We had a conversation with a station last week, inquiring about the phone calls you hear on Liveline. It’s a silent rumor within the industry that radio utilizes AI-generated and/or staged callers, whether we create them ourselves or use a caller service. For some reason, it is difficult for some people to believe that our Liveline phones constantly ring and we get compelling content from nearly each and every caller every hour, without scripting or planning anything.
Never in the five years of doing Liveline have we used staged calls or even asked a specific person to call in. Every single call is recorded (and edited) live that night. AI-generated content has never played a part in any aspect of Liveline. Another nationally syndicated host who uses and reuses staged calls said to me, “I bet you get calls from the same thirty people.” While that one is partially true, isn’t that our goal? Creating true fans and participants who want to be involved?
I started listening to John Garabedian’s Open House Party at age 10 in 2011 and was one of “those people,” but I wasn’t alone. As time goes by, if you’re building a large following of fans that number will only grow. We have characters on the show who call in spontaneously with no prompt or prior knowledge. There’s nothing phony about it. We also have a great majority of new callers every night. Some may never call back again, while others may just become regulars. You also get kids and people who can’t put two sentences together. You just don’t hear them.
The proof in these legit phone calls is all the subtle things that shows using fake phone calls don’t have; the caller and myself stepping on each other, sometimes poor signal or bad audio quality, the spontaneity of the content, and the extremely diverse base of callers young, old, men and women. That’s a subtle part of what makes it sound real!
We get dozens of calls and triple the number of texts each show, thus there is not a single reason to fake anything. It also would be extremely expensive and time-consuming. Worst of all, it would sound “fake.” And for stations using phone banks with 9 second phone clips, listeners get absolutely no time to emotionally engage with the “caller.” In a well-edited real call if there is a little “mini-story” drawn out of the caller which is relevant or interesting, the song they request becomes secondary. Having the caller talk about why they love the song they are requesting sets it up and will hold other listeners through the bit and the song, even if it’s a song they might not particularly like.
Unfortunately, few stations get dozens of phone calls every hour, often because listeners aren’t in the habit of calling, also because they don’t have a personality who is able or is allowed to entertain and connect with the listener. An engaging personality will quickly turn listeners into fans. Until Spotify and the other music streamers became ubiquitous, Hit Radio was all about playing “more music” and “ten in a row.” Today, major radio hit stations see the damage that caused with younger listeners, once DSPs were available, and have recently seen success by adding personality-driven dayparts with engaging hosts and content to build cume and extend TSL.
The goal on every call is putting the listener first, drawing them out, and to edit well. This builds an engaging flow with a large community of callers and listeners who tune in to hear people they emotionally bond to, are entertained by, and made to feel like they aren’t alone. It’s the unique superpower we as a radio industry have over streaming services and every other form of entertainment. Liveline is blessed with a huge national listener base, which enables us to get more interesting and engaging calls than a single station.
Radio people visit the studio and watch us do the show once to recognize the high workload yet simplicity of our operation and how quick, tight and well-produced it is. Only then, can someone fully grasp the live essence of the show, something Radiocraft’s Scotty Meyers now tells all affiliates (and future ones) after seeing it himself. Those are real people screaming, yelling, laughing and existing in the background. Because of the live requests, there’s so much nuance and detail to the production while following the basic rules of what goes into the music scheduling, call editing and show formatting.
This is not meant to discredit the success and effort of popular morning show bits with staged couples arguing or prank calls. Some of them are extremely well executed and entertaining. But that’s not what Liveline does, and it’s definitely not what we believe creates fans and friends.
Liveline continues to grow this week, with the addition of its second Canadian affiliate and more. See the news here.
Buried Treasures of the Week
In yet another slow week for trending new music, Justin Bieber’s “DAISIES” continues its streak atop the Spotify charts, and debuted on our Liveline Top 20 Requests at #15. Drake’s “What Did I Miss?” loses its initial-release hype, falling in spins from #7 to #28, but ticks up in requests from #15 to #14. You can check out our top requests of the week below. Here are our Buried Treasures of the Week.
Natasha Bedingfield – “Pocketful of Sunshine”: Released in 2008, two years after the global sensation “Unwritten” which in 2023 became a staple Gold for Gen Z listeners. That song still gets a load of requests and sits in the Spotify Top 200 of many countries including the UK, USA and Australia. We were going to feature it earlier but it just seemed so obvious, and airplay actually did pick up for it after TikTok users revived the track.
By contrast, “Pocketful of Sunshine” gets requests only from 18-34 year old men and women. We are so lucky to have actual data from that age group, as it seems so hard to obtain today. It peaked at #3 on Hot AC and AC, #4 on Top 40, #5 on Billboard and finished #17 for the year 2008. It was her second and last hit. Now with 464 million streams on Spotify, where “Unwritten” has 1.4 billion.
OMC – “How Bizarre”: This 1997 novelty topped the Top 40 charts where it finished #5 most-played for the year, even reaching #5 at Hot AC and #20 on Rhythmic. It never charted on the Billboard Hot 100 because it was only released to radio in the United States. “How Bizarre” was Otara Millionaires Club’s only hit, but we occasionally get requests for it and it randomly appeared in the Spotify Top 200 this past week. We played it on our nightly “Who Sings It?” contest yesterday and all the lines were ringing.
Interesting to note, the more challenging we make the song, the more calls we get. Everyone knows that Rihanna sings “Rude Boy” and it doesn’t even feel like they have a chance at winning since it’s so easy. We hear this over and over again from callers. The secret is playing a song that everybody knows and loves, but not everybody can remember the artist.
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