JOHN BATCHELOR IN LIVELY Q&A DISCUSSION
John Batchelor, host of the respected ABC Radio program "The John Batchelor Show," will join Brian Lamb on C-SPAN this Sunday, Sept. 23, at 8PM and 11PM ET.
Mr. Batchelor will share with C-SPAN's audience his unique perspective on the world at large in conversation similar to that of his respected radio program, which conducted interviews of guests in international time zones that ran the gamut from foreign correspondents to leaders of militant groups in the Middle East, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The New York Times characterized Mr. Batchelor's style as having the "rare distinction of being a source of sophisticated, and at times impossibly erudite, political debate and quirky subject matter." A wag called his former program "NPR on drugs."
On Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the fall of the World Trade Center, WABC-AM in New York City recruited John Batchelor to go on the air until Osama bin Laden was either killed or captured. Batchelor offered insightful commentary on such issues as the war on terrorism, the presidency, the national and global economies, and defending our civilization. The program, nationally syndicated under ABC Radio Networks, ran from Sept 12, 2001, till Sept 1, 2006.
Mr. Batchelor is a veteran novelist, and author of seven political romances as well as a short history of the Republican Party. Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in 1948, he attended Lower Merion High School and Princeton University. In 1976 he was graduated from Union Theological Seminary.
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SUBJECT: TALK RADIO - WABC NY, 9/11: JOHN BATCHELOR
Alert that C-SPAN's Brian Lamb spends an hour with John Batchelor on C-SPAN 1 Q&A this Sunday, September 23, at 8PM and 11PM ET.
The subject is Brian Lamb's praise for the discontinued ABC Radio Network John Batchelor Show, and Brian Lamb's puzzlement why a show that dominated its daypart in its markets, especially New York, in all demographics for five years, 9/12/01 - 9/1/06, is not back on the air.
In the conversation, Brian Lamb and John. Batchelor discuss talk radio, how the John Batchelor Show arose out of the crisis of 9/11, how the John Batchelor Show was surprisingly different from the routine talk radio, how John Batchelor prepared daily for the show, and how thecorrespondents on the show all over the world, six continents, were generous and tireless with their contributions over many years.
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Program Details
Watch Sunday, September 23, 2007, on C-SPAN at 8pm/11pm ET
Info: John Batchelor discusses his nightly radio show, which was cancelled last year by ABC Radio Network, and his work as a novelist. The John Batchelor show last aired on September 1, 2006. He has published 7 novels and is currently writing a historical novel on the events of 1916, which led to America's entry into the First World War.
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Here's an excerpt from the transcript (C-Span):
LAMB: Any conclusions after your radio show was stopped about what the American people want when it comes to radio?
BATCHELOR: No conclusions. Observations. Observations.
My audience, the puzzle, and I was told this was a puzzle. This isn't just me. Because I'm not a radio guy. I didn't come to media.
I was a novelist. And I'm a novelist now. I was an amateur in radio, so I listen to the pros.
The puzzle is, who is the audience, and who do the advertisers want to talk to? That's the puzzle for them always. And radio is going through a transformation now, as all media is, as television is, this medium, because of the Internet, because of broadband, because in your home with wireless at night you can get everything just right there on your machine. I do.
So, the puzzle is how to get that audience, where its eyeballs are or where its imagination is.
Well, I didn't know about that. I didn't approach it that way. I approached it in terms of you're thrown into a fight and you fight with what you've got. So I had a telephone, and I would call up smart people.
And here's what I learned. The largest audience, the largest, smartest audience, the largest, smartest, youngest audience, the largest, smartest, youngest audience that wants to make something of themselves or that has authority or wants to exercise authority better in the morning, those people are really smart. Really, really smart. And they're smarter than they know until they listen to somebody else who's just smart like them.
That's what they wanted. They wanted the smartest people out there talking about stories that they saw in the news, because they're smart. And there was no generality that worked.
I have a devoted taxi cab driver in New York, and he corresponds with me. But oft times, I would be coming back. You know I traveled to Israel many times in those five years, 15 or 16 times. And I would broadcast from Israel, and I would travel around Israel where I had a lot of fans. They would listen on the Internet eventually.
But I would be coming back into New York through Newark Airport or JFK, and I would give my passport at customs control, what became ICE.
And more than once, I would have a very friendly ex-New York Police Department guy, now with a really good federal job, saying, "Welcome back, John."
And I didn't know why he knew who I was. But of course, it made sense. He had overnight duty, he listened to the show.
So I learned that everybody listened. There was no generality that worked. Doormen listened. ICE supervisors listened. Airline pilots would tune in while they were waiting.
I get correspondence from airline pilots now who live in very unusual places. Airline pilots are wonderful. They might fly between Washington and Paris, but they live somewhere in the woods in Montana.
They would listen when they can, because it was a conversation, and it was an ongoing conversation.
I told it as a "once upon a time," a narration, with real smart, interested people, curious people. I avoided politicians. Maybe that was part of it. I avoided politicians as much as possible, because politicians are not paid to take risks, and politicians do not give you anything new. They give you what is already on the books. Or they give you their prospects for raising money. They don't tell you what they're curious about.
Whereas, if you talk to the, say, I'll pick an example here, the transportation editor of the "Financial Times," writing about the largest ports on the planet and who runs them, and how the sudden, well, you remember; we all remember the flap about whether a particular part of the Port of New York was going to be sold to so-called foreigners, whether he's curious about how all those companies finance themselves, why they're able to make money, where the money really is going.
He doesn't have the answers. He's curious. He's writing a report about it. And I talk to him that night.
And it's possible that you could say now, when it's not in the news, that it's dry. But that night it wasn't dry, and the audience cared about it. And they cared about it for the eight or nine minutes I talked about it.
And I think that, more than anything else, is my observation about what works on radio. Smart people, men and women on all five, six, I never talked to Antarctica. It was a disappointment. But I think I talked to all six continents, moving. People who are moving. People who have active lives and who are on this cell phone or on a hotel phone or on a sat phone. And you can feel the energy.
And the folk at night, here in the East it's 10 o'clock, and in California it's seven, folk at night who have lost a little energy, because they've thrown themselves into their day, like to hear how curious other folk are. That works.
And it works for C-SPAN, it works for anyone who has discovered that smart is good business.
Now, does that make sense to modern American media? I wonder. Five billion dollars for the "Wall Street Journal," $5 billion for the "Wall Street Journal." I talk to the "Wall Street Journal." They're my friends. They're wonderful people.
Five billion dollars? Who knows. Maybe. Sure. Fine. But they're not going to sell that many newspapers.
However, they represent the "Wall Street Journal," "Financial Times," we could name all these publications. They represent the product of decades of education and teaching, and the devotion of parents, and the struggles of travels. All of that comes together in one editorial board, or in one managing editor, or in one newsroom. All of that comes together.
And you get a piece of that for eight minutes on the radio or on C-SPAN. You feel it. The audience feels it. They know it. It's respectful to treat the audience as human beings who are involved in the story, and not, not, to talk down to them.
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I was a regular listener to the "John Batchelor Show" via the Internet.
Batchelor's program was a talk radio gem. Aided by his group of regular contributors, it was a source of information and insight that was unique to radio.
Especially when it came to dealing with issues involving the Middle East, Batchelor's show provided material of both quality and quantity that far exceeded that of other programs.
Chuck Boyce describes the show:
Think of the best New York Times or Wall Street Journal article you've ever read. Think of the best glass of wine you've ever enjoyed. The finest cup of coffee. Coolest place in Europe. The most brilliant song.
I was terribly disappointed that WABC chose to drop such an informative and popular show. It made no sense to me.
Smart radio works, too.
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