Latest / Rich Valdés: This is America! / Interview: Michael Harrison

Transcript

Interview: Michael Harrison · Rich Valdés: This is America!

0:00
Speaker 1: This is America. He's got the best head of hair
0:07
Speaker 1: and podcasting. This is America with Rich Valdez.
0:12
Speaker 2: All right, Emilia, welcome back Rich Valdez, keeping your company
0:14
Speaker 2: here and our guest. I promised him and he's here.
0:17
Speaker 2: I am delivering. We've got Michael Harrison. He is the
0:20
Speaker 2: publisher of Talkers magazine, the talk radio Bible. It's been
0:24
Speaker 2: around for oun't know one, two three, going on its
0:27
Speaker 2: fourth decade in publication, and an industry conference to boot
0:32
Speaker 2: Michael Harrison. Welcome back, Rich.
0:34
Speaker 1: It's great to be with you. Congrats on all of
0:36
Speaker 1: the successes you're having. The sky's the limit.
0:39
Speaker 2: Amen to that. And I always tell people, pople, how
0:42
Speaker 2: are you doing? I go today, so far, so good.
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Speaker 1: Right. That's another way of looking at it. And it's
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Speaker 1: always to have It's always important to be appreciative and
0:49
Speaker 1: have gratitude.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, Amen to that. I truly believe that. And you know,
0:54
Speaker 2: this is one of those gigs I'm gonna say where
0:57
Speaker 2: they say you find yourself something that you love and
0:59
Speaker 2: you'll never work at day in your life. And I
1:00
Speaker 2: feel like that's true insomuch as you love it. The
1:03
Speaker 2: day that comes where you don't love it anymore. I
1:05
Speaker 2: think it's time for you to say, right, you know, Amazon,
1:07
Speaker 2: are you hiring? You know what's McDonald's doing these days?
1:10
Speaker 2: You look for something new to do because you can't
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Speaker 2: do this if there isn't any passion, if you don't
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Speaker 2: love it.
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Speaker 1: I believe, Oh, I've always I've always felt that passion
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Speaker 1: and that word passion is the secret ingredient toward media's success,
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Speaker 1: no matter what it is. If you're writing a book,
1:26
Speaker 1: if you're a reporter, if you're a talk show host,
1:29
Speaker 1: if you bring a certain amount of passion to the table,
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Speaker 1: which is an X factor thing. It's very hard to
1:35
Speaker 1: quantify it, but yeah, but if you see it, you
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Speaker 1: know it, you know, and passion, passion is where it's at.
1:43
Speaker 1: You do bring a lot of passion to your work.
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Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Michael. I appreciate that, and so do you.
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Speaker 2: I mean, obviously with you're not and I said that, right,
1:51
Speaker 2: that was really a preface to say, nobody does this,
1:54
Speaker 2: I if they're not passionate, if they don't see a
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Speaker 2: payoff really for other people, right, Because I'm pretty sure
1:59
Speaker 2: I'd be wrong if I said doing this conference makes
2:02
Speaker 2: you in and of itself rich, Right, there's a lot
2:05
Speaker 2: of ways to.
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Speaker 1: Get rich a little inside baseball. Over the years that
2:10
Speaker 1: we've published Talkers thirty six years now, a number of
2:14
Speaker 1: competitors have come and gone and not stayed because they
2:19
Speaker 1: see how exciting the work we do is, and how
2:23
Speaker 1: in the middle of everything we are, and how respected
2:27
Speaker 1: we are. They figure, and how many sponsors we have.
2:30
Speaker 1: They figure there's a lot of money to be made
2:33
Speaker 1: to this business, and then they fall by the wayside
2:36
Speaker 1: when they find wait a second, there's a lot more
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Speaker 1: work than there is reward in terms of financial reward.
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Speaker 1: I don't make a lot of money doing this and haven't,
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Speaker 1: so it really is that unique niche, and it is
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Speaker 1: the idea that we're supporting something of great importance, or
2:55
Speaker 1: at least we think so. That keeps us going. And
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Speaker 1: if you get into these kinds of things simply for
3:00
Speaker 1: the money, whether it's radio, even owning corporate radio, whatever
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Speaker 1: it is, if you just do it for the money,
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Speaker 1: it will not succeed. Eventually, it'll fail.
3:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that's a good point you bring up,
3:12
Speaker 2: because at your conferences, I've met many an individual radio
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Speaker 2: owner and a couple of cluster owners. But those guys
3:21
Speaker 2: I would say how'd you get into this or why,
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Speaker 2: and they'd all say the same thing. I love this stuff.
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Speaker 2: Nobody ever said looked like a great way to make
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Speaker 2: a living, a great way to make money. Only if
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Speaker 2: you love it right, then it's a great way.
3:30
Speaker 1: To make it. You know, the expression, I would do this,
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Speaker 1: you know, I can't believe they pay me. I would
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Speaker 1: do it for nothing.
3:35
Speaker 2: You know. I once said that and my first APD
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Speaker 2: a guy named Matt Doll at WABC. He said, you
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Speaker 2: say that again, you'll never get paid again.
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Speaker 1: I was gonna say, don't say that too loudly, and
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Speaker 1: don't say it to the wrong people because they'll take
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Speaker 1: you up on it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was so true. He was like, do you
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Speaker 2: think you could fill in for us? It's a lot
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Speaker 2: of days. And I was like, yeah, you've got to
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Speaker 2: tell me what these I'm there. I love this stuff.
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Speaker 2: And you know, I thought it was just me, but
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Speaker 2: I realized that is a unique call. I think most
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Speaker 2: people have. I went in twenty eighteen, I think it
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Speaker 2: was I went to the National Radio Hall of Fame
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Speaker 2: and Jim Kerr was being inducted that year and he
4:10
Speaker 2: was talking about I think it was nine and a
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Speaker 2: half minutes. He swept the studio floor, did what he
4:16
Speaker 2: had to do all week long to get nine and
4:18
Speaker 2: a half minutes before their their transmitter went off because
4:21
Speaker 2: it went off at night, and he got to do
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Speaker 2: nine and a half minutes. And that was his claim
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Speaker 2: to fame, that that was what did it for him.
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Speaker 2: And it was so inspiring to hear this story is saying, Wow,
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Speaker 2: you did that for nine and a half minutes. You know,
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Speaker 2: it just kind of gives you a shot in the arm.
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Speaker 1: I think that'd be a great name for a book,
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Speaker 1: for a memoir. Nine and a half minutes. Yeah, changed
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Speaker 1: my life.
4:41
Speaker 2: Now you got look at that and you could be
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Speaker 2: a ghostwriter on it because I think you know what
4:44
Speaker 2: thing that there? A thing or three I should say.
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Speaker 1: Anyway, AI does that for everybody now. Ghostwriters, the ones
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Speaker 1: who are losing the people who are losing their jobs
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Speaker 1: because of AI are the ghostwriters of America. Yeah, they
4:55
Speaker 1: flow where.
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Speaker 2: One man's losing their job with I think other ones
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Speaker 2: are building entire company. So you know, I guess it's
5:01
Speaker 2: a watch. Let's talk about this conference. I try to
5:05
Speaker 2: have you on every year, and I know you're not soliciting.
5:07
Speaker 2: You never asked me. Ever, in your whole life, you've
5:09
Speaker 2: never asked me, hey, can you help me promote the conference.
5:11
Speaker 2: I do it because of my own love for this
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Speaker 2: stuff that we do, and I always appreciate and look
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Speaker 2: forward to these types of gatherings. But let's talk about
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Speaker 2: this thirty sixty year for the magazine, this twenty eighth
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Speaker 2: installment of this particular brand of talkers conference. How does
5:28
Speaker 2: how is this shaping up? What's unique about it? In
5:32
Speaker 2: many ways We talked offline before about it being like
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Speaker 2: a wedding, but in many ways it really is a
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Speaker 2: tremendous professional opportunity as well.
5:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, when we said it's like a wedding, it
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Speaker 1: doesn't have that transient, cold feeling of conferences that are
5:46
Speaker 1: every year where they announce the next city at the
5:49
Speaker 1: end of the conference, they already know where they're going next,
5:52
Speaker 1: and then you get there and it's the same tables
5:54
Speaker 1: A through you know, P and R through Z and
5:59
Speaker 1: that whole vibe. We don't do that. We put it
6:02
Speaker 1: on like a family affair, So that's important. The most
6:06
Speaker 1: important thing at conferences of this nature is what goes
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Speaker 1: on in the hallways, rubbing elbows with people making deals,
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Speaker 1: meeting people, making connections. Those are very important. And this conference,
6:22
Speaker 1: like all of the ones we've done before, but particularly
6:25
Speaker 1: this year, is answering existential questions. That word existential is
6:31
Speaker 1: all over the place, but it means, you know, life
6:34
Speaker 1: and death for the industry. Twentieth century media, analog rooted media, movies, newspapers, books,
6:44
Speaker 1: television as we grew up with it, radio as we
6:49
Speaker 1: grew up with it, are all facing existential questions, and
6:53
Speaker 1: that is how to maintain the esthetic of their medium,
6:58
Speaker 1: of their platform, which is part of their art form.
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Speaker 1: How to keep that while successfully integrating into the digital
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Speaker 1: platforms and the digital era. That's the challenge, and that's
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Speaker 1: what we have been talking about at Talkers Magazine since
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Speaker 1: we debuted in nineteen ninety is how radio can successfully
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Speaker 1: integrate into the twenty first century multi platform environment without
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Speaker 1: losing the magic of radio, but not being bogged down
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Speaker 1: by seeming to be passe. Very challenging.
7:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say so, we're going to take
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Speaker 2: that one apart because I agree with you wholeheartedly. I mean,
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Speaker 2: I think my life is a good example of that.
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Speaker 2: I love this business, but I'm a young guy. And
7:44
Speaker 2: because I'm a young guy. I can't say, yeah, I'll
7:47
Speaker 2: sign another five year deal, because a five year deal
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Speaker 2: might put me in a precarious situation if it doesn't
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Speaker 2: include streaming, digital video, all those things that are the future,
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Speaker 2: if you will. And the other side of it is
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Speaker 2: how much do we like streaming digital and video and
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Speaker 2: all those things, because we do lose some of the
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Speaker 2: magic of what is radio? Right. And I'll say this,
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Speaker 2: there's a a note saying, right when I got into radio,
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Speaker 2: people said, oh, radio is dying, And I said, they've
8:12
Speaker 2: been saying that since the invention of the television. But
8:14
Speaker 2: here we are still And I think radio will outlive television.
8:18
Speaker 2: Traditional television, you know, the dial, television, broadcast.
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Speaker 1: I think that's already gone. I don't know if there
8:25
Speaker 1: is such a thing as television anymore. I don't watch it.
8:28
Speaker 1: It's it's now a streaming thing. Television shows, Like, what's
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Speaker 1: the difference between a television show and a motion picture?
8:38
Speaker 1: In terms of all of these made for TV movies, Netflix,
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Speaker 1: Paramount Plus, they're all doing it. You know, what are
8:47
Speaker 1: you doing when it's time for the Oscars or the Emmys?
8:49
Speaker 1: Is this an Oscar candidate? Or is this an Emmy,
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Speaker 1: and movies play in movie theaters for like three minutes.
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Speaker 1: Some of them are on teams sim at the same time.
9:01
Speaker 1: You know, now, you know mccluan, Marshall McLuhan, the great
9:04
Speaker 1: media theorist that my generation of media people were influenced by.
9:08
Speaker 1: He came up with the phrase the medium is the message. Well,
9:11
Speaker 1: when the medium changes as much as it has, so
9:15
Speaker 1: does the sociology of its content. So does the sociology
9:20
Speaker 1: of how people watch it or consume it. Radio faces
9:24
Speaker 1: a major, major hurdle right now because of all the
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Speaker 1: mass media from the twentieth century, it's the only one
9:31
Speaker 1: that doesn't have a distinct visual component. And everything today
9:36
Speaker 1: has a screen on it. Everything. Kids grow up with
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Speaker 1: screens embedded in their brains, and radio doesn't have that component.
9:45
Speaker 1: So what you've got now are radio performers and radio
9:49
Speaker 1: shows trying to figure out how to apply the screen
9:53
Speaker 1: to what they do, which you know, in some cases works,
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Speaker 1: but in many cases takes great radio and turns it
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Speaker 1: into cheesy television.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Really interesting, And that's where I wanted to go
10:05
Speaker 2: with this because I think part of the magic of
10:08
Speaker 2: radio is the fact that you can't see me right,
10:12
Speaker 2: that's magical. To me, that is amazing. The things that
10:15
Speaker 2: I could pull off on this microphone without you seeing
10:18
Speaker 2: it and use your mind's eye to create this feeling
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Speaker 2: is something that you can't do if you're watching me
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Speaker 2: do it. And that's why I've never liked the idea
10:26
Speaker 2: of a camera in the studio. It just has never
10:28
Speaker 2: been a to me. You lose a lot of the
10:30
Speaker 2: allures like watching the magic tricks and the magician doing
10:33
Speaker 2: them from backstage instead are from the audience.
10:35
Speaker 1: Now, we used to have an expression, you know, you
10:37
Speaker 1: have a face for radio ha ha. But that was
10:40
Speaker 1: the whole point when I was a kid growing up.
10:42
Speaker 1: I hate saying when I was a kid, But when
10:43
Speaker 1: I was a kid growing up, there was the issue
10:46
Speaker 1: that you know, the disc jockey that we all knew whatever,
10:49
Speaker 1: whoever he was, that was on at night for the
10:50
Speaker 1: teenagers would show up at a dance at the school,
10:54
Speaker 1: you know, spending discs and get to meet the DJ
10:57
Speaker 1: and he ultimately and almost every case was a nerd
11:01
Speaker 1: or somebody that didn't fit the bill, go oh my gosh,
11:06
Speaker 1: we just met you know, screaming Joe blow whatever it is.
11:10
Speaker 1: He's like a nique.
11:11
Speaker 2: You know, oh, so cool on the radio, right, and
11:14
Speaker 2: so cool on the.
11:15
Speaker 1: Radio and so uncool. Now, there's no mysterious If somebody
11:20
Speaker 1: is well known on radio, everybody knows what they look like.
11:24
Speaker 1: And and another thing you brought up, if you have
11:27
Speaker 1: a job as a radio host, as a radio performer,
11:31
Speaker 1: you also have ten other jobs of having a blog
11:35
Speaker 1: and putting out a podcast and all of these other jobs.
11:40
Speaker 1: And it takes a tremendous amount of time, and it
11:42
Speaker 1: takes a tremendous amount of labor.
11:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and I think that's why we're seeing. I mean,
11:48
Speaker 2: just in recent years a couple of big names, right,
11:51
Speaker 2: and at least in My My, My, My Lane, Ben
11:54
Speaker 2: Shapiro left Westwood, went all in on his company, Matt Walsh,
12:01
Speaker 2: Michael Knowles, Van Bongino, Megan Kelly, Right, these people, of
12:06
Speaker 2: all they're not on radio. And these are all big
12:09
Speaker 2: radio names at one point Megan Kelly. More so of
12:11
Speaker 2: a TV name, Tucker Carlson, right, at least he's not radio,
12:15
Speaker 2: but yeah, he's got like a whole TV network right
12:18
Speaker 2: on YouTube Global one. So I look at that and
12:21
Speaker 2: I say there is a shift here. And it didn't
12:25
Speaker 2: dawn on me. But it crystallized when I was talking
12:27
Speaker 2: to that same aforementioned APD I had early on and
12:31
Speaker 2: he's at one of the big guys now, which was like,
12:34
Speaker 2: you know whatever, big conglomerate corporate media radio. And I said,
12:40
Speaker 2: how are things going at big corporate conglomerate radio and
12:43
Speaker 2: he said no, no, no, it's big corporate conglomerate audio. And
12:47
Speaker 2: I said, oh, forgive me, and he said, yeah, we
12:50
Speaker 2: don't say radio anymore.
12:51
Speaker 1: I don't like that.
12:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I said, well why not? And he said, well,
12:55
Speaker 2: because you know the nature of what we're doing, we
12:56
Speaker 2: stream so much of what do we do and blah
12:58
Speaker 2: blah blah. He went into this whole thing and I
13:00
Speaker 2: said what do you do? And he said me, well,
13:03
Speaker 2: you know, I'm in charge of content production, distribution this
13:07
Speaker 2: And I said, well, what like audio files? And he
13:10
Speaker 2: said no, no, no video, YouTube. And it was what
13:16
Speaker 2: I was looking for because in the years, in the
13:19
Speaker 2: just eight years that I've been doing this, people went
13:21
Speaker 2: from what station can I listen to you on? To YouTube?
13:26
Speaker 2: What's your YouTube?
13:27
Speaker 1: And are you on?
13:28
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right, that was the first question. They said what
13:31
Speaker 2: time are you on? Because they already knew what station
13:33
Speaker 2: I was on because there was only a handful of them.
13:35
Speaker 2: Then it was like how do I find you? And
13:38
Speaker 2: then and then now it's what's your YouTube? And I
13:41
Speaker 2: thought to myself, how did we get there? And how
13:43
Speaker 2: did we get there so quick? And I reminded myself
13:46
Speaker 2: of a segment I once did where I said, somebody's
13:48
Speaker 2: punching you in the face. You're going to stop and
13:50
Speaker 2: ask the hey, why are you punching me in the face. No,
13:52
Speaker 2: you're not. You're going to make sure they stop punching
13:54
Speaker 2: you in the face. And I think that's the position
13:55
Speaker 2: that we're in right now. Forget why we're here. That
13:58
Speaker 2: radio has become video. Radio is video, and what are
14:02
Speaker 2: we going to do?
14:04
Speaker 1: What we're going to do is we better do damn
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Speaker 1: good video, and we better and we better do it
14:09
Speaker 1: in a way that's not competing with the film industry,
14:14
Speaker 1: you know, where they have billions of dollars and and
14:18
Speaker 1: and big budgets and big crews and and and they're
14:21
Speaker 1: having problems too, you know. But what I'm saying is
14:24
Speaker 1: you just want to if you're going to do a video,
14:26
Speaker 1: you have to do video on one to one degree
14:29
Speaker 1: or another that's a whole other issue. And YouTube is
14:32
Speaker 1: just eating everybody's lunch. YouTube runs the world. And there
14:36
Speaker 1: are some real pros and some real cons to YouTube.
14:39
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into them all, but let's
14:40
Speaker 1: just say YouTube has and Google, which is YouTube have
14:45
Speaker 1: enormous power, enormous and the whole thing with algorithms, you've
14:50
Speaker 1: got to learn that or you can't compete. Just like
14:52
Speaker 1: in the old days and radio, you know, you had
14:55
Speaker 1: to know how the ratings were taken. The game, the
15:00
Speaker 1: game is played and this is this is a saying
15:03
Speaker 1: I came up with, and it's not just for radio,
15:06
Speaker 1: the game, whatever, the game is, sports media. The game
15:10
Speaker 1: is played the way the game is scored. And that's
15:15
Speaker 1: the key to all of this. If you think about that,
15:18
Speaker 1: the game is played the way the game is scored.
15:20
Speaker 1: Now the game, the game is played to rig the algorithms,
15:26
Speaker 1: to fool the algorithms. The algorithms are installed by the
15:30
Speaker 1: big big tech. That is really a very dangerous monopoly,
15:36
Speaker 1: and it's for them to be able to score the
15:39
Speaker 1: game however they want without accountability. You know, it would
15:42
Speaker 1: be like Arbitron or Nielsen having the power over your
15:46
Speaker 1: radio station to turn your signal off in certain neighborhoods.
15:51
Speaker 1: You know, well, you know, we don't think that people
15:53
Speaker 1: who live in the north part of town will be
15:55
Speaker 1: that interested in what you're doing, So we're pulling back
15:57
Speaker 1: on your signal and not wasting it there. That's what
16:00
Speaker 1: the algorithms do. They decide who would be interested in
16:04
Speaker 1: what you do, and it's in their interest because their
16:06
Speaker 1: partners in your audience and any potential revenue you can get.
16:10
Speaker 1: That's just for starters. I won't go too deeply into that,
16:13
Speaker 1: but I suspect I'm striking a chord of recognition in
16:17
Speaker 1: your mind. Yeah, no, no observation.
16:19
Speaker 2: I think that this is somewhere. I'm going to take
16:21
Speaker 2: a quick pause because I do want to have a
16:22
Speaker 2: follow up that I want you to spend a little
16:24
Speaker 2: time on, because I think it's a fascinating place that
16:26
Speaker 2: we've arrived at. I mean, he goes. We are on
16:28
Speaker 2: with Michael Harrison. He is the publisher of Talker's Magazine.
16:31
Speaker 2: He's the man behind the curtain, like the Wizard of
16:34
Speaker 2: Oz of the Talker's Conference for the last three decades
16:37
Speaker 2: in counting keep it locked right here. On Rich Valdez,
16:40
Speaker 2: He's Michael Harrison, the little edit here will come right back.
16:46
Speaker 1: You've gotten good at this. Oh thank god, I'm gonna
16:50
Speaker 1: You've really gotten good at this. I've been watching your
16:52
Speaker 1: progress over the last few years. It's great. You're rocking fabulous.
17:06
Speaker 2: All right, amigoes, welcome back. Rich Valdez still here with
17:09
Speaker 2: Michael Harrison, the OG from Talker's Magazine, the Talker's Conference.
17:14
Speaker 2: He's with us, and did he strike a chord? Oh yeah,
17:18
Speaker 2: he said, imagine if the people that were counting were
17:22
Speaker 2: the ones that were scoring the game and controlling the
17:25
Speaker 2: entire enterprise. And in many ways, that's how it is.
17:29
Speaker 2: And it opens up a question I was going to
17:31
Speaker 2: ask anyway, but you set it up perfectly for me.
17:34
Speaker 2: I was reading Talkers magazine not that long ago, and
17:37
Speaker 2: I saw an article about Triton Digital. I think it
17:40
Speaker 2: was Trenton Digital, or it might have been Trenton Digital
17:42
Speaker 2: or the IAB people one of the people that count,
17:45
Speaker 2: and they were saying that we're moving towards a counting
17:50
Speaker 2: system that goes beyond quarter average quarter hour listening or
17:55
Speaker 2: broadcast television metrics, that includes how many views you get
18:00
Speaker 2: on clips on social promoting, the long form of your
18:04
Speaker 2: YouTube show or whatever. And I thought fascinating, because there's
18:09
Speaker 2: a lot of mileage there. Right. You can I can
18:12
Speaker 2: monetize a clip of me and you being interviewed right now, right,
18:15
Speaker 2: and that counts.
18:17
Speaker 1: Towards somebody doing a show on their own cable TV
18:23
Speaker 1: channel or any channel could talk about what we're talking
18:27
Speaker 1: about and then refer to our conversation as what we
18:31
Speaker 1: used to call an actuality newsmakers and play a clip
18:36
Speaker 1: of us talking now on their show under the legal
18:40
Speaker 1: mechanism called fair use. That way, we don't necessarily have
18:45
Speaker 1: a leg to stand on in court, but maybe half
18:47
Speaker 1: a leg. And matter of fact, my son, who is
18:50
Speaker 1: an attorney, an intellectual property attorney, just wrote a book
18:53
Speaker 1: called Playing the Clip. I call it the play the
18:57
Speaker 1: clip format, you know, and where they'll you know, today
19:01
Speaker 1: President Trump gave a press conference on the loan of
19:04
Speaker 1: the White House, blah blah blah, and then they play
19:06
Speaker 1: a clip of it. But it all day on CNN
19:10
Speaker 1: or on some other and that programming becomes part of
19:13
Speaker 1: your programming. I call them clip jockeys. They they're like
19:19
Speaker 1: disc jockey's, only playing clips of other shows. And as
19:23
Speaker 1: a result of that, the media is feeding on itself
19:25
Speaker 1: for its own content. It would it be funny if,
19:28
Speaker 1: like our conversation now, you know, say a minute of
19:31
Speaker 1: it becomes content for somebody else's show.
19:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and it may very likely be depending on
19:37
Speaker 2: how bombastic your responses are. But what do you think
19:41
Speaker 2: about this idea of your new ratings? Right? So, just
19:45
Speaker 2: as an example, right, I recently started an endeavor on
19:49
Speaker 2: Roku tv, which is very the biggest in North America,
19:54
Speaker 2: one hundred million subscriber households, fantastic reach, and dubbing my
20:01
Speaker 2: content into Spanish sounds like me, looks like me speaking Spanish.
20:05
Speaker 2: It's fantastic. And you take this and that has a
20:09
Speaker 2: residual effect where all of a sudden, my English podcast
20:13
Speaker 2: audio started charting in Chile and in Venezuela, in English
20:19
Speaker 2: in other parts of even in Israel, And I thought, wow,
20:22
Speaker 2: it's interesting how my audience has just grown right after
20:25
Speaker 2: I did this Roku deal. And I don't know that
20:28
Speaker 2: how that works, other than I think a lot of
20:30
Speaker 2: people do speak English, and English is like a required
20:32
Speaker 2: part of many many compulsory education programs. So I think
20:36
Speaker 2: there's more English seekers or English media seekers than we
20:41
Speaker 2: know but it's fascinating to me that these things all
20:44
Speaker 2: work in tandem.
20:45
Speaker 1: It's remarkable how many people throughout the world speak English.
20:49
Speaker 1: You could go as an American who only knows how
20:52
Speaker 1: to speak English to many cities, Paris, Rome, places that
21:00
Speaker 1: you would otherwise think they don't speak a lot of
21:03
Speaker 1: English and get by without speaking the native tongue. So
21:08
Speaker 1: that's that's very true in terms of dubbing in a
21:14
Speaker 1: different language. That comes under the growing world of AI
21:18
Speaker 1: and and what is real and what is not real.
21:21
Speaker 1: There was once a time dubbed in looked funny the
21:24
Speaker 1: person Yeah, yeah, yeah, Sometimes the same guy would do
21:31
Speaker 1: the dubbing for everybody.
21:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's nice to meet you, my dear.
21:34
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Yeah. But now, uh, it's remarkable
21:40
Speaker 1: and we're only in the model t era AI. What
21:44
Speaker 1: can be done? I think the future of all of
21:46
Speaker 1: this is that, let's say you we said before you
21:50
Speaker 1: were a younger guy me. You know, I look back
21:52
Speaker 1: on all of this. I don't every day I do
21:53
Speaker 1: could be you know, the end. But and and believe me,
21:58
Speaker 1: I'm very satisfied with my career. But if I were
22:01
Speaker 1: your age, looking forward and trying to figure out Okay,
22:04
Speaker 1: what's going to happen to my brand? Ten years from now,
22:07
Speaker 1: five years from now, five weeks from now, I would
22:12
Speaker 1: start to think that my image, my voice, my philosophy,
22:18
Speaker 1: what I stand for are really just ingredients and a recipe,
22:22
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get me at my best. I'm
22:25
Speaker 1: going to scan myself. I'm going to record myself. I'm
22:28
Speaker 1: going to have images of me like I'm gesturing with
22:32
Speaker 1: my hands and I'm being dramatic with you right now
22:37
Speaker 1: what is the nature of my drama? And that will
22:39
Speaker 1: be put into computers and then I don't have to
22:42
Speaker 1: work again. You can then do shows, interact and be
22:48
Speaker 1: so realistic that the real version of you will no
22:54
Speaker 1: longer be the best version of you, and your value
22:58
Speaker 1: as a talent will be a recipe, not you coming
23:03
Speaker 1: into the studio and actually doing the works. Why that's
23:06
Speaker 1: where we're heading, Rich.
23:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would suppose that's that's certainly the
23:12
Speaker 2: end game for a lot of people. I would also
23:15
Speaker 2: suppose that I think a lot of people that like
23:17
Speaker 2: to whether they're actors or voice talent or radio people,
23:20
Speaker 2: they probably don't like that idea because they like doing this,
23:23
Speaker 2: you know, it's fun.
23:25
Speaker 1: Absolutely, But if you look at the positive side of it,
23:29
Speaker 1: they could start to like doing the other because they
23:33
Speaker 1: can extend it, can extend and improve your work. Now,
23:39
Speaker 1: right now, the subject is about AI slop bad artificial intelligence.
23:46
Speaker 1: But eventually it's going to all be good artificial intelligence
23:49
Speaker 1: because you know, the same keyboard that produces garbage can
23:55
Speaker 1: also write Shakespeare. It's just tools. The tool is not
24:02
Speaker 1: the ultimate stimulus. Stimulator of the quality and the mechanics
24:09
Speaker 1: of it are becoming easier and easier to operate. And
24:14
Speaker 1: so as a result, I'm very bold in my statements.
24:16
Speaker 1: Here's a statement for you. I believe Hollywood is dead.
24:20
Speaker 1: What do I mean Hollywood is dead? The whole idea
24:22
Speaker 1: of Hollywood.
24:23
Speaker 3: Big studios, movie stars that command millions of dollars, iconic images,
24:30
Speaker 3: casts of thousands, extras sets.
24:33
Speaker 1: The whole thing. Why it's not needed. You could make
24:38
Speaker 1: ben her, you know, in your basement on an iPhone.
24:42
Speaker 1: I mean, this is where we're going. So when I
24:47
Speaker 1: say Hollywood, I mean the motion picture industry. It's over.
24:52
Speaker 1: It's not going to come back because it's back to
24:55
Speaker 1: what we said before. I would do this for nothing.
24:57
Speaker 1: Don't say that in front of the wrong person. Why
25:00
Speaker 1: would you go and spend money making an expensive film
25:03
Speaker 1: when you have all the tools at your disposal and
25:07
Speaker 1: a keyboard and you can create images Moses parting the
25:11
Speaker 1: Red Sea, you know, invaders coming from another planet, or
25:15
Speaker 1: all of the things you know, King Kong can be
25:19
Speaker 1: done so realistically now with such a minimum amount of
25:23
Speaker 1: effort that people are going to be making like they
25:25
Speaker 1: make podcasts or make radio shows in their homes, they're
25:28
Speaker 1: going to be making full length films. And then again,
25:31
Speaker 1: the length of the film is a question. What's a
25:33
Speaker 1: full length film? Who wants to sit for ninety minutes
25:36
Speaker 1: and watch a movie that's becoming archaic?
25:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, although some of the Marvel films, right, they're all
25:41
Speaker 2: like three hours and people love them. So I don't
25:44
Speaker 2: know which way to go with these things, but I
25:45
Speaker 2: think you're onto something.
25:46
Speaker 1: Go in all the directions they because because we're becoming fractionalized,
25:50
Speaker 1: and they all are real, and they all are small
25:53
Speaker 1: compared to what used to be considered a mainstream concept.
25:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, and you're right. I have a friend in Hollywood.
26:01
Speaker 2: When somebody wants to pitch a film to a big
26:03
Speaker 2: director or a big producer, they hire him to create
26:06
Speaker 2: this treatment, this pitch packet, and he's made a great
26:09
Speaker 2: living in his twenty fourth or twenty fifty year doing this.
26:12
Speaker 2: And he said, he's telling me, now I'm competing against AI.
26:15
Speaker 2: And he's like, the only reason I'm getting jobs is
26:17
Speaker 2: because I've done this for twenty five years and I'm
26:19
Speaker 2: still better than the AI. But he said, somebody knew
26:22
Speaker 2: they're not better than the AI, and they don't have
26:25
Speaker 2: the contacts I have, and they're not gonna make it.
26:28
Speaker 2: And I realize that's kind of in many ways, like
26:30
Speaker 2: the guy that delivered ice for the ice box, like
26:32
Speaker 2: to Jackie Gleeson, the Honeymooners type of thing. You know,
26:34
Speaker 2: that guy doesn't exist anymore because I'm a refrigerator. It
26:37
Speaker 2: makes ice in it pours water and everything. And I
26:39
Speaker 2: think that's part of the innovation of America and the
26:42
Speaker 2: American dream.
26:43
Speaker 1: No question about it. And it's the history of technology.
26:46
Speaker 1: All technology is a double edged sword, and all technology
26:50
Speaker 1: is initially greeted as not being art as not being artistic,
26:55
Speaker 1: but it is. For example, the cave painters to use
27:00
Speaker 1: their fingers and they used you know, pigments, and they
27:02
Speaker 1: painted animals on the caves and then you know, hieroglyphics.
27:06
Speaker 1: Somebody came along and invented the paintbrush, and some guy
27:10
Speaker 1: whos they're painting with a paintbrush and he's churning out
27:13
Speaker 1: all this stuff.
27:13
Speaker 2: And they all was the elon musk of the cavemen.
27:16
Speaker 1: Right, this is a disgrace painting with a paintbrush. That's cheating.
27:20
Speaker 1: That's not art. It has to be filled through your
27:23
Speaker 1: fingers or it's not real. And then, of course, you know,
27:28
Speaker 1: the concept changes as to what's art. We've been going
27:31
Speaker 1: through that. You know, I could bore the hell out
27:33
Speaker 1: of you with examples going back to the beginning of
27:36
Speaker 1: the cave bed. But that's what AI is. It's going
27:40
Speaker 1: to be an acceptable tool. And tools can be used
27:45
Speaker 1: to build magnificent structures or shoddy constructions.
27:50
Speaker 2: I agree with that. Now to comf full circle here
27:53
Speaker 2: this the question I posed earlier. I feel like it
27:57
Speaker 2: goes in one of two directions, right when it comes
27:59
Speaker 2: to making a living or creating an economy of scale here,
28:03
Speaker 2: so I think this could be either either or or both.
28:07
Speaker 2: And but does this trend that we see of people
28:11
Speaker 2: becoming their own enterprise because they have so many jobs
28:15
Speaker 2: as you mentioned before, and they're not doing it for
28:16
Speaker 2: themselves and they can get direct deals with brands through
28:22
Speaker 2: different platforms. Are they Are we going to see more
28:25
Speaker 2: of that and less of people being attached to a
28:26
Speaker 2: network or do we see someone like Triton Digit or
28:30
Speaker 2: someone else that comes in that says hold On or
28:32
Speaker 2: Arbitron saying Nielsen, we know how to count this, and
28:36
Speaker 2: we're going to count your social media views and we're
28:38
Speaker 2: going to count your views on Rumble and YouTube and
28:40
Speaker 2: your plays on TV, and we're going to come up
28:43
Speaker 2: with a cumulative score so that we can rate you
28:45
Speaker 2: so that you can get sponsors.
28:47
Speaker 1: That's what's going to happen. They're going to have to
28:50
Speaker 1: figure out a way to do cross platform QUM accounting,
28:54
Speaker 1: QUM being a term for the viewer's cumulative We call
28:58
Speaker 1: it kum. How's your quum? How many different people consume
29:02
Speaker 1: your media product every any given day or month or
29:05
Speaker 1: week or a quarter hour or whatever it is. Yeah,
29:08
Speaker 1: I think that has to happen right now. The metrics
29:13
Speaker 1: for digital broadcasting are very undependable, and it depends on
29:18
Speaker 1: who's doing it. It depends on how they want to
29:20
Speaker 1: interpret it. Because they're very expensive advice. Yes, it's largely
29:25
Speaker 1: apples and oranges. At this point, we have to get
29:28
Speaker 1: over that. We never fully got over it with radio.
29:32
Speaker 1: I mean they had problems. Okay, how do we rate
29:36
Speaker 1: if you're simulcasting on your FM station and on your
29:40
Speaker 1: AM station? How do we mix those two? And then
29:43
Speaker 1: there was if you play your show back as a podcast,
29:49
Speaker 1: people are listening to the show, but how do we
29:51
Speaker 1: integrate that number into our assessment of how many people
29:55
Speaker 1: are listening on your AM or on your FM, how
29:58
Speaker 1: many are listening live or in dB delayed broadcast. So
30:02
Speaker 1: even in radio before all this started, we had that issue.
30:07
Speaker 1: Now it's insane. So when we will come to a
30:12
Speaker 1: you know, uncontested across the board cumulative view view of Hume,
30:18
Speaker 1: it may take a while, but heading there, but it
30:20
Speaker 1: isn't going to happen easily.
30:21
Speaker 2: Well, Michael Harrison, I would love to leave off with
30:24
Speaker 2: probably the biggest question I have, which is what is
30:27
Speaker 2: next for radio? But then nobody would go to the conference.
30:30
Speaker 2: So if they want to know more about what's next
30:32
Speaker 2: for radio and learn more about talkers twenty twenty six,
30:35
Speaker 2: where do they go and how do you want to
30:37
Speaker 2: respond to that?
30:38
Speaker 1: Well, I as as you mentioned earlier, I'm not one
30:41
Speaker 1: to self promote, but this is something of value to
30:44
Speaker 1: a listener who's interested in this. After this conference is over,
30:48
Speaker 1: everything that we do will be put up online on
30:51
Speaker 1: the Talker's media channel and for free another always for free. Yeah, yeah,
30:57
Speaker 1: we have no pay walls. We're free. Talkers dot Com
31:01
Speaker 1: is the place to go if you want to know
31:02
Speaker 1: about it. It's free. The Talker's newsletter is free. And
31:07
Speaker 1: that's about as much as I do to self promote. Yeah,
31:10
Speaker 1: you were right. You'll never hear from me to say, hey,
31:12
Speaker 1: can I come on your show and sell something. I've
31:15
Speaker 1: been very blessed to have people invite me without me
31:19
Speaker 1: promoting anything.
31:20
Speaker 2: So let me take a moment to promote and say
31:22
Speaker 2: that prior to the show starting. I told Michael Harrison
31:25
Speaker 2: in years, even before I was in talk radio, I
31:27
Speaker 2: would meet people, see people political people that make the
31:31
Speaker 2: rounds on these shows, and they would ask me, are
31:34
Speaker 2: you going to talkers? Do you go to that? Even
31:36
Speaker 2: when I wasn't in this industry, and when I was
31:37
Speaker 2: in this industry, that's the question everybody wants to know,
31:39
Speaker 2: are you going to talkers? And there's plenty of great
31:42
Speaker 2: conferences out there, but Talkers is by far the oldest
31:45
Speaker 2: and the best known that I know of. And you
31:48
Speaker 2: can always count on meeting the ogs in this game
31:50
Speaker 2: at Talkers. So there's my plug, free a charge, by
31:53
Speaker 2: the way, free a charge.
31:55
Speaker 1: Rich Valdes, thank you so much for having me on.
32:00
Speaker 1: I look forward to seeing you soon.
32:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing you June fifth
32:03
Speaker 2: at Hofstra University at the thirty Is it the twenty sixth,
32:07
Speaker 2: twenty eighth, it's the.
32:08
Speaker 1: Twenty eighth conference and it's our thirty sixth anniversary.
32:12
Speaker 2: Outstanding, Well, God speak to you, sir. You are a gentleman,
32:14
Speaker 2: a scholar and a patriot. Thank you