Holland Cooke Media

Saturday/Sunday ask-the-expert shows exploit the most proven concept in marketing: free samples.


Common example: The lawyer is in, the meter is off. Q+A about callers’ situations is relatable to other listeners. And hearing the attorney’s approachable manner, prospective clients know him or her better than others whose look-alike billboards and boastful TV commercials all blur together.

Done well, these shows can grow all sorts of service businesses. Financial planners and veterinarians are Saturday/Sunday fare on many Talk stations. Home Improvement is huge, as is gardening/landscaping (seasonal in some regions).

But your station probably isn’t promoting your show properly.


See what you should insist on, and 6 minutes of technique tips that will improve your results.

Parler aims to let users speak more-freely than other social media platforms; inviting content variety. I asked CEO George Farmer if Talk radio’s angry day-in-day-out political rant is contributing to the popularity of podcasts.

Talk radio isn’t just different than music radio. It’s better. Talk radio is never on in the background. And streaming has music radio on its heels, because The Sentence Never Spoken is “Alexa, please play six commercials.”

Yet talkers should avoid taking false comfort that we’re less vulnerable to digital competitors, because people are using social media to talk to each other without us. So joining the conversation there is now table stakes. But defending the towers remains Job One.

Like most conventions a year ago, CES2021 settled for virtual. But this year, it was game-on. And it worked.

Your consultant was there, vax’d, boosted, tested, masked, and lugging a jug-handle-size bottle of hand sanitizer.


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Talkers Magazine publisher Michael Harrison and I count-down the 10-most-talked-about topics of 2021, and squint into 2022. And we remember those we can never forget.

Video: Battle lines are drawn over performance payments FMs fear. And for Talk stations, how’s Life-after-Limbaugh?