I’m not sure if this says more about TV or about radio. There is this trend developing of Radio People wanting to be on TV. The long standing joke about radio is saying that someone hosting a radio program has a perfect face for radio (meaning they are ugly :))…. there is much truth to that.
Among the people doing this currently that I know of are Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Don Imus and Bob & Tom. This Fox TV deal adds 4 more to that list – the one you are most likely to know about is the morning show from WPLJ-FM in New York – one of the hosts is Scott Shannon, the guy who does the intros for Sean Hannity and the voice tracking on “True Oldies” (and is also the VP of programming for Citadel Media in his spare time).
They are talking about taking these morning shows and runing recordings of them in the evenings – so they won’t be live and people can’t call in. I don’t get it – other than it is really cheap “entertainment” to put on the air.
One thing that irritates me about radio shows with TV cameras – Rush is the worst at this – is they end up playing to the camera…. holding stuff up to the camera, or being distracted because the camera is pointing at the wrong thing. Radio people also tend to be slobs – they should up in t-shirts and shorts. Nobody knows what they’re wearing, so it doesn’t matter. Put a TV camera on them, suddenly they have to worry if their hair is still in place, etc… In a historical note, it is probably worth mentioning that Art Bell was the pioneer in doing this on a syndicated show.