KNBR 680 talk show hosts Tom Tolbert (left) and John Lund (right) both have been laid off this week. Tolbert had been with the station since 1996. (photos by KNBR)

Podcast and AM Radio today

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

By Amaury Pi-González

According to Nielsen, AM and FM radio reach 78 million Americans every month. However, this audience represents a decades-long decline. Now, more than ever, the Podcast has come of age, and some of the biggest shows with the biggest audiences are on Podcasts, not on AM/FM radio. Podcasts are ‘eating up ‘ regularly over-the-air radio and the audiences generated by podcast are undisputable.

KNBR 680AM San Francisco, a Cumulus Media station, recently laid off popular sports stalk host Tom Tolbert and John Lund amid company layoffs. The world of radio (specifically AM radio) is shrinking, and a lot of it has to do with Podcasts of all sorts, including sports.

One of the most popular podcasts nationwide is Stephen A. Smith’s Podcast show ” iHeart Radio; it is sports-oriented, but also, in today’s world of social media, Mr.Smith does political interviews with all kinds of celebrities who are not necessarily involved in sports.

His style is provocative, and his commentary makes lots of news, like in 2021, when he said that Shohei Ohtani, the Japanese mega-star of the World Champion LA Dodgers, shouldn’t be the face of baseball because he uses an interpreter.

The Asian American community criticized his comments. Later, Smith apologized for causing angst with his remarks. Nevertheless, these shows have a rather large audience compared to local sports talk shows in our cities nationwide.

Like a podcast hosted by Charles Barkley and Ernie Johnson, many other podcasts cover topics beyond basketball. Other popular sports podcasts across the country are The Bill Simmons Podcast, Pardon My Take, The Dan LeBatard with Stugotz, and Fantasy Footballers, to mention a few.

However, perhaps the behemoth of the podcast is the Joe Rogan Podcast, which has around 15 million viewers per show on Spotify and 18 million on YouTube. Joe Rogan covers everything and all celebrities, including sports and politics.

Many of the most prominent personalities have appeared in the Joe Rogan Experience, including Mike Tyson, Kanye West, Quentin Tarantino, Elon Musk, and most recently, Donald Trump, who was running for President and appeared on Mr.Rogan’s show for over three hours unedited live interview drawing an audience on the dozens of millions of listeners.

Vice President Kamla Harris, the Democratic nominee, was also invited onto his show but her campaign confirmed that she would not be interviewed on the show before election day. Harris’s handlers wanted to know if they did “edit” on the show, but the Rogan producers told him, they do not edit, everything is aired live. So Harris missed a massive audience by not appearing on The Rogan show, which is listened to by people from 30-to-45 years of age.

The Joe Rogan Experience podcast is the most listened-to podcast in the United States. Most recently, Chris Wallace, who worked for CNN, resigned from his job as a political reporter and plans to have his own Podcast. Chris Wallace is the son of the late famous CBS (of 60 Minutes fame) Journalist Mike Wallace.

In some markets, many radio stations, AM or FM, carry syndicated program on a barter basis. They receive the program in exchange for agreeing to run some of the producer’s commercials, and then the radio can sell the remaining commercial time to other advertisers.

Some may even give you air time for goods or services other than cash—anything to survive. These include Major League Baseball Broadcast, among other sports-oriented programming. This is done in many languages across the country.

I remember working for an independent local radio station many years ago that paid some of its talent with trades like food, sports tickets, travel, hotels, etc. In some markets, this (which is legal) is still going on.

Individual producers find time available on radio stations and agree to pay for the time, as they can then sell and run their sponsors on the show(s). Television’s advantage over radio when it comes to programming is that in the case of English/Spanish, many television carry shows and offer SAP in Spanish, which is very popular for sports broadcasts.

Everything on TV has an SAP advantage over radio. Especially in the United States, where English and Spanish are the two most spoken languages.

Podcast is a “new thing”in the world of communications, but there is no doubt is here to stay and it is getting bigger an more popular by the minute. We live in the fast moving world of communications. With AI already here, only God knows what’s next. Note: In 2004. Adam Curry and Dave Winer are credited with the invention of podcasting. Who exactly did what is up for dispute, but in the end these are the two guys who got it rolling.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez does News and Commentary podcasts each Tuesday at http://www.sportsradioservice.com