One of the most crippling thoughts in radio is “That’s good enough.”
The reply from the Listener’s end of the radio will often be, “No, it isn’t.”
I spent practically my whole on-air career being part of stations that knocked off the competition if they thought “good enough” would win. Continue reading
My dear friend and associate John Frost and I talk to stations all the time about what their Strategy is. (Hint: “What you want to happen” is not a Strategy.)
I talk to air talent all the time about what their specific strategy is each day. And I push them to think about these questions… Continue reading
Radio is not about what you say you do, or what you say you are. It’s about how you show it, and how you live up to it.
Your “Mission Statement” should really be a simple one:
Welcome in the person who’s never heard you before, and then either inform or entertain them (or both) every day.
One thing stands out immediately when I listen to someone – that person’s timing. (And the station’s timing, too.) Waiting for that ‘last logical moment’ to start talking, or to hit the next element when a song ends, for example.
Yes, we’ve all grown used to cue tones – but who’s creating them? Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever hear the ending of a song again without some Imaging piece crashing in or the air talent talking over it.
In the last tip, I mentioned Bob Dylan. To cut to the chase, think about his song “Like a Rolling Stone.” Even if you take away the imagery and the storyline, one lyric rises to the surface over and over as Dylan starts each chorus asking, “How does it feel?”
And THAT is what you should be thinking of as you shape your Content each day. How did this thing that happened FEEL?
Without a discernible feeling, an identifiable emotion, it’s just a bunch of factoids. Incidents, maybe opinions. But what did it FEEL like?
If you can’t answer that, the idea is an incomplete thought.
There was a time when it was in vogue to be overly audacious, tricking people with prank phone calls, embarrassing people, making fun of them, etc.
I thought it really sucked, because to me, it seemed kind of cruel. I didn’t – and still don’t – get why it would be okay to demean the listener, or use that person as a “prop” for something that you wouldn’t do to a friend or coworker. Continue reading
Once you get to a certain level, you face two issues – (1) How to be consistent in your performance, and (2) How to measure your Content.
Here’s the litmus test: is what you’re doing something that I can hear somewhere else? If so, there’s work to do.
Shockingly, many, many times over the years, I’ve found that an alarming number of air talents never, or hardly ever, listen to their own shows.
Here’s why it’s important: You need to hear yourself as others hear you. That’s how we improve.
If you simply listen while you’re checking your email, or updating your social media, you’ll subconsciously hear when you sound rushed, or like you don’t really care about something, or if you make grammatical errors that undermine the points you’re trying to make.
Listening to your own show just once a week can and will make a dramatic difference in how sharp you stay, or how quickly you change a weak area.
Radio isn’t dying, but in many cases, it isn’t thinking, either.
It’s so simple, but why do we not hear this all the time?
My reflection (as a listener) is the mental picture that could change the course of your career.
Here’s the deal: As a listener, I want to be able to picture myself in the scene you’re creating or describing. If I do, you and I have connected – the magic word in radio.
If I don’t, well, there are lots of other listening options.
It’s easy to think of radio as a one-way conversation. Hopefully, you get interest, even feedback from listeners, but that’s not how the process begins.
We should start by putting ourselves in the shoes of the listener – and what the likely reaction would be on the other end of the radio; the listene’s end.
Thinking people automatically care about what you’re saying is what makes for lame radio. Sometimes, they don’t. It’s YOUR job to “quality control” what you’re going to do when that mic opens, and to deliver something worth hearing each break you do.
Purpose. A goal. Having one in mind shapes everything that follows.