Philadelphia Magazine wants to know,"Can a man succeed in the rabidly partisan world of talk radio by reaching out to moderates and channeling his inner Larry David?"
Wrong question.
Right question: Can Smerconish be exciting again by returning to his own center, and channeling his inner Michael Smerconish?
Let's hope so.
Next question: why does it matter?
Moderate vs. mediocre
For over a year now, I haven't been able to brook more than five minutes of the Michael Smerconish Program heard daily from 5-9AM on 1210AM WPHT, here in metro-Philadelphia. That's sad: I never used to miss it. For this review, I tuned in for several days, but failed to get past its accretion of off-putting habits for more than twenty minutes each time before being irritated enough to snap off the radio. Even so, there were glimmers of hope that Smerconish might still step fully into the role he himself created--that of American talk radio's un-pigeon-holed passionate man of discourse.
Philly Mag's May 2009 issue suggests Smerconish's success depends upon whether listeners care that he's only a Republican in name; he did after all, endorse Obama before last year's election. True, Smerconish grew up in the GOP, but that's irrelevant. Now that he's earned national syndication of his show, whether he bombs out or builds a solid stake in the nation's chattering class is not a question of him being a so-called moderate, but of him being mediocre. That's because despite an amazing instinct for making good choices, he's made at least three bad ones that are now gumming up the rocket he should otherwise be riding to the top of his profession.
The good
Excellent instincts
That Smerconish clearly appreciates the gray areas in between the polarizations of the Left and the Right was always his niche--his gift, really. He was unusual because he was willing to explore topics in-depth as a genuinely curious seeker of knowledge, not a ratings-driven polemicist. He is clearly intelligent, but not an intellectual, which made him accessible. His gift for seeing the irony in situations--such as how the US's efforts to thwart terrorism has itself become a sort of terror campaign against its own citizens--meant he could humanize the news, and make it relevant and personal to each of us.
Formatting brilliance
His many excellent format choices included: an on-air book club featuring interviews with a wide variety of authors, complete with remote broadcasts from venues where they give live readings; his frequent British guests who always seemed to bring fresh insights to any topic (and who doesn't love their accents?); his frequent--and often courageous--conversations about a variety of touchy subjects with ethicist Arthur Caplan, PhD; his features on area family and tourist attractions; his Eagles report with ESPN's Sal Paolantonio; these are just a few of plenty.
His ability to attract some of the most articulate callers on talk radio was significant, and a clear testament to his claim that there are plenty of Americans who want a reasoned discussion, not a shrill one. His once respectful and witty engagement with them at one point was a highlight of his Philly-local show.
Free thinking
Philly Mag expresses agita over how his mixture of left- and right-sided opinions make it hard to pin Smerconish to the Republican Party map, and so they color-code him moderate. But that's not quite right. Smerconish's track record is really more aligned with thinkers geared towards free inquiry. This is not moderate so much as individualist. It is a frame of mind that acknowledges that at some point in each of our adult lives, what once made sense for us will no longer apply. To deny it is to deny our authenticity.
In any case, he has ratings to consider, which is why it's important to remember that regardless of his stake in the ground being about politics, and the question of whether he is "Republican enough" notwithstanding, Smerconish's success-to-date correlates to his knack for uncovering and presenting what is interesting to others.
The bad
Going ensemble
The morning--was it two years ago?--I heard Smerconish's twenty-something engineer Greg Stocker refer to, in his patently unattractive voice, someone being admitted into their group's "circle of trust" I knew then that I should give up hope that the sudden annoyance of having all the show's crew members--producer TC Scornavacchi, then newscaster Joan Jones, and Stocker--talking on air would end. Instead, it was the new format, and it explained why the show had ceased to be the tightly honed, genuinely funny, entertaining, and informative masterpiece it had once been.
Now it was a clique. Smerconish began to occasionally pick on callers, Stocker began to play insulting, Howard Stern-esque sound effects during their calls, and a general nastiness crept in. The boss would berate Stocker on air, and fail to mask his annoyance with him and other members of his team if he felt it.
Philly Mag notes Smerconish's "sizeable ego." This is essential--and I think forgivable--for big success in talk radio. Even if Smerconish did always have a mean streak, it wasn't a distraction; in fact he'd hid it fairly well. To get where he's gotten, how could he not have a willingness to crack heads? But to do it publicly--that is Don Imus's shtick, and not how Smerconish built his following. His on-air "brand" of affability was disrupted.
There were times when guests turned on him, specifically Paolantonio and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Buzz Bissinger. Their respective gripes turned into them suddenly picking fights. It made for white knuckle listening, but Smerconish each time offered the men an opportunity to recover their dignity if they chose, even while being quite clear that he was offended and would not duck out of the fracas by way of a commercial break. He showed himself capable of walking the line between brawler and diplomat. And it made for excellent radio! Just as remarkable was that while both men did take a hiatus from the show, each eventually returned, as though nothing had happened. Very classy.
But now, the phalanx of raucous voices surrounding Smerconish, often egged on by the host himself, had the air of a slightly out of control keg party. As a listener, I began to distrust him. Someone might get hurt. Who would it be--a caller, a guest? And for what reason? And when would he stop wasting precious minutes on solipsistic blather between himself and the others who weren't saying anything remotely interesting?
I remarked to a friend and fellow listener at the time that it seemed Smerconish had unleashed his inner frat boy, that he was no longer being Michael Smerconish but performing Michael Smerconish. He'd stopped being entirely focused on his guests and had turned instead to getting an immediate reaction from his on-air coterie. The show had gone from Smerconish choosing the topics, to him being the topic. Ho hum. If we were lucky, I'd said, his ratings would go down, shaking the adult Smerconish back to his senses. (My friend agreed--and says he has yet to listen to the show with regularity any more.)
Mistaking a show offering nothing for a show about nothing
Instead, the dysfunction grew. The line up of snappy segments with "you'll-only-find-it-here" discussions between Smerconish and his guests-- fascinating, funny, or often feral people whom Smerconish seemed always game to let upstage him if it made for good listening (imagine Cybill Shepherd in the eight o'clock hour, most likely inebriated, speaking uncensored about her "irregularity"), gave way to increasingly more boring (and wince-inducing) banter between the big man and his underlings. Why would he want Stocker fawning over him? Not classy. Why publicly embarrass your employees? More bully than brawler.
If Smerconish's new team format actually had equated with the soulful, albeit cynical, introspection on dysfunction that is the hallmark of Smerconish's hero, Larry David, whose shows "about nothing" have made him an icon, it might have worked. But too often, Smerconish offered barely more than a litany of self-centered, banal ramblings to his posse, such as what he did over the week end, a là the kind of Facebook entries he excoriated in his Philadelphia Inquirer column (he has since created a Facebook fan page for himself).
Meanwhile, rather than reign Smerconish in, as an effective wing man will, Stocker swabbed his boss with obsequious inanities, while Scornavacchi routinely tut-tutted him for his immaturity, but not his lack of focus.
So, was I right? Philly Mag reports a stunning 43% recent dip in Smerconish's ratings. The article attributes it to listeners possibly having presidential election fatigue. But, since other national politically based talkers such as Rush Limbaugh have not been hit by this, I don't buy it as the only reason. More likely, many listeners like myself just got bored, period.
Being insecure, not introspective
If there is any attempt now on Smerconish's part to be introspective, instead it telegraphs insecurity. Philly Mag portrays Smerconish as a Nervous Nell ("on tenterhooks" and "worried")--sounding apologetic ahead of time, just in case he blows it.
While preparing for this review, including reading various tweets by Smerconish et al, and listening to the host and his entourage repeatedly reference how America needs a voice like his, that he is not alone, that he knows others want this, that the suburbs must be heard, that...etc., a troubling impression formed. With each fidgety reassurance that tuning in to his program is not a mistake, Smerconish sounds worried we are in fact making a dreadful mistake. He seems to have lost touch with the very thing that makes him so appealing: his unquenchable curiosity, which is really more like a gusto bordering on recklessness--the kind that makes people tune in.
Philly Mag's statement that Smerconish's national success depends on new listeners abandoning their "ideological bunkers" is imprecise. The typical profile of a Smerconish listener, as evidenced by the consistent type of caller he's attracted over the past decade, is not that of a True Believer, but of a person who has more questions than answers. If Smerconish is authentically interested in learning and sharing, his listeners have proven they're willing to follow. He should just trust himself when he says, "If I'm into it, I think I can get you into it." Otherwise, his self doubt will crowd out his passion and his show will assuredly go flat.
Fear factor
To assign Smerconish to the partisan ranks of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Rachel Maddow, and Al Franken, as Philly Mag does by suggesting that Smerconish has entered the realm of partisan talk radio is yet again not quite accurate. Smerconish's format has always been more closely aligned with Don Imus in that neither tend to dedicate an entire show to eviscerating the opposite political party. And lucky for Smerconish, Imus is a cranky bastard who's always "right", rarely sincere, always insulting, and long ago--even before his run-in with the Rutgers women's basketball team--began sounding bored to death. He has become irrelevant. The time is ripe for Smerconish to move in and become the nation's morning man.
Maybe sitting on the precipice of what he says he's wanted much of his life--a nationally syndicated radio program--Smerconish has gotten just a little freaked out. Perhaps fear pushed him back into his adolescent comfort zone of fraternal head butting and general silliness. Whatever the reason, we need him to snap out of it.
Signs of hope
For the few days I did listen recently, the kindness and respect with which Smerconish addressed his callers--now calling from places far beyond his familiar Delaware Valley--was reassuring. His topics and guests were intriguing--the ethics of a donkey basketball game as discussed by a noted ethicist and law professor; the former FDA Chairman David Kessler's crusade to deconstruct faux-foods served in chain restaurants; whether the Delaware Department of Transportation's diversity training is stupid or stupendous all kept me tuned in. And Smerconish approached his topics with the even-handedness, albeit with a sense of humor, that the general news media is supposed to exhibit, but often forgets. But the vapid chitchat, puzzling sound effects, and other amatuerish ticks remain, especially the six minutes at the top of the hour when the show is only broadcast locally in Philadelphia.
Still, despite the show's weaknesses, it's unlike anything else in national syndication, and for that reason, I suspect a combination of the curiosity factor along with there genuinely being people who recognize something of themselves in Smerconish will equal a nice spike in his ratings--at first. But, particularly in the Philadelphia metro area, where listeners remember the old Smerconish days, if the show doesn't tighten up, I think his ratings will drop and what's "different" will be left to the Dennis Millers and Bill O'Reilleys of the airwaves, with their comedy monologues and full-out verbal butt-kickings--even if they trend more towards raging at than engaging with the audience.
Why does Smerconish's success even matter?
News flash: we're at a pivotal point in American history. There is a dawning of consciousness in our post-Christian, Socialist-leaning times that no one group has all the answers. But, it's hard to have a meaningful conversation about the implications of this if the only ones talking are people convinced they are correct, perfect even (Limbaugh, Hannity, Maddow, Franken, etc.).
Smerconish has demonstrated he not only knows how to ford the narrows between partisan groups, he is willing to--it's his nature, in fact, to want to. We need this kind of grounded discourse in America more than ever. If we're to keep from turning on each other, we should be asking questions about everything and of everyone--and then listening, which Smerconish has handily demsontrated he can do.
Does this kind of give-and-take talk have a place on radio? Smerconish has already proven that it does. But if he doesn't continue to expand and fill that need, it won't be long before someone else will. That's why he needs to pull it together and get his head out of his, well, you know...
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