Stephen Anderson's 2012 Resolution: Be More Like Brian Williams

    One nice thing about someone being successful is the way it shuts up your critics. Nearly one year ago, Stephen Anderson took a risk and geared up to begin a brand new weekly talk show. How could Anderson, a former sports columnist, and school talent show critic, host his own weekly talk show in primetime wondered just about everyone. Very quickly, he increased BTR's ratings at 10pm by 21% overall.

    "I don't get asked about it much anymore," said Anderson on Friday at a lunch with his staff as an early gift as they hit the one year mark. "Our overall feel is a good one, we made a nice splash in the ratings and that's great. However, can we get better? Of course we can."

In order to accomplish that, Anderson has a plan to wean the show out of its weekly dependence of booking big guests or breaking news by making it a "more structured" setting with regular segments that listeners know to expect. "You will see a lot more writing coming to the show and my personality will leave its mark on the show." His role models for future success: "Nightly News with Brian Williams" and "Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Anderson said that Brian Williams and Jay Leno are his favorite two talk show hosts to watch on T.V.

Some of the attention that Anderson got this past year has not all been good. He called it "a tad annoying" that the Casey Anthony tape scandal has shaped the public's views on giving opinions live on the air and free speech. Anderson recently gave his speech at the Williamson Meetings to speak out about the scandal and came out sharp-tongued and testy in his Skype video. "It was just a big distraction I didn't need," he says. "It was dumb to bring me into it, but I don't blame anyone."

One thing Anderson has done this past year, possibly more than anyone else in the radio business is get his name out in the public. Twitter is a topic Anderson, who has over 200 followers, can talk about at great length. He recently got into a high-spirited back and forth beef with fellow radio host and and tweeter Justin McRoberts, teasing him about his ratings and election coverage. "I love to get him going," Anderson says. "He is so easy to pick on and that makes it even more fun."

Anderson likes to respond to his online critics not by words, but by retweeting their insults to him. He likes the ones with spelling and grammar errors the best. "If they call me a dick and spell 'dick' D-I-K, then bingo because then they become the real joke, not me," he said.

At the end of lunch we talked about everything, well almost. A little known secret about Anderson is that he likes to sing karaoke. I asked him which song he likes to sing and yes, he gave me an answer: "I get very embrassed to sing "All about tonight", which symbolizes his career so far as a journalist.