Talk,DarkWalter Sabo On Holes “Vision” k Holes& “Vision” By Reed Bunzel, Editor-in-Chief Interview photos by Rich Hogan, Hollywood, CA Check your local talk radio calendar, and you’ll find that AM and FM, are programmed for guys,” he observes. “Yet the this is the Year of the Election.The airwaves are full of discus- financial backbone of daytime TV is talk for women. Adver- sions of Iraq,the economy,tax cuts,terrorism,Osama Bin Laden, tisers are falling all over themselves to find ways to reach young polarized voters and the as-yet-unfound weapons of mass women, and radio has ignored them.” destruction. Rush Limbaugh is front and center, fending off Of course, Sabo’s focus is not strictly on delivering talk Palm Beach County prosecutors while claiming a political programming to women, although that’s what he’s done — smear.Air America has launched to the joy of the liberal audi- with great results — with New Jersey 101.5 FM for the past 14 ence and the critical jabs of the right-wing talk show estab- years. In fact, he firmly believes that talk radio (in all its many lishment.Even Howard Stern has gotten in on the act,claiming forms) is more suited to delivering solid cash flow than vir- political bias in attempts to “banish” him from the commer- tually any contemporary music format.“Talk radio is the best cial airwaves.All in all,talk radio is shaping up for a wild,rock- business,”he explains.“Nothing sells like talk.If you created a ’em, sock-’em ride. talk station for a 25-34 woman,another for a 35-44 man,and But is talk radio becoming a “one-trick pony?” Is it too another for teens, you would have the perfect radio stations. focused on the angry white politicized male who has found an You would have a positive environment for an advertiser’s mes- ally in Sean Hannity or Michael Savage? More to the point, is sage, and be demographically perfect for what many buyers talk radio serving the needs of the American woman who — want for their client.” while deeply interested in politics and the election — is not President of Sabo Media since 1984,Sabo currently is con- necessarily glued to AM talk day in and day out? centrating on what he considers “the emerging profit machine” Walter Sabo, president of Sabo Media and consultant to of FM Talk. He has been a pioneer in developing this format Sirius Satellite Radio,thinks it is not.“It is stunning that there and claims he was the first to program talk successfully on are 1,200 talk stations in America; and 99 percent of them, the FM band for a younger audience. Prior to starting his own company,Sabo The greatest misperceptions are that was vice president/general manager of ABC it’s expensive to run and that it reaches Radio Networks, where he and his team con- only people who are predominantly over verted the facilities from analog to digital and 55.There are a number of dramatic exam- started numerous profitable, long-form pro- ples of these fallacies. In 1979, when we grams. Before that, he was executive VP in put Dr. Ruth on a contemporary radio sta- charge of the NBC-owned FM stations, with tion in New York, she was a professor at properties in New York City, San Francisco, City College.We put her on Sunday nights Chicago and Washington DC. Early in his to talk about sex — her first media job, for career, he worked as promotion director of $20 a show. A year later, she was repre- WNBC-AM and WXLO-FM,both in New York, sented by William Morris, she was getting and as director of programming and affili- $60,000 for the same show, and she was ate relations for the ABC FM Radio Network. saying, “Valter, I vant a Seville.” She got her A graduate of Syracuse University,Sabo Seville. To this day, I don’t think anybody is a board member emeritus of Command has pulled the shares of 18- to 34-year- Audio, a member of the advisory board of olds that she did. She was doing 30 shares the Museum of Television & Radio, and a of 18-34 adults on Sunday nights. member of the National Arts Club. Radio Ink recently caught up with him in New York, And you didn’t crawl into a hole to do it. where he is consulting Sirius Satellite Radio’s No.The fact is, by using everything you 100 channels of music and talk programming. know about successful music programming and applying it to talk, you can reach any tar- You’ve programmed radio on both the local and get demo you choose.The first talk stations network levels, and you can be critical of many pro- in America — WGN, WOR, WIOD — fol- gram directors and other consultants. What do you lowed a certain pattern.They have a very spe- know that they don’t? cific format — news at the top of the hour, The way I program is opposite of the traffic,“the largest newsroom in the city” — way most people program. Most people look and they attract a very specific audience.The for a hole.Why would you do that? Holes are audience that finds this presentation attrac- small and dark, and I don’t want to go in one. tive is primarily over 55. But there’s no law Why would I define my success by what other that says that’s how you have to do talk. people are already doing? It’s not sane. Instead, I look where the largest audience is, and where Are radio programmers and managers afraid to risk the most ad dollars are placed, and assume something new? we can do better than whoever is already there. People in every industry in every walk of The demographic epicenter of the state of life are gun-shy about trying new things. It is New Jersey is a 38-year-old woman. So we how the species survived. Profitable companies decided to talk to that 38-year-old woman all understand that most people are risk-averse so day,every day.But it had to sound like a music they give them the tools to be brave. Smart CEOs station that she would listen to — it had to give managers the resources to invest capital on have a rhythm and production values and had new ideas, in the future of the company.Proc- to sound like something she’s familiar with. ter & Gamble, 3M, Apple, NBC, ABC and CBS We also needed to do it 24 hours a day, Television have laboratories where new ideas because listeners listen to stations, not shows. are developed. New ideas are researched, and So we created New Jersey 101.5. new ideas are expected.The ability to test a new idea gives executives the ability to be brave — What’s the secret of that station’s ongoing success? but radio has no lab, no development budget, New Jersey 101.5 today is the most-lis- no system to test big, new ideas. tened-to FM talk station in America. It has more than 900,000 cume, and it will gross over $20 Is radio fixated on “who-else-is-doing-it”? million this year. It made money its first year. Sure. Copying and repeating the past It’s #1 in Monmouth Ocean,which is an embed- can maintain a profit, but the dollars are ded New York market; and it’s #2 in Middlesex- chump change compared with the profit Union, which is 15 miles south of the Empire power of a new format, a new star host or State Building. It has a 1 share in New York and a daring, untried promotion and marketing in Philadelphia.This is the most important thing campaign. In show business, maintaining we did there: If you look at the hour-by-hour the status quo in order to “make the num- ratings, nothing happens, regardless of chang- bers” is by far the greatest risk a manager ing show hosts, because it has the same relation- can take. Still, even the bravest would have ship with the audience as a music station. more courage and more success if their com- panies gave them budgets for testing.A devel- What’s the greatest misperception about talk radio, opment budget formalizes the acceptance and how would you correct it? and expectation of new ideas. » 18 16 | RADIO INK — MAY 10, 2004 FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS, CALL 1-800-610-5771 | WWW.RADIOINK.COM YORK NEW , BUSACCA Y LARR BY Walter Sabo and Dorothy Rose PHOTO Sabo’s Softer Side What leisure activities do Denise Oliver for honesty; talk radio can sound like rock you enjoy? Photography and Ed Seisdedos for sheer and roll. playing with my 17-month- pushiness; Karen Kay for What did you want to be old daughter, Dorothy Rose. loyalty. And of course Mom when you grew up? A DJ and Dad for my confidence; What books do you recom- What is your favorite radio mend? For marketing: The and my wife, Katie, because she’s my sweetheart. format? All forms of Top 40, Fall of Advertising and The including Talk Rise of PR, by Al Ries. For If you had 30 minutes to common sense: How To Sell talk with one person, who What’s your #1 “guilty plea- Anything to Anybody by Joe would that be? The person sure” website? Pretty much Girard.