While flipping around You Tube the other night, I rewatched the “Inside the Actors Studio” episode with the great Robert Redford. I hadn’t seen it in a long time.
At one point, host James Lipton asked Redford what he looked for in a movie that he might want to act in or direct. Redford noted three things, to which I’ve added my thoughts as it applies to Content on the radio: Continue reading
I was driving along minding my own business when the announcement came on the radio for “The National Bereavement Conference 2024.”
“Egad!” I thought. Were they talking about an amazing get together of caring people that come alongside those whose lives are forever changed due to the loss of a loving spouse? You’d never know it by what sounded like the label to a file folder.
There is no promotion so brilliant that it can’t be made utterly ineffective through the presentation of data, such as a list of dates and times.
Continue readingI coach show prep and Content constantly. One of the questions I get asked about most is, “How do I make a subject work on the air?” Sometimes it’s a good idea, but that air talent just can’t seem to find the “connective tissue” that really clicks with the audience.
So, a couple of simple guidelines about Content: Continue reading
Don’t worry! I’m not going to ask how many times you play “Easter Parade” by Judy Garland and Fred Astaire.
Easter, from a programming perspective, is not like Christmas with 27 different versions of “Mary, Did You Know?” that we can play.
But the principle is the same.
Continue readingYears ago at a radio gathering in Nashville, a dear friend and outstanding morning show talent and I did a Content seminar.
My friend had himself drifted a bit himself, doing old creaky bits like “This Day in History” and “Stupid Criminal Stories.”
…until I started coaching him.
It’s hard to understand why an air talent thinks that reading social media posts on the air can somehow be inherently interesting in itself.
Sure, some postings are good, cool, funny, sweet. And we can certainly use those. But we all know that most “normal” people – who aren’t trained in how to communicate or entertain – are pretty boring. Bless their hearts, they use too many words and include insignificant details. The first sentence we hear can make you not want to hear the second one.
A brown-eyed five-year-old looked in my eyes and said, “I don’t want to be alone.”
This wasn’t in response to being left in aisle 7 at Costco for less than ten seconds. This wasn’t a response to some other recent event in his life. This was a reaction to the human condition: we don’t want to be alone.
The people in the white coats have a name for it. It’s called “monophobia.”
Continue readingAt the start of his career, *Steve Martin’s standup routine included a “Ramblin’ Guy” parody folk song that started well and then just kind of drifted off into the ozone layer for a while.
Sadly, we’ve all heard this (or done it ourselves), but it wasn’t funny. It was just someone starting something, then losing the center of it, then trying to steer it back onto the road, but adding too many words, using too many examples – all things I’ve written about in recent tips.
My dear friend Beau Weaver, Voice Actor extraordinaire, recently expressed some interesting thoughts about today’s radio.
One of the things he said was that most young people he talks to think of a deejay as that person who mixes music at a club. Younger demos don’t care much about radio; they care more about podcasts and YouTube influencers. Radio, as usual, gets little respect.
Remember chemistry class? Memorizing the table of elements. Learning about atoms.
A peek through the microscope at the periodic table of your radio station would reveal only two elements. MUSIC and WORDS.
Continue reading
