Here’s how you build a great air staff, and keep them great over a long period of time, even with the natural ebb and flow of turnover:
Only hire people who could potentially do mornings. For EVERY daypart.
So many stations today are the morning show, then… everything else.
A lot of jocks doing nights or overnights (which, of course, might be a voice tracker nowadays) simply aren’t very dynamic or entertaining. Blah.
But PERSONALITIES should be in EVERY daypart.
Naturally, many of them won’t be fully hatched yet. But if you look for that spark, that “everybody at the party’s listening to this guy tell stories” ingredient, or someone who writes great copy, for instance, that’s a great starting place.
Because here’s the deal: people who DON’T have that Entertainment factor have a low ceiling on how good they can become.
Three centuries ago, I started in radio in my hometown doing all-nights. I wasn’t very good. But with a lot of mentoring, and the permission to try stuff AND permission to fail, three and a half years later, I moved from Shreveport to Dallas to begin the greatest adventure of my life. I wasn’t the best jock on that staff either, but that staff was all young bucks who would end up doing morning drive at some point in their careers. And we’re all in the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.
That can be YOUR staff, if you don’t just settle for a seat filler.
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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2016 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.