This may be the simplest Frost Advisory you’ve ever read. But simplest doesn’t mean easiest.
I’ve learned that every bad radio station has three things in common:
I reckon’ you see this played out in your radio station every day.
Continue readingIt seems like everybody’s “stretching” out conversations to an alarming level these days.
And yet, it’s the shortest statements that have the most meaning. Examples:
“And in the end…the love you take is equal to the love you make.” The Beatles. Add anything else to it, and it becomes watered down.
“Walk softly and carry a big stick.” Theodore Roosevelt. He certainly didn’t need any additions to that statement.
“Jesus wept.” The Bible. The saddest passage, to me. No more words necessary.
The lesson: Try to resist that “one more thought” impulse. You’ll find that talking less equals meaning more.
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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2026 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.
“Off air,” the TV schedule indicated. “No programming scheduled at this time,” the box on the lower left read. It was 7:30pm. Prime time, I think they call it.
I recently attended a major league baseball game where the concession stands on the third base side were all closed. If you wanted to give them your money there was no one there to take it, presumably the very reason they were there in the first place.
Continue readingThe one Constant that any great air talent or station needs to have:
Every day, every single day, your primary goal is to deliver something that’s worth listening to.
“Memorable Moments” (a Mark Ramsey term) are what put you on the map, and the more of them you consistently have puts the station on the map more prominently.
I hear so much “social media post that I thought up a punch line for” stuff lately that it makes me want to scream.
WORK at it. Try to get better and more consistent each day. All I’m looking for is something worth listening to. If I hear it, I’ll stick with you.
Memorial Day weekend is a time to remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Maybe, just maybe, there is a lesson that can apply to the legacy of your radio station.
How will your radio station be remembered?
Continue readingA radio career is like crayons.
You start with the little 8-pack, and boy, is that fun. All the primary colors at your service. Now to find a surface to draw on…
There will be those in our format that will push back from my observations that follow because Eric Church is not specifically a Christian music artist. I get that. (Oh, the irony that Church is his name).
That friction is likely from a perspective that our format is fundamentally about the Christian music industry, not that that our format is about the message, articulated by numerous talented musicians, songwriters, and on air personalities. (One tends to attract a smaller audience while the other has the potential to attract a much larger audience).
If you’ve yet to see his remarkable commencement speech at UNC Chapel Hill this might be a good time to do so. I’ll wait.
Continue readingThis is the starting place – especially when you’re new to a station:
People don’t need to know you. You need to know them.
Streets have names that are pronounced differently than you would have thought.
Food tastes are different. (I once went to a corporate meeting in York, Pennsylvania. EVERY store and every restaurant I went into had candy machines in the entrance. Dentists must love that place.)
I saw an amazing thing on Sunday.
Hundreds of millionaire professionals willingly gave up a tool of their trade and replaced it with something that on any other day, in any other circumstance, would subject them to ridicule and harassment from their co-workers.
They wore pink.
Continue readingHere’s something you can do to both improve your on-air performance and bond the station together a bit.
Years ago, my friend and fellow Texas Radio Hall of Fame member Bruce Gilbert each Programmed a station in the same cluster – mine was a Talk station, Bruce’s was a Sports-talk station.
