What are you gonna talk about now?

In an age when it seems that every topic and genre of talk radio or podcasting has been done to death, it's daunting to be plotting out your future and wondering if there's anything you can do that would stand out. The same-old won't cut it, but when it appears that there's a traffic jam of content in every possible direction, it's understandable that radio hosts and podcasters trying to plan for the next stage of their careers would be frustrated, ready to throw up their hands, give up, and apply for a job doing something else.

Yet, someone's going to succeed in the seemingly overcrowded marketplace for spoken word media, and it might as well be you. The trick is to find something about which you're passionate, and produce something people will want to hear. I know, that's a neat trick if you can do it, but we're talking about your future and we're talking about you.

Well, we can't say we didn't see it coming. What happened this week was just another step in the progression that started many years ago. Dayparts began to be automated. Voice tracking replaced live and/or local hosts. Newsrooms shuttered. Those, you noticed. And when ...

CES is over, and after spending the week in Vegas looking at gadgets and sitting through endless panels and presentations, my Big Takeaway -- it's the law that every reporter and pundit at CES has to have a Big Takeaway -- is that a) nothing new happened, b) artificial ...

Some things never change. All Access is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2020, and I've been here for most of that. In that time, one of my recurring themes has been the radio industry's seeming inability to develop talent on a level that would attract truly creative ...

What do people really think of radio? More to the point, do they think about radio at all? There was a story on local TV news here in L.A. the other day about local residents protesting the electric companies' decision to turn off power in fire prone areas every time the ...

Give them a reason. Last weekend, I was on a panel at a college radio and podcasting conference at Cal State Long Beach, the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System's west coast gathering, and I talked and I observed and I saw a good number of people of varying backgrounds ...

Things look different from the top floor. The disparity between management and rank-and-file in the perception of a business isn't breaking news, but it's real and it's what I observed covering the latest industry conference this week. At the Digital Hollywood podcasting ...

What happens if your media company is run by people who don't really understand or even care about the ultimate product? Oh, we can tell stories about that, can't we, radio folks? That's what came to mind for me when following the recent implosion of Deadspin, in which ...

The radio industry prides itself on its service to the community in emergencies, and so, with large swaths of California on fire once again and utility company-imposed power outages affecting large numbers of people, I dutifully checked up on key news and talk radio ...

Let's stipulate first that voice command is how we're going to summon our audio entertainment and information moving forward. That's not in dispute. At some point, everyone will just say "play X" and X will play. That's going to happen. In fact, you can do that now with ...