All great air talents know this. But the road from good to great is a little muddy sometimes. So here’s an easy “sifting” tip – the only two real Content guidelines:
Here are some questions to ask yourself: Continue reading
It’s the question I ask of every air talent somewhere in the coaching process.
And it’s not because I want them to talk about themselves. It’s because I want them to relate to their listeners as real human beings, not as deejays just sharing information.
The more human you are the more people will relate to you.
Continue readingOne of the most incomplete thoughts ever said to air talent is “If we’re having fun, the listener’s having fun.”
Ridiculous. If the LISTENER’S having fun, the listener’s having fun. You can be having a party in the control room, but if it doesn’t resonate with the listener, it doesn’t matter.
I ask this all the time: “Who’s our target listener?”
What I usually get is a white-page report being regurgitated to me, usually a demo bracket, some assumptions treated as fact, and not one example of how to pull that person in. It’s hardly ever about one clearly targeted listener. Continue reading
Jeepers! The fact that there are even 621 of these Frost Advisories (every week for pert near a dozen years) might suggest that there is a lot to this programming stuff. I reckon’ that’s so, and I love discussing higher concepts with smart people, but I also know there are some simple truths.
A simple truth is that there are only two distinct elements to programming a radio station.
Continue readingThe other night, casually watching a New York Yankees broadcast with the most excellent Michael Kay and former great pitcher David Cone, something really struck me that Cone said.
He was talking about a Yankees pitcher who had not had a good beginning last season, and made the decision to dramatically dive into the metrics that are available now – arm angle, spin rate, pitchers’ and batters’ “planes” that they pitch or swing on, etc. He totally revitalized his career when he learned about what more spin means, rather than just speed.
Think about that. These guys make millions of dollars, he’s done it one way his whole life, and all of a sudden, this guy makes a dramatic change.
The celebration of our nation’s 246st birthday is a powerful lesson of focus, common ground, and emotion.
Over the last several decades in my other life, I’ve served as a semi-professional public address announcer for major league spring training and minor league baseball. That’s lots and lots and lots of dizzy bat races, seventh inning stretches, and National Anthem performances.
Do you know what I enjoy most? It’s when my voice is the cue for veterans and active service members to rise and be acknowledged for their sacrifice for our country. There is no applause that is louder.
What does that mean for your radio station?
Continue readingThere are two immediate goals in radio:
1. You have a listener. Keep him (or her) around for a while.
2. Compel that person to come back again tomorrow.
Without meeting these first two goals, NOTHING else can be accomplished. No matter what your Strategic plans are, no matter what the Board of Directors’ monetary aims are, no matter what your “Imaging” tries to accomplish, unless you learn how to grab a listener and make that person want to listen again, you’re dead in the water.
Some questions for you:
Do you spend more time on these fundamental goals than other things in a given day?
Do you give conscious thought to who that person is that’s listening, and HOW to appeal to them?
If not, why not? Do you just want to fail? My brilliant friend and associate John Frost used to have a miniature billboard on his desk that read “It’s the Cume, Stupid.”
Cume builds one person at a time.
A recent conversation with a program director new to the format reminded me of an idea that I wished I had understood two decades ago coming from a world of mainstream radio.
People don’t tune to your station because of what YOU are, they tune to your station because of who THEY are.
Continue reading“Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself.”
Donald Miller, “Blue Like Jazz”
In baseball, the pitcher and catcher better know what the other is likely to do. If you’re a pitcher and throw the wrong pitch, what you don’t want is for the catcher to have to wait for it to stop rolling before he picks it up. 
That’s why they use signals.
Sir Paul McCartney has just had his 80th birthday! And he celebrated by doing what he loves; touring and playing music like he’s done for more than 60 of those 80 years.
If it seems curious that a Frost Advisory would be about a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer becoming an octogenarian, stick with me.
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