The problem with Ryan Seacrest?
A blog article by Bill McMahon posted at the end of January about The problem with Ryan Seacrest wound its way across the blogosphere during February. I was writing a sentence or two for the February news round-up, but apparently I have more to say about this than I thought …
I enjoy reading Bill McMahon’s comments but the problem I have after reading this article, and, in particular, much of the ensuing discussion around the web, is that some people seem to ignore one important fact: Ryan and his team are producing the type of radio that a lot of people want to listen to. It might be ‘lowest common denominator’ stuff, along with a lot of the reality and celebrity TV work Ryan does, but it’s popular and Ryan pulls in guests that most DJs can’t, which gives him a huge amount of credibility. Producing shows that professionals think people ought to want to listen to vs. producing shows that the public really want to listen to … which is the no-brainer? I don’t listen to Ryan’s show for the mental stimulation … I listen to it because it’s warm, humorous, doesn’t take itself too seriously and includes plenty of voyeuristic elements that I, along with many others in this reality TV and celebrity-obsessed world, want to hear.
While it’s entirely possible to put the syndicated On Air with Ryan Seacrest together in a way that retains the local touch, I don’t want to listen to what’s going on in my town. I know what’s going on in my town – I’m here, I get local news in amongst the hundreds of RSS feeds I subscribe to, I keep tabs on thousands of people (some of whom I even know) via keyword alerts, facebook, twitter, myspace, etc … and then I talk to people who also have access to all these information sources, and even more information filters through. It’s information overload and I’m not alone in it. The internet changed a lot of the rules. What I want from radio now, is to know what’s going on somewhere more interesting … a little escapism from a world that I already know too much about. Local radio would have to be quicker and more relevant than I am sourcing news, and that’s not going to happen because there’s too much out there and my news is personalised to my interests and arrives where I want it within minutes of appearing online. The same thing happened with magazines. In my teens I subscribed to motorsport magazines and read them cover to cover the day they arrived through the mail — typically a day or two before they hit the news stands, which made a subscription attractive. Now I get motorsport news daily, and unless the magazine includes some in-depth analysis or exclusive information that I can’t get elsewhere — and that I have the time and inclination to engage with — I’m probably not going to buy it.
So does local radio need an equivalent of this in-depth analysis to attract listeners away from the likes of Ryan? McMahon writes that “Radio needs to create relevant and original content to survive. Radio needs rebels, mavericks, characters, passionate artists and innovators.” In theory, yes; in practice, maybe not. Original is good, but original takes effort to listen to whereas familiar is comforting. When you switch on the TV, do you try something new, something different, or do you tune into the same shows you’ve watched for years? Does it take you a while to decide if you like a new TV series? Do you pick a movie at random, or do you go to see one from a particular genre or with particular actors because you know you’ll probably like it?
The drive to work in the UK is generally filled with some variation on the ‘golden hour’, playing familiar songs and reliving news and gossip from a year the station’s target demographic have fond memories of. It’s comforting and it keeps us listening, but it’s hardly original. Relevant and original might be what we say we want, or even what we think we want, but we’ll probably get bored and tune out. We certainly don’t all want it on the radio, which for most people is ‘background’. How many people sit down and just listen to the radio? Okay, so how about those rebels and mavericks? Actually, that sounds pretty good! We recently had a rebel radio star in the UK: Russell Brand. His show was unpredictable and had an unusual format, he is passionate to the point of bouncing off the walls, and he had to quit because Middle England, who probably wasn’t even listening anyway, complained about an admittedly inappropriate section. This happened at a national radio station funded through licence fees and with a remit that includes programming that wouldn’t be commercially-viable, and I imagine it gets more difficult with commercial stations where there’s a need to keep advertisers happy to stay alive. Edgy might be interesting, but surely it makes advertisers nervous about having the show associated with their brands.
I like reality TV and pop culture, but they’re not the only things I enjoy. I go to the opera, theatre and the ballet, watch foreign language and minority films, and am more likely to read a research journal than browse through a celebrity gossip magazine, but if I listen to the radio while I’m working, driving, or doing whatever else I do while listening to the radio, I want a lighthearted show that’s entertaining, interesting and not too demanding. Ryan delivers. And he does it in an unassuming way that makes people feel connected — even listeners thousands of miles away on a different continent. He’s accessible, he’s fun, he goofs things up sometimes, and he sounds like someone you could have a beer with. He’s just Ryan, and it works.
