benparsons.com

“corporate” vs. “indie”
“$” vs. “art”
“honesty” vs. “selling”

i’ve been talking about this a lot since seattle talk show TBTL got booted off the air from KIRO 97.3 where I’m an intern for the Ron & Don show. tbtl is still going, just in podcast form, and streaming on mynorthwest.com it’s a great show, and i highly recommend it. the problem is, tbtl got shit for ratings on-air. they outperformed other KIRO shows online (by far), on iTunes for example, and are continuing to reach a large audience without their terrestrial radio jobs, but it pulls into focus again that there is often this great divide between making “art”, being honest, “yourself”, etc. and profitability. luke burbank, host of tbtl was not willing to change the format of his show in order to better fit in with KIRO’s other shows (traditional, news-based talk shows) and they suffered for it.

i’m trying to figure out how i might be able to work in this industry and keep a job without losing my sense of purpose or sense of humor. i’m not interested in reaching the “largest possible audience” as most shows are, but i’m also not interested in being unimployed, or producing a podcast that makes negative $$ for years and years.

i’m not sure what the answer is- adam carolla has been doing really well with his free podcast, and has started to do some advertising on it as well. he’s no “average case” though, as he had a HUGE listener base out of KLSX (and affilliates all over the place) that followed him to podcast land. he also had a ton of money, and a contract which continues to pay him through the end of the year for work he ISN’T DOING on the radio. he ALSO has a bunch of other things going for him- TV shows, movies, even old stuff like the man show and love line help out. if he needs a few grand, he can just go do a standup routine somewhere and cash in. burbank and i are not in this position at all- but even burbank can do some stand up locally, and already has some sponsors for his online show.

what’s a guy like me to do?

PS. for a sample of TBTL check an earlier blog post of mine, called “dave bazan on ‘tbtl’. wow.”

some of you may know that i used to be FAR from a fan of this guy’s work (dave bazan). i just didn’t like pedro the lion, and i guess i never heard Headphones, but i have heard some of his new solo stuff, and it’s completely changed my mind.
here is a video from the dvd “david bazan, alone at the microphone”

anyway, it’s really beautiful music, and i feel there is something true about it that i can’t fully understand or describe. the point of this post, i guess, is that he was on KIRO 97.3 the other night with Luke Burbank’s “Too Beautiful To Live” doing some songs, as well as having a pretty deep discussion about growing up in conservative-evangelical culture. i really liked it a lot. here is a link to the 45 minutes or so,
right here