Hallway Ratings and The Breakfast Table

My go-to method of knowing if something is working

While I was at Sirius, I became committed to that I have come to call The Hallway Ratings.

The offices of Sirius New York were filled with people that had worked in radio for decades, Sometimes I thought it was some sort of Radio Afterlife - kind of like that last season of Lost, where we were all dead but none of us knew it. Hey there’s Howard Stern, and there’s Pat St. John*, and there’s the guy from the B-52s, and there’s half the jocks from WNEW-FM, and there’s someone I worked with two jobs ago and…..

These professionals were not going to be wowed by Just Another Show, or Just Another Pretty Good Show. They’d heard it all, and made some pretty amazing stuff themselves.

Then there would be the days where I was making my way back to my office from the studio and tell me what a great show we had done. Again, these are people who had radios on at their desks for 8, 10, 12 hours a day, most of them starting off by listening to Howard who is a once-in-two-generations talent.

So for someone to stop me in the hall to talk about what we had just done really meant a lot. Those are the Hallway Ratings.

I’d love to wing some anecdotes here (I’m tempted to dive into having Gallagher smashing watermelons on the radio, but I’ll at that to the list of draft posts) but I need to get to work as another one of my Leading Indicators has fired off this morning - The Breakfast Table.

This morning, Harry and Meghan made the breakfast table.

Yesterday, I saw the story about Meghan and Harry’s charity Archewell being “delinquent” and knowing a sexy headline when I see one, I tipped host Mark Francis off that we’d probably have a bonus episode today.

Sure enough, at breakfast this morning my wife brought up the delinquent topic. THAT’S what I’m looking for. In all formats - music, comedy, royals - PLAY THE HITS. If the normies are talking about it, you’ve got a hit.

Some consultants will tell you to end a topic before it runs out of steam. I have always strongly disagreed going back to my days of shotgunning callers at WOR. If the topic is hot, ride it, then when the horse dies keep riding it for another hour. (Audiences cycle, ya know).

As much fun as this Delinquency is (what a great loaded work), it has made for a busy morning. I tracked down Deep Crown, the wonderful Royal Insider who has befriended us (and who has a substack of his own, as well as a weekly subscriber-only episode on the Palace Intrigue feed.) DC gave me some wonderful “quotage” (a word I strangely use instead of just saying “quotes”), and while I had him he gave me some WOW for Wednesday’s episode of Palace Intrigue.

My name-check of Pat St. John reminds me of his wonderful photo album. I have had the pleasure of Pat showing it to me at least twice, and it’s an amazing Who’s Who as Pat flips through it and genuinely, humbly explains “This is me and…”

As you think to yourself, “John Lennon. Yeah I recognize him.”

“And this is me with…”

Yes, David Bowie. I recognize him hahaha.

I say that with love…as Pat isn’t showing off, he just has an awesome book of photos.

Actually I’d love to have Deep Crown show HIS photo album to Pat.

“And this is me with…”

Queen Elizabeth, yeah we know….

OK, I gotta get to work - the roast of Tom Brady is still paying dividends for Daily Comedy News, and Jerry Seinfeld is caught up in a few controversies.

JUST ONE MORE THING

In light of Jerry Seinfeld in the news, Should Jerry Seinfeld Go Political In His Comedy?

Until next time, PLAY THE HITS!