The Ex Talk

“The board and I were thinking . . . something along the lines of a new show.”

The room erupts into chaos again. Across the table, Dominic catches my eye, one of his dark eyebrows lifting in a way I can’t quite interpret. I don’t know why we keep making eye contact like this when I spend so much of my day hoping we won’t have to cross paths. I flick my gaze back to my notes.

“We have our morning show, our midday show, and our evening show,” Kent says. “And the feedback we’ve been getting from listeners is that they’re too similar.” He presses a button, and a number of colorful pie charts appear on the projector screen. “They don’t connect with hosts the way they used to, not like they do at the national level or for some of the really popular podcasts.”

“Excuse me,” Paloma says in a haughty voice, “Puget Sounds is nothing like At the Moment.”

“And we can’t exactly bring in a comedian to host the morning news,” Isabel says.

But Kent’s not wrong. As an NPR member station, we’re in charge of our programming, and we’re able to broadcast any of the national shows. Naturally, those are listened to more than our local shows. They have more name recognition, and as I’m always telling Dominic, it’s an uphill battle getting people interested in local news.

“Does a new show mean we’re getting rid of one of our flagship shows?” Mike asks.

Kent shakes his head. “I don’t want anyone jumping to conclusions. This is solely an idea-generating meeting.”

A brainstorming session with producers, hosts, and reporters usually goes a little like this: The hosts and reporters take control. The producers stay quiet. It’s not easy to speak up in a room full of people whose job it is to speak.

“What about a news roundtable?” Dominic says. “We could invite local politicians and other leaders on every week to give updates on what’s going on in their lines of work.”

Snooze.

Isabel, bless her, shuts him down, which I underline in my notes. “We tried that fifteen years ago. It lasted, what, a few months?”

“It was a different market fifteen years ago,” Dominic says.

“Exactly. It was easier.” Isabel thrusts an arm toward the screen, and the pie chart that shows how Puget Sounds’ listenership has dropped over the years. It’s not a nice pie chart—Puget Sounds has had the steepest drop of all the flagship shows. “Now everyone and their grandkids has their own podcast. There’s too much out there. It’s impossible to stand out.”

“Something focused on the environment,” Marlene suggests. “Everyone in the Northwest cares about the environment. Each show could focus on small actions people could take to reduce their carbon footprint. I already have a whole bunch of tape about sustainable farming.”

“We’re not thinking big enough,” Kent says. “We’re too hyper-local already.”

Mike suggests a cooking show and Paul suggests a storytelling show, which I love. But Kent says it sounds too much like The Moth, which is probably why I loved it. Dominic throws out a few more newsy ideas that somehow manage to sound less interesting than his first one. A real triumph.

“What about a dating show?” I mutter, more to a button on my corduroy skirt than to the group, assuming no one will pay attention to PPR’s lowliest senior producer. It’s not something anyone’s talked about yet, and after my mother’s engagement and my phone’s reminder that I’m very single, it’s been on my mind.

But Marlene hears me. “Public radio doesn’t really go there. And for good reason: FCC regulations. Anything juicy would be tough to dig into.”

“It’s absolutely possible to do something about dating without pissing off the FCC,” Paloma says, and I feel a burst of pride at her defense of me. “Last year we did a segment about reproductive health, and another one about sex education in high schools.”

“Yes!” Isabel says. “But something new. Something fresh.”

Across the table, Dominic rolls his eyes so hard I fear for his vision. Surely a dating show doesn’t fall within his master’s-degree- in-journalism idea of what public radio should be.

“What about a dating show hosted by people who are dating?” Paloma says.

“It’s been done,” Kent says. “About a dozen times on a dozen more podcasts.”

“A dating show hosted by exes,” I say, half as a joke.

The room goes silent.

“Go on,” Paloma says. “A dating show hosted by exes?”

I didn’t mean for it to sound that exciting—it’s just a potential fresh take on a dating show. But maybe it’s not a bad idea.

“Um,” I say, feeling my face grow warm, the way it always does when I’m on the spot. Even in a room of people I know, people with incredible voices, I’m more conscious of the sound of my voice than ever. It’s more high pitched, more nasal than usual. These people don’t say um or like. They don’t stumble over their words.

Dominic is watching me very intently, as though I’m the news ticker on a cable network. Even when he’s sitting down, his posture is so stiff, the cut of his shoulders so sharp, that his muscles must ache when he gets home every day. I wish, not for the first time this meeting, that he hadn’t picked the seat directly opposite mine.