The failure of net call in shows is something I have tackled before but this is a lot of my thoughts on this topic. With the recent appearance of Blogtalkradio.com and our monthly specials starting on Wild bunch radio this month. I wanted to address this topic one more time and then leave it alone. The failure of call in-shows have been many and been far reaching. You have many attempts in the past. The reason they work on am/fm radio and do not on net. The many reasons why they do not work from a tech issue. The other issues assicatioed with this topic and finally my take on the issue.
Why they work on mainstream radio and yes I do mean sat alight as well on this topic. They work from Rush to Hannity to even Stern and O and A on the net and sat light radio. They work on political radio because the talk format like a Sean Hannity or O'Reilly. The listeners and the callers are the engine of the show. Without the callers the show would go absolutely no where fast. The format depends on this and thus it works because radio is free and the numbers are free to call. The call-in works on sports radio like Jim Rome and others because the sports fan is as passionate as the political minded individual. This is the best format and way it is done is great to the medium because you have people favoring their favorite teams and ideas like the political people do.
Why this does not work on net radio is one, the listeners are simply not there yet and prob. Never will be for the folks on line. The shows either do not have a 800# or they do not seem to be able to have the technology to get the listeners who call onto the air with them. Timezones create an issue as well. Let's look at the listener issue, something like a blogtalkradio.com show can generate 15 listeners but if these 15 just want to listen. They do not produce calls, if your show is fueled by that, you are **** out of luck.
The attempts have been great to get call-in shows on line, and they all have failed for some reason or another. First there was Lycos Talk radio, they failed because they had way to many listeners and way to many broadcasters and there was no money being made to pay for bandwidth and streaming costs with the websites and all. Then came along Fan cast and Alterncast, these people had the carryover from Ly cos and some new people who had listeners already. Once again the money issues became an issue. So they began to charge the broadcasters but this backfired because the broadcasters were not paying and the ones that did were crap so the theory of paying for it would weed the crap out. The successful ones left to cheaper places the crap had no where to go. Then came along Blogtalkradio.com, they seem to have it together. They have the costs and all taken care of and they seem to getting listeners slowly but surly so this could be the place. If you see a column one week that says “The failure of Blogtalkradio.com”, you know it did not work out well.
The other issues seem to all tech wise, from the way to do it to the way to take calls. There has been the ways of doing it with Skye or Net meeting or venturllio. There has been the voice chats like Yahoo and paltalk.com However these all had audio issues from both ends of the specktrm. The thing that seems to work is the old fashioned calling on the phone. Now Blogtalk has taken the idea but offered multiplied lines.
My thoughts on this topic is many but will be brief, one cause as I am writing this I have to take a huge crap. However, the reason they have failed on line is cause of many of the reasons stated above. However the technology has yet to catch up. For one, back in 2001, I would have never thought something like Blogtalk would exist Plus I would have never thought that net radio with call ins would be successful because most people do not want to be heard. You see My space and Yahoo personals and other places like chat rooms,etc. People do not want to be known so why would they take a risk by calling in only to be found out somewhere in the world?
Finally the issue with call in-shows seem to be that most people like music radio and most people when they call a show they call it for the host. You call Rush cause you agree with him or you do not. You also know they have the power to be on-air. Hey any dork with a stick can do net radio and believe me when I say this, I mean me, folks.
