talkradio

Talk radio is as successful and powerful as it is mainly due to the ease of "listener participation," whereas callers call in to the show and get to express their opinions, ideas, suggestions, etc. and converse with the host one-on-one. This is a tremendous asset, as listeners to a particular show vary, and thus, so do their opinions. This is done in an effort to gain ratings for the radio station they're featured on, with the obvious intent of securing some high-priced advertising or other profitable methods of having and maintaining listenership. A recent example could be the advent of Satellite Radio, which has listeners subscribing for a monthly fee to hear their favourite shows.
 * Talk Radio** is a form of radio that usually has one main host, one (or multiple) "sidekicks" and speaks about a variety of different topics. Anything from political opinion, weather, alien abductions, erotica, pranks, etc. is fair game, and has been around since the early 1920's.

In a broader term, although they've been around for the better part of a millenium, most recent talkshows follow a pretty simple pattern, usually broken into various segments with pauses for commercials or music in order for the host to take a couple of minutes to regain his energy and/or thoughts and composure.

Tracing the actual beginning of listener participation is a widely debatable and argued topic. Most industry "top dogs" often refer to Barry Gray as the "Father of Talk Radio." In the 1940's, while working for New York's WMCA, Barry Gray, bored with simply playing music and taking requests from his listeners, put his microphone next to the receiver-end of the telephone and spoke to a variety of his listeners about a multitude of issues. In the late 1970's and early 1980's, many radio listeners abandoned and left the AM music formats for the higher quality of FM radio, and Talk Radio caught on in a plethora of different cities. Many former music stations around North America began to change their formats from predominantly music-oriented to a "Talk Radio"-type format. This was done to level off the slumping ratings that were a direct result of radio listeners leaving the AM channels to listen to music in better quality over on the FM channels. However, it is of importance to note that Talk Radio is not (nor ever has been) limited to AM channels, many successful radio hosts have achieved tremendous ratings and advertising dollars while on a FM channel. Readers can look no further then the "ringleader," if you will, Howard Stern. While on New York FM Station K-ROCK, Howard maintained a listenship (via syndication) of roughly 4.5 million listeners every single morning. Stations such as 102.1 //The Edge// in places as far as Toronto achieved previously unfathomable ratings simply because of the popularity of his show. Radio stations typically use popular radio shows such as Howard's as a way to drive listenership and hopefully keep a percentage of the viewers before and after, listening to their own "homegrown" or "grassroots" shows. It usually proves a smart marketing ploy, and Sirius Satellite Radio has done the exact same thing, with what the media have dubbed "The Stern Effect," Sirius was able to take a huge amount of market share for satellite radio simply by signing an exlusive agreement with Stern and taking him away from FM to the non-FCC regulated satellite airwaves.


 * __References:__**


 * Wikipedia**, pages "Talk Radio," and "Howard Stern." http://www.wikipedia.com


 * Movie**, //The History of Talk Radio//, check out the synopsis [|here.]