Rock to talk.

• Author: Davidoff, Douglass
• Position: How Indiana AM radio stations survive - Media & Marketing

Indiana AM radio saved by the gift of gab.

AM radio was once the province of mile-a-minute disc jockeys spinning everything from the Beatles to the Archies. Then along came the superior sound of FM, and Baby Boomers deserted AM in droves.

Did AM radio stations roll over and die? Some did, but others have found new life. Commercial radio's original band is alive again with exciting, emotional hosts. But this time the fare isn't bubble-gum music. It's talk.

Listen to Stan Solomon on WIBC-AM in Indianapolis grouse about last spring's tax proposals from Gov. Evan Bayh. Listen to WBOW-AM in Terre Haute cover the flooding in Western Indiana. Listen to callers on Mark Boyle's "Sports Daily" on WNDE-AM in Indy skewer Colts quarterback Jeff George. Listen to a clinic on WGL-AM in Fort Wayne on how to tell if your spouse is cheating.

Yes, Indiana has the gift of gab.

And as AM stations switch over to the format of radio built around news and talk, highly desirable listeners are coming back to AM. Station owners and managers look for advertisers to come back to AM, too, perhaps to save the medium from extinction.

Moreover, the new talk-radio audiences are younger and more affluent. They are adults in the prime of their buying years, often with successful careers. These are key ingredients for many a successful advertising campaign.

Shelly Johnson, group media director at Keller-Cresent Co. in Evansville, likes the talk-radio format. A newcomer to Indiana, she used to work in Iowa, buying talk-radio spots across the Midwest for a major fast-food chain.

"Once you get a news-talk station and put it on the air, and you give the local community two hours in the morning of news, weather, sports--you know, information--a lot of people will turn to that," Johnson says. Moreover, in the past few years, talk radio has become chic for the upscale crowd. And thank heaven for it, say many station managers.

A mixture of news, talk, sports and community information is helping South Bend's WSBT-AM, Indiana's oldest radio station, climb back up the ratings charts. Jack Swart, manager of the 71-year-old station, says the 2-year-old talk format does much better than a music format would against FM radio. "We had suffered some serious decline here," Swart says. "We had some erosion going on. We were able to put the brakes on that and recover."

Just how important is talk radio? And what can it do for the advertiser? Take a look at some numbers, at the history of AM radio and at the possibilities for change.

"Talk radio has become a staple in the diet of about one in six Americans," the Times, Mirror Center for The People & The Press reported in a major poll about talk radio issued in July. The survey by the California-based organization found that one in six adults regularly listens to telephone talk shows about current events, issues and politics. Another quarter say they sometimes listen. Indeed, one in four adults had listened to a talk show the day Times Mirror called or the day before.

And talk about impact. Political observers say the heat that talk-show hosts and their...