A station I’ve worked with for years now faces a huge challenge.  Their longtime morning man and PD is leaving the station after many years of exemplary service and success.  At the same time, they’re being pressured by a relatively new GM to get ratings and revenue up, and part of that is to reduce expenses by going to fewer air talents being employed (doubling up on a jock by putting him or her on two different stations in the cluster) and going to more voice-tracked shows on the weekends.

So I want to speak into that as a bonus for any PD or GM reading this, while at the same time focusing on what will help any talent under the gun from his boss to do better.

First, if you live by math (ratings statistics and projections) as your starting place to the extent that you think more voice-tracked shifts are an answer, that’s not gonna fly.  In radio today, both in the short and the long run, Talent doesn’t DELIVER the product, talent IS the product.

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On Sunday, December 2^nd, 2018, two fans got into a fight in the stands of a Pittsburgh Steelers game.  One guy said something.  The guy he said it to tellingly removed his cap, then head-butted the first guy.  Guy #1’s girlfriend and several other fans got involved.

Not exactly untypical, but as I read about it (and watched the video), something the writer of the article, Jay Busbee said, really caught my attention:

“This is why nobody brings kids to football games anymore, and why nobody under the age of 40 spends any time on Facebook.  They know enough not to get caught up in whatever messes the ‘olds’ are creating.”

The “olds?”  Wow.

Now whether you agree with the Facebook statement or not, it’s still something to consider.  I’ve been coaching people on how TO use – and now NOT to use – Facebook postings for years.  The gist of it is that if a comment is relevant to something top of mind TODAY, you might want to use it, but random postings are virtually useless, because Relevance is King when it comes to Content.

I’m not saying your listeners don’t still use Facebook, but we should always be looking at the next big thing.  Because habitually when radio does that, they find out that it’s already here.

This is probably the shortest tip I’ve ever written…

I talk a lot about editing, and here’s why:

All the great quotes are short.  No one quotes a paragraph.

Okay, you’ve got a story you want to tell.  Great.  Tell me the story… but leave half of it out.

Yes, I’m serious.  Too much detail, unneeded side roads, too many words to express a thought, too much setup, more than one “punch line,” or “backing and filling” because you’re not very well-organized… those things make even the best story incredibly tedious, and not worth the Listener’s time.

To be a great talent, you have to develop discipline and get concise.  Great storytellers hold people every step of the way, from beginning to end.  And remember, you’re not paid by the word; you’re paid by the Connection.

(Yes, I’m sure there’s an exception you can think of, some show in your city that gets away with doling out overly long drivel and has high ratings in spite of it.  But that’s not the norm, and their time is coming to an end.  The world is getting used to 140 characters being all they have time to read.  Listening habits will eventually reflect that, too.)

Let’s make this one really simple:

With your Content, you can engage the brain, or you can engage the heart… or you can engage both.  What you SHOULDN’T do is only engage the brain.  That’s boring.

If you need help with this, get some coaching, do an aircheck session with your PD, or maybe swap ideas with some of the other people on the station.  Because if you don’t understand how to do it… and do it well… you’re going to save a lot of time by NOT thinking that it’ll somehow just magically “come to you.”

It’s like that scene in “The Odd Couple” when the slob, Oscar Madison, tells his finicky roommate Felix Unger that he thought gravy just “came with the meat.”  As Felix said, “No, it doesn’t.  You have to MAKE it.”  Sometimes we need help to make it.

One of the biggest challenges these days (as always) is Content.

There are lots of questions that help you put it together – Is this top of mind?  Does the listener actually care about it?  Do you have anything to offer on this subject that’s unique, and not just what everyone else will do?  Where are you going with it?  Is there a chance that it could lead to listener feedback, or is just a one-off thing? … etc.

But these leave out what I consider to be the most logical question to ask yourself:  Is this something you’d say at a barbecue to a person you just met?

If not, why are you saying it?

This will not only quickly cut to the chase as to whether it’s valid Content or not, it will also (hopefully) shape the LANGUAGE that you use, how you get to it, how you edit it, and most importantly, keep you from sounding like a disc jockey and more like a real person.

No one is enjoying hearing people read crap off a computer screen or someone’s stupid Facebook post on the air.  Dig deeper if you want to be great.

This is a follow-up to the “Less is More, and More is Too Much” tip from a couple of weeks ago…

Thirty seconds is a significant amount of time.  Companies literally pay millions of dollars for ONE 30-second ad in the Super Bowl.

The latest research is showing that millions of Gen Xers and Millennials go to You Tube to see a video, and if doesn’t have a “Skip this ad” thing after just a few seconds, they won’t stick around to watch it at all.  That’s the mentality we’re dealing with.

You owe it to the listener not to waste his or her time.  You owe it yourself as a performer to develop the skill set of refining and editing what you do so you don’t waste words, repeat things, or take unnecessary “side roads.”  Sixty seconds is a LONG time, and two minutes is an eternity.

Yes, of course, an occasional longer break is fine, but automatically thinking “you have two minutes” (or more) is wrong.  You don’t… unless you EARN it.  You want more TSL?  Try not being tedious to listen to.

Your show, no matter what format you’re in, has a dual purpose:

First, to talk to the person who just tuned in; and second, to talk to the person who’s been listening to you for a few minutes.  Their needs are different.

If I hear two breaks in a row on the same subject (like a reset to get into a phone call), I don’t want to hear redundancy or repetitive wording, because that’s boring.

And if I only hear ONE break, you can’t just abruptly continue something you did in the previous break, because I DIDN’T hear that one.

So it’s all about the reset – specifically about the language you use.  You can’t just use the same “intro” you used the first time, or the listener who heard the previous break will just think you’re on autopilot.  And you should word it so NO prior knowledge is required for someone who just joined your show to understand what you’re talking about.

It’s an art, and one of the main things I work on with people I coach.  You’d be surprised how many people don’t even hear themselves blathering out the exact same setup in a follow-up break – or even worse, they DO hear it, but just take the easiest, most mindless road possible.  That’s a good way to lose listeners.

Note: This is a music radio tip, primarily.  However, there is an application to Talk radio that I’ll do in another tip someday.

It’s a terrible thing to say, but honestly, I’ll bet 90% of the breaks I hear are too long.  Sometimes just a word or two too long.  Sometimes an entire paragraph too long.  In severe cases, an entire additional Subject too long.

Who has time?

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The old saying is “Content is King.”  And there’s no doubt that Content HAS to be relevant and memorable to make people want to listen to you more today, or again tomorrow.

But Content isn’t “King,” PERFORMANCE is.  If you sound like a game show host, or have that “disc jockey delivery,” you’re becoming a Deejaysaurus Rex, an extinct species.

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