Radio Column February 3, 2006

Listening In

February 3, 2006

By Sandy Wells


Adam Carolla brings classic radio style back to morning radio


Morning shock jock radio has grown up. KLSX-FM 97.1 listeners have graduated from the savage high school antics of social outcast Howard Stern and have now been presented with the comic sophistry of The Adam Carolla Show.

The change reminds me of the intra-generational shift among the baby boomers back in the 60s, when teens graduated from high school rock and roll “rebels” such as Dion and Belmonts and became young adults, ready to appreciate the more socially-aware and sophisticated music of Crosby, Stills and Nash, or Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Blind Faith, etc. Carolla’s kind of like a shock jock for the college crowd.

The Adam Carolla Show launched Jan. 3 and is now carried on 10 stations. He sounds far less angst-ridden than Stern did. The former Kevin and Bean (KROQ-FM 106.7) bit player doesn’t need to rattle his cage to assert his identity, but instead manages to exude the aura of a guy who doesn’t need to have a big career in show biz in order to breathe. It also helps that he’s not engaged in a futile attempt to defy the FCC’s indecency restrictions.

What’s more, and what seems refreshing about this program, at least for an FM morning comedy talk show, is that it is so well crafted. Carolla conforms to what I’d consider the classic morning talk radio style and format. Segments appear to be well-planned out. Commercial breaks don’t go on forever. Stern, on the other hand, couldn’t be bothered to pause for commercials until he’d exhausted a comic vein or bit. Then he’d bury his listeners under a quarter-hour avalanche of commercials. With Carolla, points are made and then it’s time to move on. Carolla, a former carpenter and someone presumably comfortable with following a plan, sticks to the format. It may not be groundbreaking radio, but it is easier to listen to.

Carolla’s droll delivery also makes for good companionship and he sounds extremely comfortable filling the shows of one of radio’s most talked about personalities.

“I’m going to try to be funny, interesting and maybe a little thought provoking,” Carolla told NPR’s Renee Montagne on the eve of his new radio show’s launch. “I’m not taking over the Howard Stern show; I’m just doing morning radio. I mean Seinfeld was on NBC at 8 o’clock on Thursday nights. Eventually he went off the air and another sitcom came on. But they weren’t taking over for Seinfeld. They were just doing another sitcom.”

Carolla’s entourage – the svelte VH1 countdown queen Rachel Perry who reads news headlines, sports guy Dave Dameshek, executive producer Jimmy Brusca, et al. is growing apace. Although not yet as deep a team as Stern’s, it has promise. Because Carolla’s show is so well structured, I never feel imposed upon, wondering to myself, “Where is this bit going? Will it never end?” Stern could go into a comic aerial freefall and somehow pull up in time to save the segment from crashing and burning. Carolla, apparently not compelled to take such chances, concentrates on finishing one bit and moving on to the next.

Listening to Carolla, I’m reminded of hearing tapes of classic morning radio shows such as Bob Crane on KNX-AM from the 50s and early 60s, or more recently, KABC-AM’s Ken Minyard with Dan Avey. Carolla is squarely on the side of the listeners, never disappearing into inside humor or allowing the disorientation I sometimes felt listening to Jonathan Brandmeier on KLSX and Arrow 93.

The radio brain trust generally seems poised to concede music radio to satellite radio’s large channel selection and huge capacity to satisfy different niche audiences – not unlike the way AM stations surrendered music programming to FM in the early 80s – while concentrating on unique, spoken word content.

If that’s so, then The Adam Carolla Show might prove to be a model of how to do things right on terrestrial FM radio.