You hear this all the time – an air talent weighing in on something, drawing conclusions or espousing opinions without any clinical background.
Here’s a message for you: Stay in your lane. You’re a deejay (or Talk show host), not a psychologist or a psychiatrist. The EXPERT is the expert. You’re the conduit for putting the Subject on the air.
Don’t try to be what you’re not. Try to be the best at what you are.
Geez, I hate the word “topic.” It sounds so cold and formal. (I use “subject” in coaching.)
Here’s why – nothing is a “topic” in or by itself. The deeper end of the pool in the search for on-air Content is when you add YOUR FEELINGS (or story), so you’re not just reading a social media posting, then asking for people to call in and do your show for you.
When it becomes personal, that’s when it’s actual Content. Without that, it’s just noise.
Some radio stations make it kind of hard to listen to your favorite songs. A few examples of how that can happen:
Cue tones that fire too early, so that nice soft ending is CRASHED into by an Imaging piece or the next song.
Air talent that comes in too early on the end of a song. (Do we EVER get to hear a song end?) There’s a “last, logical place” to come in or for the next element to fire. On every single song.
Deejays that talk really fast over a slow-paced song. This comes across like you’re not listening to the music at all.
The “talk right up to the vocal” disease. Ugh. Say what you have to say. Then shut up.
Or someone finishes a Content break, then a dreadfully slow and/or low-level song plays.
You may think these things don’t matter much, but if you don’t respect the music, or you’re not sensitive to it, that shows. And some people sound like they’re just waiting for the song to end so they can talk, like the song is some sort of minor annoyance. (Actually, YOU are the annoyance.)
Keep in mind that with all the streaming services available today, I can hear every single song you play – without you.
Stations that have some sort of sensibility to the music just resonate better with the listener. It’s subtle, but it’s true. When you’re that station, people notice. It may be subconscious, but it makes a tangible difference.
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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.
New to a market? Here’s a great tip:
Take a different route to work each day. You’ll see where construction is going on, what stores are opening (or closing), etc.
It’s easy. Just turn one street sooner, or one street later from your normal route. Learn the neighborhood, then learn the city. It’s much better to see and feel the vibe than it is to just be given some claptrap about who the “average” listener is.
Dallas radio legend Ron Chapman was a great example. One day, he was plugging a station event, and instead of just giving the name of the location or street address, he added, “You know … it used to be the bank building, and before that it was the Mexican restaurant ….”
Genius. Immediately, you know that he’s the guy from HERE, and everybody else ISN’T.
You could be that guy, too. It just takes a little exploring.
You may not think of it this way, but radio IS performance art. It’s not an “exercise,” it’s not just about mechanics. Yes, you want to play the right songs, the right number of them, and a solid rotation… blah blah-blah blah-blah.
But it’s really all just about connecting with the Listener.
The great movie director Arthur Penn (Bonnie & Clyde, Little Big Man, The Missouri Breaks, etc.) often spoke of what he called ‘happy accidents’ occurring during the filming. Little movements or reactions or lines that weren’t in the script, but were magical.
I see the same thing in radio – breaks that just “appear” out of nowhere and crack people up.
New York Yankees Hall of Fame shortstop Derek Jeter recently played in his first “Oldtimers Game.” At one point he was asked about the current Yankees team bringing up some young players, and how to handle the pressure of playing in New York.
I think it resonates to anyone in radio who’s looking to move up to a larger market.
He said, “It’s the same game, there are just more people in the stands. I think sometimes when you get up to this level you try to do things a little bit differently, but you have to be yourself. Don’t try to do something that you’re not accustomed to. You have to enjoy yourself, and try to improve each and every day. The bottom line here is you gotta win.”
Amen.
A PD in a large market contacted me recently, asking if I’d like to work with their morning team. Since I hadn’t heard it, he was nice enough to send me some audio of the show. He also told me that the lead guy had enjoyed a great deal of success before he came to this station.
But it was pretty typical. Several things all tossed into the air at once. Phone calls about an innocuous subject that didn’t really surprise me. A spate of multiple punch lines to a bit given by two people at breakneck speed (so it couldn’t possibly sound spontaneous). It wasn’t bad, but there just wasn’t anything special about it.
Look, I’ve worked with hundreds of stations in every English-speaking format, coaching many hundreds of air talents, and not being predictable has been a key for all of them. (Consistent = good. Predictable = bad.)
Here’s a first step: Listen to your show yourself, and be honest about whether it would make you come back and listen to it again tomorrow.
Then, weed out anything that sounds typical. Hold your feet to the fire about WHY each thing is done. “This’ll be funny” isn’t nearly as powerful as “This will be something the listener can identify with.” I can hear “topics and phone calls” anywhere nowadays. Get out of the Control Room and meet me in my car. What matters to me (as a listener) supersedes what matters to you.
Oh, and about that team show, I doubt if the PD liked much of what I had to say about it. But I can fix them – if they’ll listen.
One of the things I’m always getting asked about is phone calls – how to get listeners to call, how to get better calls, and how to build a dependable core of really good callers. Over the years, I’ve coached hundreds of people on this, so if you want the phones to ring, here you go…
This is primarily a team show tip, based on an aircheck a friend sent me of him and his new female partner.
He’s very conversational. She’s LOUD. And this is something I hear a lot. People (regardless of gender) on the radio seem to get LOUD when they’re talking to each other.
I don’t understand that. You’re supposed to be friends. Why are you shouting at each other? And why are both of you shouting at me?
You want to talk loud enough to be heard at the dinner table, not to be heard at the end of the continent.