That’s the question I posed to you a few weeks back, concerning your choice when it comes to what you would like to air when a syndicated personality takes vacation or time off from their show. Do you prefer to rerun the “Best of” offerings, or would you prefer to have a local personality fill in, or possibly have a guest host as an option? Syndicated morning man Steve Harvey recently announced that comedian Sheryl Underwood would join his team as a regular contributor and, would be his permanent guest host whenever the morning man was on vacation or away. Also recently, Clear Channel’s WDAS Philadelphia invited market vets “Carter & Sanborn” to fill in for the vacationing Michael Baisden.

With so many stations running some kind of syndicated programming in mornings or afternoons (and in some cases, nights), most programmers face the issue of a vacationing host at least a few times a year. Normally, with local talent, you might have another jock fill in during that time, and in some other cases, you may have the actual jock voice-track.

Some programmers have concern though. With breaking news events like the death of Michael Jackson, or more recently, the news and subsequent discussion about the LeBron James move to the Miami Heat, PDs want to make sure that what they have on the air is relevant to what’s happening, right now.

Skip Dillard, OM of WBLS New York, airs The Steve Harvey Morning Show. His preference, when possible, is to have someone on the air live, even in place of “Best of” shows. He says, “There are two things in our world now, which don’t always allow ‘best of’ programming to work as well as it did in the past – PPM and the Internet. The flow of information is ‘Now’ and to stay relevant with listeners, you can never sound like you are running old information. Do we expect a listener to sit through a ‘best of’ show that’s talking about a news event from three months ago, when there is something more relevant happening right now, being talked about on the competition?” Dillard continues, “9 out of 10 times, a loyal fan of the show will have already heard a bit or interview, and here you are asking them to sit through it again. It sounds stale.”

“A better option in my opinion, is to have a guest host, or if the main host is away, have the support staff hold down the fort. Or, you could have a local “co-host” live on the air, mixed in with some of the ‘best of’ programming from the syndicated show, if that’s what you’re required to do,” suggests Dillard.

Dillard points out that what he’s seen consistently in PPM is that “your spikes come from when your music and your content is better than the competition’s – and that’s whether your star is on vacation or not. If a personality – syndicated or not – is talking about something that isn’t relevant to this market right now, then you’ll see it reflected in the ratings.”

Ken Johnson, Director of Urban programming for Clear Channel Philadelphia, oversees WUSL “Power 99” and Urban AC WDAS. His take on ‘best of’ shows is, “They’re great for a Saturday morning play but not for primetime. The world doesn’t stop turning because a personality takes a vacation. It’s fine to run a previously aired TV show because they are fiction anyway. But if your main news personality is on vacation do you run a best of newscast? I don’t think so.”

Johnson adds that while “Some syndicated shows have a great value to a station, the ability to react to what is happening right now or last night,” is sometimes lost. Reacting immediately to something as major as the passing of Michael Jackson, or even something small, like when Alicia Keys had her spill at the Essence festival, shows that we are on top of things, right now. If we don’t have it – they will go looking.”

But other PDs feel that the star power is more valuable – even in “Best of” shows. One veteran programmer in a major market who carries syndicated programming, says “I prefer running ‘best of’ shows when my stars are on vacation, because you know what you are getting. And you will be exposing the virtues of the program to your listeners. The key is to have a syndication company that is dedicated to the quality of the show, and one which will produce a well-thought out ‘best of’ show, rather than just taking various bits and throwing them together.”

Phil Michaels, PD of Cox Radio’s Urban AC WHQT “Hot 105” in Miami, also chooses “the best of programming, for consistency. ‘Best of’ shows are a great way to engage the audience and possibly introduce a new audience to program that has never experienced it before. My only exception to the rule is if a major news story breaks that our audience expects us to cover. For example, a weather event like a Hurricane or an artist passing like Michael Jackson.” In those scenarios, Michaels would always choose to break into a pre-recorded “best of,” for up to the minute coverage.