A Radio Rut

Sunday March 11th, 2012 - Kenosha, WI

   Tonight was our four year anniversary show of The Mothership Connection on WLIP in Kenosha, WI. It was by far our busiest program to date, with a steadily consistent flow of calls and visits from former co-hosts, past guests and loyal listeners. It was a giant party.

   What a blast it was to hear from one long time friend of the show after another for four solid hours. We would be talking with one person and the phones kept ringing with a line of others waiting to have their turn to tell us how much they liked being part of the show.

   This is by far and away the longest association I’ve had with any radio project I’ve ever been a part of, but that’s not saying much. The second longest was my tenure at The Loop in Chicago which was just over a year and a month. That was the big leagues, this is not.

   As much fun as it can be, and it often is, The Mothership Connection is little more than a glorified hobby. It’s a chance to play radio once a week, and exercise my chops as far as hosting a talk show. On The Loop and most of my other radio jobs, I was the smart mouth sidekick on the morning show who could come up with a quick line before the next song.

   Hosting a talk show is a completely different energy. It’s a tight rope walk without nets, and that’s exactly how I like it. It forces me to be constantly alert on the air, and ready for anything. A countless number of things can go wrong on any live broadcast, and I’ve had to adjust on the fly as has everyone else involved with the show. It’s always an adventure.

   That being said, adventures don’t pay bills. I’m at the point now I need to start turning a buck with this hobby or get off the air. Four years is a long time to try to breathe life into a project of any kind, but every time I seriously consider quitting I always opt to continue.

   I know we have listeners, just not enough of them. And those we have we really need to be able to identify and contact easily to inform them of upcoming broadcasts, live events or even interact with each other. And we need to record our shows to share with everyone who doesn’t live in earshot, which is 99.999999% of the world. The internet is our key.

   Whatever station we happen to be on really doesn’t matter. I’m surprised AM radio still exists quite frankly. I can’t say it will four years from now, so that’s an even bigger cause for alarm and concern. Doing what we’re doing now isn’t going to cut it. We need to take a long, hard honest look at everything about the show and see what can be built upon.

   After four years of significant effort, I am highly dissatisfied with the results as a whole of the show. I’ve had chances to meet and interview some unbelievably interesting people along the way, but there’s still a lot more I could do to kick this into a much higher gear.

   Like most other entertainment products, most of it comes down to marketing. We aren’t even close to where I know we can be, and that’s frustrating. It was great to hear from our old friends, but to get to whatever the next level is we have to basically start over again.

Posted via email from Dobie Maxwell's "Dented Can" Diary