I’ve been grumbling about all the talk shows on the radio. Even the music stations I usually listen to are now full of talk shows. One does this show around home commute time that’s just a bunch of guys just sitting around and shooting the bull. Now, radio people are not dummies and they have done the listener numbers and they must have concluded that these shows make money. So, I was thinking about whether the RIAA was soaking up so much money that it was cheaper to just have people sit and talk rather than play music or any other rational reason that would explain all this talking and lack of music. Last night I was riding home about 10pm and trying to find some music and I kept finding the music stations with talk shows. Why no music? Arghh. Then it struck me, maybe the audience doesn’t want music. Maybe they want to talk. Or, at least, hear other people talk. What if the reason that CD sales are down is because a new generation of listeners does not hanker after the “golden age” of music but instead hankers after conversation and interaction? There is some sense to this. Just like my parents witnessed TV shows changing from variety shows to sitcoms, I am watching sitcoms turn into reality shows. MTV doesn’t play music videos – they now play “road” shows. Radio is not a music source, it is a conversation source. And that doesn’t even get into the Internet and chat and blogs. Maybe the type of content is what’s changing. Maybe people these days want talk.