In public or non-commercial radio, sometimes music is played in place of commercials to separate the program segments).

History

Talk radio has existed since at least the mid-1950s. New York's John Nebel was among the first to explore the medium.

Two radio stations—KMOX, 1120 AM in St. Louis, Missouri, and 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.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, as many listeners abandoned AM music formats for the high fidelity sound of the FM radio dial, the Talk Radio format began to catch on in more large cities. Former music stations such as WLW (Cincinnati, Ohio), WHAS (Louisville, Kentucky), WHAM (Rochester, New York), WLS (Chicago, Illinois), KFI (Los Angeles, California), WRKO (Boston, Massachusetts) and WABC (New York, New York) made the switch to all-talk as their ratings slumped due to listener migration to the FM band.

Talk radio is not limited to the AM band. "Non-commercial" usually referred to as "public radio", which is located in a reserved spectrum of the FM band, also broadcasts talk programs. Commercial all-talk stations can be found on the FM band in Los Angeles, Boston and other cities. The commercial FM talk stations often feature hosts such as Tom Leykis and Howard Stern whose audiences are comprised of more men than women. These shows often rely less on political discussion and analysis than their AM counterparts, and often employ the use of pranks and staged phone calls for entertainment purposes. In the United States and Canada, Satellite Radio broadcasters syndicate many conventional "AM" talk radio shows, as well as produce their own original talk shows.

In the United Kingdom, the leading talk radio station nationwide is talkSPORT, formerly called Talk Radio and launching in 1995 on the AM band. The leading local talk station is LBC in London (Britain's first commercial radio station in 1973), specialising in news talk and topical debate on FM. Both are commercial stations though the BBC do offer ad-free rival services that tend to be slightly less popular and put fewer calls to air.

Nationally, the BBC operate Radio 5-Live on AM with a format similar to that of TalkSport. They also operate numerous regional services around the UK on the FM band, with BBC London being their flagship local talk radio station, and a direct rival to LBC.

=Talk radio in the U.S.

Politically oriented talk radio

The United States saw dramatic growth in the popularity of talk radio during the 1990s. The repeal of the FCC "fairness doctrine" in 1987-which had required that stations provide free air time for responses to any controversial opinions that were broadcast-provided an opportunity for a kind of flatly partisan (and often intentionally inflammatory) programming that had not previously existed. (There had been some precursors for this, 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!" – as well as the similar Bob Grant in New York City.) The most successful pioneer in the 1990s talk radio movement was the politically conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh's success demonstrated that there was a market for passionately delivered conservative (and in most cases, partisan Republican) commentary on contemporary events, and many nationally-syndicated hosts have followed Limbaugh's lead in recent years, including Ben Ferguson, Lars Larson, Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Larry Elder, Michael Reagan, Ken Hamblin, and The Weekend Warriors. 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. Libertarians such as Neal Boortz have also achieved some success. Many of these hosts also publish books, appear on television, and give public lectures (Limbaugh, again, was a pioneer of this model of multi-media punditry).

Politically liberal talk radio aimed at a national audience has also emerged, although its ultimate success in competing with conservative talk radio for dominance remains in question. Air America Radio, a network featuring The Al Franken Show that was founded in 2004 as a "progressive alternative" to right-wing talk, is a prominent example of liberal talk on commercial radio, and there are syndicated liberal talk programs of recent vintage as well, such as The Ed Schultz Show. In some markets, local liberal hosts have existed for years, such as Bernie Ward in San Francisco, Alan Colmes in New York, and Mr. KABC 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.

Left-wing opinion radio has long existed on the Pacifica network, though only available in a small number of cities, and in formats that more often act as a volunteer-run community forum than as a platform for charismatic hosts who would be likely to attract a large audience. Some conservatives argue that the long-format news programming on National Public Radio serves as a platform for liberal commentary on radio, although the network denies any partisan agenda, and FAIR recently identified NPR's disproportionate reliance on Republican sources [1].

Other topics and formats

Other topics of discussion in talk radio include:

Other hosts specialize in talk radio comedy, such as Phil Hendrie, who voices in own satirical guests and occassionally parodies other programs.

George Noory, Art Bell and others take turns hosting the late-night talk radio show Coast to Coast AM, which deals with a variety of paranormal topics. Jeff Rense, who hosts an Internet radio show, also features paranormal matters, conspiracy theories, and some politics.

Radio show hosts such as Alex Jones focus on exposing Government corruption.

Some shock jocks such as Opie and Anthony, Ron and Fez, Howard Stern, Don Imus, and Tom Leykis, are also considered talk radio hosts.

Sports talk radio can be found locally and nationally (with the networks ESPN Radio, Fox Sports Radio, and Sporting News Network). Sports talk stations like WFAN in New York City and WEEI in Boston have done well in the ratings (aided by baseball and football game broadcasts).


Talk radio in 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.

The only nationally-syndicated, politically-oriented weekday talk radio show in Canada is Adler On Line, hosted by Charles Adler and heard on eleven stations across the country. Peter Warren's Warren on the Weekend is heard Saturdays and Sundays. Both programs are distributed by the Corus Radio Network and, coincidentally, both hosts had hosted different morning call-in programs in the same time slot on Winnipeg, Manitoba's CJOB 680 before they became nationally syndicated (Adler's show still originates from CJOB and retained its original title, while Warren is now based in Victoria, British Columbia.) Prior to Adler On Line, Corus had syndicated Rutherford, hosted by Dave Rutherford and originating from its Calgary station, QR77. Rutherford is no longer syndicated nationally but continues to air in Calgary and London.

Other Canadian talk radio programs which have been syndicated to different markets include:

The two largest talk radio networks in Canada are the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's English language CBC Radio One and French language Première Chaîne. These stations typically produce their own 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.

Privately-owned talk radio syndication networks in Canada are generally formed for the purposes of sharing programs across a group of stations with common ownership, although some are formed to distribute their one or two talk radio programs to a number of stations regardless of ownership. The largest of these is the Corus Radio Network. Others include the CHUM Radio Network and the Standard Radio Network.

Syndicated programs from the United States which air on Canadian radio stations include:

Talk radio in the UK

Talk radio in the UK is popular, though not as much as music radio. BBC Radio Five often has talk radio segments, though the field took off after the deregulation of commercial broadcasting and the creation of stations such as LBC in London and talkSPORT (formerly talkRADIO, a national service on AM).

Talkback radio in Australia

In Australia, talk radio is known as talkback radio. The most popular station broadcasting talkback radio is historically Sydney's 2UE, whose right-wing hosts, particularly John Laws, are widely syndicated across the continent, though it has in recent years been eclipsed by Sydney's 2GB after the defection of 2UE most popular talkback host, Alan Jones.

See also

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