Urgent Programming note to N/T Hosts. Starting now, forget about 24/24. Think IMMEDIACY.

At this moment, on my computer’s desktop, one of the windows I have opened shows a financial page. Right now, I can see that GM will open today at $2.89 — down over 90% from a 52 week high of $29.28….. And, I see the Real Time Headlines posted within the last few minutes announcing that Chrysler and GM will widen buyouts, (more people fleeing Michigan) and a breaking story that Ford sales dropped 40% last month.

I’m based 30 miles north of Detroit, ground zero of the motor city meltdown – the former automobile capital of the world, and I need my latest auto news and commentary NOW…

By the way, earlier this morning, it took a while but I finally located my newspaper down the block. Seems that after being thrown toward my driveway, it gently glided to a stop in a neighbor’s yard. Noticed lately how light your newspaper is getting? Must be the lack of those full page ads.

Anyway, I opened it over my coffee and read the cut and paste job from yesterday’s news… yep the very news I read yesterday on my computer.

I called and cancelled my weekday subscription.

Which brings us to, IMMEDIACY vs. “Evergreen” programming.

Time was in N/T programming sessions, we’d discuss the importance of a show passing the 48/24 test. We would search for the news spins that made good talk radio fodder. Events and issues that occurred in the past 48 hours and those we thought would be coming up in the next 24.

A few years later, we tightened that up to 24/24.

Forget all that. Now it’s IMMEDIACY. To produce and host a news talk show that attracts and holds listeners…. You’ve got to focus on what is happening right now.

If what is scheduled for today’s show could be booked tomorrow or next week, it fails the IMMEDIACY test. It’s an “evergreen”, the embalming fluid of a news talk show. Today, “evergreen” booking and programming in news talk radio is lazy programming. It’s a waste of a listener’s valuable time. There are too many choices and sources of immediate news and information to settle for any news talk show that smacks of “Evergreen”.

Question: What is the guest going to say about today’s hottest news issues that the listeners have not already read or heard? What is the caller going to discuss that’s relevant to today’s topics?

What do news talk fans tell us over and over? “Tell me something that I don’t already know”. Tell me something that I can’t print off my laptop right now.

If a News Talk show is not based on IMMEDIACY it’s stale. It’s old school. It’s snooze talk… Wake me when it’s over…

—-Michael Packer – Packer Smart Talk Tips — February 2009

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