Flu Season is a shot in the arm for talk radio

From where I sit On The Kowch, flu season makes for great talk radio.

From SARS in 2003 to the Swine flu, the Bird flu, H1N1 and the annual Fall Flu it all makes for great talk radio. Albeit, the hosts do get pretty tired of this story very quickly - much like music DJ's get tired of a number one song by the time it's a hit with their audience.

I remember the battles with hosts and producers when I decided we would carry the daily 3pm SARS press conference when that flu scared everyone away from Toronto. Day after day for several weeks we aired the SARS updates live. How many people infected, how many people hospitalized and how many people killed.

Hosts were in open revolt about how many times can you hear medical personnel on the radio tell listeners the importance of washing their hands. But I stayed the course and the press conferences were aired live on a daily basis.

I saw it as a public service to listeners who were concerned about SARS. People were so paranoid about SARS that if someone sneezed at work, the boss would tell them to go home and stay there until they were better. The same thing happened with H1NI a few years later. People were frightened and couldn't get enough of H1NI information on the radio.

The SARS press conferences provided a spike in ratings during the 3 o'clock hour.

Later in Montreal, when H1N1 swept through the city, I lined up a doctor to do a daily update on the morning show. In the afternoon we did our own H1N1 update at a set time every day during afternoon drive.The big issue during the H1N1 flu scare was whether or not to get the H1N1 flu shot. Huge controversy that fueled talk shows for days.

Like the SARS press conferences in Toronto, the H1N1 updates in Montreal helped boost the ratings.

In both Montreal and Toronto I pushed talk show hosts to debate whether or not people should get the annual Fall flu shot. We would book experts urging the shot to debate other experts who claimed the flu shot was useless. We would promote these shows on air to generate interest with listeners.  We ran promos encouraging listeners to get their flu shots or at least to consult their doctor before rejecting the idea.

Hosts were split on getting the flu shot which attracted even more listeners to the talk shows.

From where I sit On The Kowch, the annual Fall flu season is a shot in the arm for talk radio. If you're not talking about it on the radio you are missing a great opportunity of providing important health information to listeners and capitalizing on the debate for ratings. Listeners don't get sick of hearing shows about the flu on the radio. Survey shows: they listen big time!

Steve was in charge of programming Canada's two largest newstalk radio stations for 14 years

You can email Steve at steve@kowchmedia.com

Follow kowchmedia on Facebook