TBTL the podcast: day one

Too Beautiful to Live started yet another new life podcasting from Luke Burbank's home office from his house in the Mt. Baker neighborhood.

Despite Burbank was fired last Thursday, and has left the building, protest signs left by TBTL fans on the Eastlake building which houses the Bonneville cluster were strangely left in place all day Monday.

Will there be a struggle for the TBTL "concept?" The Bonneville geniuses gave Luke Burbank a long leash to create something then eventually throttled him with it. Could they now be hoping to cash in on whatever Burbank can make into money? 

The answer, of course, is: hell, yes.

(There is no concept, no show without Burbank... this is a show whose concept precluded fill-ins for the host. The irony of the show's name has shifted into hyper-irony, making the name alone probably worth 10 times more).

The Stranger's Eli Sanders asked Program Director Rod Arquette, who, in fact, owns the TBTL concept?

"I don't know who owns that," Arquette said. "We're going to have to negotiate."

Burbank grabbed the TBTL domaine names long ago, and the station is still hosting the site with the TBTL podcast. Luke is on the payroll until the end of his contract in December, which gives him some time get TBTl up and running on its own or with another earth entity.

Meanwhile, the podcast got off to a nervous start today as the new "studio" got up and running, but also got up rather auspiciously with a big name get.

Adam Corolla, who self-describes as a "legendary figure in the podcasting world" was the first guest on the show. After being fired last February when LA's KLSX flipped from talk to music, the comedian/morning host took his show on-line, and a daily podcast on iTunes. He almost immediately became number one podcast in the country with a half million downloads a day. Corolla does his show from a Inside a converted garage in Glendale. Fuck the FCC, he says.

Carolla told Luke that he doesn't think terrestrial radio is necessarily evil, "But they're in the business to make money and the population is getting dumb. so they're going to feed 'em some Lady Ga-Ga, and Justin Timberlake and make some money."

There's great hope, he says, in that wifi for cars is very close to reality. Ford has it in some trucks, he says. While the listenership ages, dies off and dumbs down. "It's up to us to find our own outlets, and I do believe there are more smart people than they give credit for."

This'll be fascinating to watch, the emphasis now for Luke, and Jen, must be keeping the level of the content consistent while marketing the show in a marketplace that's an unseen universe to the 35-64 target demo of KIROFM. They already knows this, they've been mining this niche, but now they must pretend it does not exist. There's a bigger pie to grow- that will be daunting, but the rewards will be commensurate. (as our mother used to say). 

Comments

[bojangles]

This'll be fascinating to watch, the emphasis now for Luke, and Jen, must be keeping the level of the content consistent while marketing the show in a marketplace that's an unseen universe to the 35-64 target demo of KIROFM. They already knows this, they've been mining this niche, but now they must pretend it does not exist. There's a bigger pie to grow- that will be daunting, but the rewards will be commensurate. (as our mother used to say).

LOL

How about selling ad time?

The current record for ad sales for a podcast is $300K.

With 9 to 10,000 podcast downloaders (as someone else previously pointed out - 200,000 downloads into 23 shows) they can expect to fetch about fifty bucks per :30 (presumably they'd use a non-traditional sponsorship model but that gives a good benchmark).

Expect TBTL to go away after Burbank has to file for unemployment when his severance runs out in January and looks for a job with Metro Traffic.

Of course, according to Hood they'll all be millionaires by that time so it won't matter (just like he's reported TBTL has been a screaming success for the last 2 years and the people here who claimed the show would be canned as the close of Burbank's 2-year no-cut contract approached were insane).

The only thing that'll be interesting to watch at this point is the death clock start ticking after the contract remnants gravy train stops running ... some of us (those good with recognizing a really mediocre, derivative product that was unsucesfful in attracting the young demographic it was supposed to) started watching the death clock after the first month of their terrestrial broadcast. Others spent that time jumping around on the sidelines waving pom-pons.

Once again - this is not a decent product and was never able to attract 18-34 y/o listeners with a few anecdotal exceptions. As someone recently wrote on the message board of Hood's favorite news source:

I was always curious why, if KIRO wanted a radio show for youth, they got a mid-30s dude and a cougar to host it. The few times I listened it seemed very contrived and forced. Like having your grandparents over to a kegger. I rather felt embarrassed for Burbank. The tomfoolery could be cute but Burbank should be at a stage in his life now where he is maturing his product, not running around like Peter Pan on E.

(Obviously I wasn't the only one who thought that way if they were only pulling in 1.4% of their radio listening target demo at 7PM.)

[Duffman]

I still think that Luke Burbank is an incredible talent with very acute accumen, excellent memory for facts and an extremely good personality in dealing with people.
I would advise him to bone up on his political data one way or the other and re-energize himself as either a left or right political talk show host. I believe he then would have potential on both a local and national venue. People (listeners) are looking for passion and perceived sound judgement in today's talk shows. The time spent in a vehicle and/or commute is very valuable and those who can garner a listener's attention for that time period has incredible persuasion potential.
I believe that although Luke may not want to do this (i.e. be like 'all the others') I think he could do it very well and built up a following to the point where he could again throw in a bit more of what he likes to do. Dinkin around with his off-the-wall patter probably will not work for him (although I liked TBTL), as folks just can't get fired-up by one-liners and superflous banter.
I do agree that at his age he should get more serious about subject matter and dispense with his litany of 'like-phrases'.
Like he would listen to me any way...ha.

[fairlyspiritual]

The show was geared to people just like them. People, who are tired of predictable right wing and left wing radio. They dealt with everything else. Which made the show fascinating on some days and incredibly mundane on others. Regardless, it was frequently more interesting than the predictable, slowly dieing format of talk radio.

[AuthenticAndrew]

bojangles, Duffman: Burbank should not "grow up" just to suit his biological age. If their ages were not already known a person might assume they're were 28 y/o or so, not far removed from 33 or 34. Your criticism smells of jealousy, as if coming from people who wished youth hadn't left them behind, or as if you hate TBTL to begin with and are inventing reasons to disparage it. Jen Andrews is like 36 and married, how on god's earth could she be a cougar?! The fact that the show didn't connect with enough local talk listeners doesn't validate all the reason you can think of to criticise the show.

Without question there is a huge potential audience, the question is whether those people will find the podcast or not. If the show makes an effort to be a great podcast instead of a great show for geriatric radio then it might do very well.

[Duffman]

You're entitled to your opinion, but (as usual) you are wrong.

[Corporate Suit]

You can't sell podcasts. Luke is lucky to get a paycheck unril Xmas. Wonder if he's sharing any of the money with Jen? NOT!

[AuthenticAndrew]

attn chucks: A few weeks ago I asserted that your opposition to universal health care is due to your rabid and unfettered racism, well here's a dissertation on that idea: http://mobile.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/09/15/race/index.html

You claim that you don't want to pay other people's health bills but astute observers know that people like you simply don't want to pay for the health bills of other ethnicities. You're acting on a primal urge to stick with your own herd. You feel first and think second. Or maybe I'm giving you too much credit. If you continue to oppose the government option, you will continue to symbolically place that white pointed hood over your head and keep race relations stuck in the 1920's.

[AuthenticAndrew]

wow you really showed me Duff.

[AuthenticAndrew]

oh, credit to the Dave Ross show for bringing that wonderfully insightful thesis to my attention.

[chucks]

Because of my first wife, two of my children are of mixed race.
Fuck you and your phony racist accusations Andy.
Government is already way to big and to give those morons control over another 6th of our economy is stupid.
You libs are the biggest racists on the face of this planet. Every thing that you bigots discuss has a racial component to it.
Chuck drives a brown Rolls Royce so he must be a racist. Brown people are subservient so the must be driven.
Chuck drives a yellow Cougar convertible so he must hate Asian people. Chuck drives a red F150 so he must hate Indians. Chuck has a champagne T-Bird so...........
Chuck watched Roots twice, he hates Black people.
You have been hanging 'round joanie way too long.

[Duffman]

It's Okay, I want you to keep trying tho...never, never, never give up!

[Duffman]

It's in fashion today for LP's to accuse one of being racist. Coming straight from their talking points on what to do when you can't cope with someone of a different persuasion.

[AuthenticAndrew]

Oh sure, first it's "health care is a privelege, not a right", then "I don't want to pay for over-eater's health problems" and then it's "government can't do anything right" ... a myriad smoke screens and excuses to make sure your money helps the people you favor and not the ones you don't. If you're neighbor had cancer and asked for a donation to pay for his injections I suspect you would help because your neighbor is so close and it's so personal. You'd suddenly forget all these bullshit excuses if it were a member of your church.

The truth is that I want conservatives to think about these things. I don't believe most of them are racist by choice, but as I said above, pack mentality. You can have a black friend and still look down on blacks because in your mind you'll decide your black friend in an exception to the rule.

This opposition to national healthcare tells the deprived minorities that white conservatives have ill will towards them, and while I'm not conservative I am white and I don't wish to be mistaken for people such as yourselves.

[AuthenticAndrew]

Burbank swears up a storm on the podcast. I like it.

[Mark C.]

These guys claiming to be radio pros who claim Luke Burbank, Jen Andrews and their TBTL are no-talent failures are just like the Republicans. They sit on their collective fat tookuses and criticize in retrospect, yet put forth no ideas to save radio.

Installing the Eternal Fill-in, Frank Shiers for 4 hrs on weeknights is the kind of brilliance that has put the once dominant news talk format in the shit can.

Guess it's back to great prgramming ideas like putting up a new oldies station as each generation reaches middle age. Thats "old school" programming at its finest!

Guess these guys are like my dad in the aluminum industry, "Don't stop poisoning the air and the ground until I get my fat-ass pension and am out of here." They fought all the environmental changes, spent nothing on the future, and got the hell out. The industry collapsed behind them.

They will squeeze the last drop out of radio, then hit out for Arizona.

[ryder]

Good lord, some of you are so bitter.

[AprilMayJune]

Thank you for bringing that up, Ryder. I thought it was just me being too "peace and love" ish. I am giving up acrimony; it is bad for the soul.

[Ric]

I am so in TBTL's demo and I hated that program.

too free form, too chatty not enough meat.

[Zintradi]

I liked TBTL because It was a nice break from he talk radio I listened to all day. I liked have a talk show where they talked about whatever came to mind and generally tried to avoid politics.