Tuning in to talk - popularity of talk programming

American Demographics, Feb, 1998 by Rebecca Piirto Heath

Talk is hot, whether it's on TV, radio, or the Internet. Experts disagree about why Americans love to hear and participate in talk programming, but many believe talk media helps people feel connected with others. It's also entertaining.

A radio listener calls Dr. Laura Schlessinger for advice about an errant spouse. A TV talk-show addict shouts epithets at a streetwalker mother on the "Maury Povich Show" An Internet chat group holds a virtual birthday party for one of its regulars.

Talk programming across all media has grown rapidly. In 1983, only 53 radio stations had news/talk formats, compared with more than 1,000 today, while the total number of stations remained constant at 10,000, according to SABOMedia of New York City. The number of syndicated and network talk shows on television ballooned from just a handful when Oprah first went into syndication in 1986, to 15 in the 1989-90 season, to 19 during the 1996-97 season, according to Nielsen Media Research. And that doesn't include the proliferation of talk shows on cable.

What is fueling the popularity of talk media? Is it bored viewers and listeners craving the most lurid gossip available? Not entirely, says Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine, which covers the talk-media industry.

"It all serves the simple need for connections with other people," he says. "People don't know their neighbors anymore, and they wouldn't have time to talk over the backyard fence even if they did. But there's still a human need for community, so it's a virtual, electronic, global media community"

Economics also help account for the rise in talk. Television talk shows are much cheaper than other shows to produce. And talk sells better than any other radio format. "Nothing moves a product like a talk show host talking about it on the air" says Walter Sabo, president of SABOMedia and former vice president of ABC Radio networks. Programmers can also fit more ads into fast-paced talk than into a music format. "In talk, ads aren't background noise, they're part of the program" Sabo says.

But favorable economics doesn't explain why chat is the fastest-growing Internet activity when advertising sales are still so limited in this emerging medium. "The chat portion of our community is easily growing faster than everything else," says Julie Gomoll, director of production for Excite Inc., the World Wide Web's number-two search engine in both traffic and revenues. Up to 2 million of the estimated 40 million Web users check Excite's news, financial, personal, or chat content daily, according to Excite.

Our commuter culture may be giving talk-radio, in particular, a popularity boost. Americans on the road to work are a captive audience for talk-radio, says Christopher Dixon, a media analyst with Paine Webber in New York City. And in some large or fast-growing metros, commute-to-work time is on the rise. "In Los Angeles, the individual drive time will go up at least five minutes a year for the next 20 years because of population growth and the lack of new infrastructure" Dixon says.

Talk programming attracts different audiences, depending on whether it's broadcast on radio, television, or the Internet. This is largely because people choose the media that best fits with their lifestyle. For example, 42 percent of radio listeners listen in their cars, 37 percent at home, and 21 percent at work, often while engaged in other activities, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau. TV users mostly watch at home and have to pay fairly close attention. The Internet audience generally has greater educational attainment and income than radio and TV audiences.

The demographics of talk audiences vary across media, but the psychological impulses that motivate people to listen, watch, or log on are probably similar. "There is an element that carries through talk programming in all media" says Gomoll. "People are looking for a community of like minds"

RADIO TALKING AND LISTENING

Every day between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., Bette Lynn Nowka hears a steady stream of talk from her radio. She often has three radios on at once in different rooms, while attending to her antique business. She continues listening when she hops in her car to do errands. The 59-year-old Northville, Michigan, mother of four and grandmother of two is not a lonely soul; she is a die-hard fan of national conservative radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Detroit's David Newman and Mark Scott.

Nowka is motivated to listen by discussion of issues. "I listen for information. I'm not into drivel," she says. "Talk-radio doesn't give me slanted, picked-through news like the big networks do. Some days I feel I have gotten a civics lesson full of history, politics, and other important topics."

In several ways, Nowka is a typical talk-radio fan. She's aged 35 to 64, as are 70 percent of news/talk listeners. Fully 66 percent of news/talk listeners are white, 32 percent have a college degree or above, and 58 percent make $50,000 or more, according to Talkers Magazine. In other ways, Nowka is atypical. Only 47 percent of news-talk radio listeners are female. In addition, her listening hasn't decreased much in recent years, while news/talk audiences nationally decreased from 14.8 percent to 13.7 percent of the overall radio audience between 1996 and 1997, according to Interep Radio Store of New York City.