Imagine having a conversation with your friends about sports. Maybe you guys are hanging out at a bar, having a good time, and enjoying the debate back and forth. Nothing gets too heated, because you all know how each other thinks anyway, so you enjoy the company and take part in the banter.
Then, another random bar patron butts into the conversation, completely unannounced. You don't know him, you've never met him, but something you guys have said completely set him off.
"Man, the only good team in the PAC-10 is USC. Trojans, baby! Wooo!"
You look around at your buddies, wondering how this douchebag got involved. "Yeah, cool man. Whatever..."
These type of people are regular callers to sports talk radio.
No one cares what they think, and 99 percent of the time what they have to say isn't at all original or relevant. Yet, for some reason, these people feel compelled to make their voices heard over the airways of sports radio.
The truth is, nobody cares, guys.
Callers are an overabundant annoyance in an already annoying medium. Sports talk radio is basically one show after the other in which the host or hosts sit there and spew their opinions on the world of sports. Sometimes they're entertaining, sometimes they're obnoxious, sometimes they just stir up unnecessary controversy. But its a medium that has its followers, and people love to hear about sports.
When the hosts open up the phone lines, however, is when things get unbearable. People call in, and are often more misinformed than the hosts, and a whole lot less interesting or charismatic. As soon as the host says "let's go to the phones" it makes you want to switch stations, just to avoid the rambling, unoriginal thoughts that are about to fill the airwaves. The warning lights go on in your head, as you hear yet another caller begin by saying "Yeah, um, listen, about this whole Brett Favre thing ... I think it's really stupid, and um ... he should stay retired." It's embarrassing for me as a listener, hearing how bad these callers are. And yet, they're a staple of the show, often on for large chunks of time!
After listening to enough sports talk, you begin to notice that there are three types of callers, each of whom clutter the airwaves in their own unique way:
The Nervous Guy - Maybe he actually had something important to say when he dialed the phone number, but we'll never know. As he is put on hold, his heart is pounding so fast he can't think straight, and by the time he is put on the air, the sudden realization has rendered coherent thought impossible for him. So he stumbles through a sentence or two, utters a lot of "um's", takes too long to get to his point and doesn't add anything to the conversation. The host usually responds with shorts pause "... OK thanks caller," and moves on quickly.
The Pranksters - These are the same type of people who laugh at their own jokes. They'll call in, pretending to be a real caller, wait until they're on the air, and then try to say something like "I have a huge penis" before they get cut off by the annoyed host. Then they laugh their asses off with their buddies before taking another hit off the bong.
The Lifers - These guys truly believe that their calls are a regular part of the programming schedule. They're usually unemployed, allowing them to spend their entire day listening to the show and waiting for the right moment to call in. Lacking any sort of social life or real friends to talk sports with, these guys calls into the show every day - sometimes more than once - to give his thoughts on the day's sports news. Sometimes they will even give themselves clever nicknames so that they can be easily identified, things like "Kool-Aid Guy" or "Mike from up North." Deep down inside, these people think that they're friends with these hosts they've never met, the same way that World of Warcraft players think that they're best friends with their guild of elves.
Sports talk radio is driven by talk, so taking callers kills time and makes things easier on the host. But in the end, the callers seem unnecessary.
Listeners are tuning in to listen to the opinions of the host, not the ramblings of Joe From The Beach. Callers usually only get about a minute to speak, which doesn't leave a lot of time to give an informed opinion. And the callers are never used to spark or continue a conversation, only to fill time before the next commercial break. We'll get a little stuttering from the Nervous Guy, an attempted joke from a Prankster (who always manages to get past the screeners) and the expected daily call from the Lifer, and by the end of it, the host thinks "another day down, let's do it all again tomorrow."
Does anyone remember a time where a caller made everyone stop and say "I never thought of that?" Of course not, because in a medium that is driven by 24/7 talk, all of the angles of a particular issue have already been addressed by the host, leaving callers to only be able to repeat the same things over and over. Anyone who actually has anything interesting to say has the good sense to bring it up with their friends, instead of wasting their time for 30 seconds on the radio.
Just because you posses the ability to call in to a sports radio show doesn't mean you posses the ability to be intelligent or entertaining. If you don't have anything original to say, then it's best for all of us if you don't say anything at all.
1 comment:
callers seem to be low risk, high reward kind of deals. For the most part, they just waste time, but every once in a while you'll get a crazy caller who rants on something or a caller who piques the talk show host's patience. The negative? They happen maybe like 5 percent of the time. The positive? When they do happen, you talk about what happened with the "unique" caller for days.
Overall, I don't like callers anymore than you, but IMO, I would rather have callers who have the potential to say something crazy or provoking than a Mark Few-esque coach who just bores us with BS for ten minutes.
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