Gaining An Audience

It is a difficult job to build an audience for a new radio show. Once you have built the the audience, then it is equally as hard to maintain the audience. After all that work, then you have to continually work to find out the audience's needs and make sure that you meet those needs. One thing that you have going for you, naturally, is the faith, help and support that comes to you from the station. After all, it is to the station's benefit that you succeed. So of all of those that would be a threat to the longivity of a radio talk show the station would be last on the list. Or so you would think.

I built a show about the paranormal that had the largest listening audience on the station. Then I was asked by the promotions director to help out and do an additional two hour political show. It had high numbers as well. Then came the problems. The local congressman has an aide that is out of control. He came on my show and proceeded to spew my medical information on the air. I responded to this attack with a comment that resulted in the congressman returning some improper campaigh contributions. It also resulted in the congressman asking the general manager of the station, a friend of his, to remove me form the air. Such is the reaction of this man to those who do not worship at the altar of the democratic party, he sets out to destroy them. I was thrown off the air in the ost insulting way possible by the same man who had asked me to do him a favor by doing the political show. From the station's point of view, the wants and desires of the audience is not a concern, rather it is wanting to please a politico and cater to his needs.

This heartless move on the part of the station forced me to look for some other mechanism for my show. I moved to blogtalkradio.com and rebuilt my show once again. I moved to blogtalkradio on July 20th with a small core of loyal listeners. Over the two months since that time, I have rebuilt the base of nationally known authors who appear on my show and the audience has grown to over 90,000.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I thought that politicians worked for the voters, not ruled as lords. I also thought that the public airwaves belonged to the people, not autocratic station general managers who cater to the wants and desires of politicians. I guess that I am wrong. I also guess that the 90,000+ listeners are mistaken in believing that they have the right to listen to what they want. They should ask the politicians who they should be listening to.