Robinson off the radio soon?
From what I've been told the possibility is there. Regardless of the status of his contract with WICO, I'm sure the station could buy him out at any time should they feel it's warranted. I seem to recall that the ratings book ended about the last of June so results will be forthcoming.
But I've come not to bury John Robinson, or to overly praise him for that matter, except where I feel it's due. I'm just going to give an objective look at where I feel his program is and maybe where improvements can be made. I've caught all but a handful of John's broadcast days as a regular listener; further, I have witnessed the show in operation on one occasion as a "co-host" (April 13th) plus I'm one of his more frequent "serial callers". The Robinson on the Radio show made its debut March 12 so this review comes at the end of his 17th week on the air, or about 80 shows in.
What intrigued me about his show was the idea of a local afternoon radio program. WICO was making a push for more of a local presence and not just airing syndicated programming all the time (except for Bill Reddish's morning drive show). So they hired John to do a one hour stint in the afternoon. John had no previous radio experience but pestered the brass at WICO long enough to convince them to take a chance on the unproven talent. And he's got a helluva lead-in show as he follows Rush Limbaugh. Thus, the opportunity for success seemed pretty good despite the lack of experience - it's not like John's totally unknown in Salisbury since he's an established businessman.
John's show generally runs with one of three formats: either a guest for the hour, a guest during the first half-hour, or no guest at all. The shows that generally work the best are ones where he has a guest. But the caveat to that is when he runs through the prewritten questions and goes off script, the show bogs down most of the time. I was disappointed when I found out (via his own blog) about the prewritten questions because to me it implies a lack of preparation. I had my own list of talking points when I was on as a "co-host" but I really looked at that as backup material and looked to John to carry the conversation. After all, people generally listen to the host of the show and the job of a good one is to have a interesting conversation with the guest - it just so happens there's a microphone between the two. I know John Robinson and Bill Reddish can't be compared in terms of radio experience, but when I do the morning show with Bill it's just like a conversation between two friends bullshitting about politics because Bill's handled his share of interviewees, 99.9% of them professionally.
It does help John to have Captain Jim there during the show. I noticed that at the start Captain Jim wasn't as much a part of the program as he is now, so it's almost become a dual effort. But please John, lose the "warm, cuddly, lovable" platitudes...oh man, I feel sorry for poor Captain Jim when you gush like that. It was funny shtick for a couple days, now it's old.
I have to say that one thing I like about John is that he's fairly animated. You would never confuse him with a droll NPR host. The two are close cousins politically but in terms of style they don't come anywhere near each other. John just has to be real careful about going out on tangents though because he'll go from one subject to the next abruptly and never get back to the one he started on. It's particularly annoying when he does it with a guest. John's show can get very scatterbrained and because I'm the ADHD type, I can relate to that trait. It doesn't mean I care for it a great deal though.
The other real problem I have with the program is that it's still not run all that professionally. He's not always prepared as he'll leave his computer at home, or doesn't think to check the phone lines or give out the phone number and he's quite undisciplined when it comes to airing his commercial spots. I suppose I'm used to the Limbaugh format as far as commercial timing and number of spots goes, but I'm sure there's been a couple irate sponsors who got their commercials skipped during John's show. Now I'm not a huge fan of commercials but those are the people who in essence write his paycheck. So he should give them a bit more respect and rein himself in to get all of the spots done.
And then there's the minor quibble about him promising more bumper music but not delivering. Nope, I don't care much for Vanilla Ice, sorry. There's much better '80's and early '90's stuff I can think of for good bumper music.
Now there are some good things about the show too. Obviously there's things I like or I would've quit listening long ago!
I like how he has Jimmy Sweet on weekly to discuss the Shorebirds. Yes, I'm a baseball fan and as regular readers know each Thursday during the season is Shorebird of the Week day. It might help the program if he could get some freebies like Shorebird tickets to give away, I'm surprised he doesn't do that already. (Ok, he's done it once or twice with his own seats when he knew he wouldn't be there.) I'm guessing that may be out though simply because another company's radio station airs the Shorebirds games. But maybe the Orioles?
On the whole though John does manage to secure (or maybe "beg for" is a better term) a good variety of guests on the show. Yeah, I'm not wild about home mortgages or poetry but others might not care for Jimmy Sweet either. And while I'd like to see John Robinson and Joe Albero getting along better, to me it's good that Joe's not as much of a feature on the show anymore. I'm stepping no further into that pitched battle, so enough said.
To be frank I'm not certain that many of the changes I'd suggest will be implemented. In my gut I think this radio experiment may be coming to an end for various reasons - ratings most important, but I sort of wonder if Delmarva Broadcasting wouldn't be looking for a young host to do a full afternoon drive-time talk show from 3 to 6. With John doing this as a sideline (and claiming it's costing him thousands in business) maybe ratings that aren't stellar will make the decision for him.