“Talk as if you are speaking to one person.” -- I know what you are saying, of course you are talking to more than one person. However, for beginners, this is important. I know this from experience, when I first went on the air back in the late 90s (I did that for you Jay). I was all about "you guys" "folks" "everybody." I had sooo many damn cliches, but then it was my dad who said just pretend you are just talking to your best friend -- he's in the studio with you and you are telling him about this promotion, this song coming up, etc...It helped me be more conversational...more natural (all things I'm still working on)...but it's something I tell new people...
Yes but, all clichés and “radioisms” should be avoided. Including all the “for you” and “to you” stuff. It is not new technology. People understand the concept of mass communication. I’m saying listeners are well past the point where using singular verbs and nouns is an effective means of creating intimacy. If it ever was.
However, I think dropping your format for :60 minutes at lunchtime is old school and doesn't work...People don't want the 80s Lunch or the 90s at Noon...They just want to hear who you are...The reason I turn on this station is what I hear from 6 a.m. to Midnight...it's not that 60 minutes while I'm at lunch.
You’re absolutely right that you shouldn’t air a special or feature that is antithetical to the rest of your programming. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is.
At the same time a special or feature that is interesting/compelling/enjoyable/popular is a good thing to air. Again, it doesn’t matter what time of day it is.
Look at Twofer Tuesday on WKLC. That’s a special feature for an entire day, every week. It changes the entire feel and overall sound of the station for that entire day, every week. It’s also a giant pain in the ass to schedule and to schedule it properly and well.
WKLC P1s would riot if they stopped doing it. I’m not kidding. They love it. They love it for a variety of reasons. They love it because it is comforting life benchmark. It’s engrained and expected. It’s a tradition. They love it because one of the titles in the twofer is often a deeper track. There’s an “oh wow” slap several times an hour. There’s also the simple fact that it
IS something different.
The important thing is that it is
NOT antithetical. It is the exact opposite.
Hell, the station I work for now is literally nothing but specials and features and they get above a 40 share every time. Dave’s morning show has been up to a 62 share. Holy hell. A 62 share. Yes, the market is the coalfield counties and is therefore a different stage than Charleston or Huntington or Lexington or Los Angeles. They’re still pulling a 40 share out of their marketplace up against competition from Charleston, Huntington, and Beckley. This would not happen if the 24 hours of specials and features they air are a bad idea.
Content...matters...always.
Fuckin’ A.
The PPM world
... is different from the Diary World, but it’s still the same thing. Content. Always. You’re just don’t have to pull “recall” tricks. You pull “meter” tricks.
Jay, you should be really, really ashamed to know me.
Don’t worry. It’s not just you. I’m ashamed to know 90% of the people I have ever worked with. I’m sure 95% of the people who have worked with me are ashamed to know me.
However, we parted ways because of that issue right there (among quite a few others...just sayin').
I didn’t know that. I thought it was because Crawford had more hours and more stuff for you. It was over a girl?
Theatre of the mind. The idea behind that phrase is that you should be telling a story that puts the pictures in the listeners' heads. Description, color, emotion, time and place. All things that video does just by turning on the camera, you have to do with sound. Yes, Everything is sort of theatre of the mind. But theatre, tv and movies have multiple senses to get their message across. Radio has to provide the same sort of impact using only sound. When I speak to classes I make this point. In a video presentation, you can read body language, see where everything is, hear the speaker. In person you can do even more. On radio, sound is it. That's why we call it theatre of the mind.
Yes, in that sense of it, it is theatre of the mind, but so is everything else. Plus, I just hate the phrase. It drips of cheese and douchebag.
Talk as if you're speaking to one person. Yes, there damn well better be more than one listening, but the ones who are listening are individuals. They're not all gathered in a stadium listening. Most of them are alone. So, in effect, you are speaking to one person and you have to connect with them intimately. All the best do it.
Of course people listen individually. I mean that saying, “You can win money” instead of saying “Y’all can lay hands on some cash” won’t make any difference at all.
The multiple cities thing was relevant in a diary world. It relates to impressions the listeners get. It's all part of the memory game that we played until last year.
Fuckin’ A.
It’s not a bad thing to mention cities in a diary market. It’s just a bad idea to add a bunch of differing temperature blather.
In PPM world, quality content is all that matters. It's really all that mattered in diary world, but it was easy to game that system. Now we're figuring out how to game the PPM system.
Fuckin’ A.
A lot of my success is due to Jay beating many of the above points into my head on a daily basis.
I never stopped doing that.
I really enjoyed our air-checks where he would play the same break 54 times in row until I got the point that I sucked. I now use that on my guys and they f**king hate it. Thanks Jay!
I did stop doing that. It worked because it was a great way to get rid of glaring problems quickly. I eventually figured out it also made airchecks something air talent hated and dreaded. Hated and dreaded are the last thing you want an aircheck to be. I made any number of mistakes over the years either because of my ignorance or personality type. This was a big one. I learned a lot (or even most) things quickly, but a few things took me years to learn.
The best one I ever heard was "Don't ever talk over the birds at the end of Layla." I have been told this by multiple people, one PD that threatened to fire me over the issue. This may be the stupidest thing I have ever heard.
That’s the thing about knowing your audience. I never knew an audience that cared about the birds at the end of Layla, but I have known audiences that would get super pissed if you talked up too much of several different Pink Floyd titles or stepped on the end of an AC/DC outro. For years I had to suffer through thinking there was dead air on my station when I tuned in at the beginning of “On The Turning Away.”
thanks to active rock
Ah yes, Active Rock. One of the most fun formats to do and one of the hardest. You constantly have ownership, management, the FCC, sales, and Christian soccer moms telling you not to do the things that make your audience listen longer and more often.
The audience will love every song a band releases for three years straight and then decide in the matter of three weeks they are now lame and you suck for playing them.
There’s always some AE who sells a midday remote at a high end jewelry store because they have convinced the agency or owner that 18-34 males buy a whole lot of thousand dollar bracelets and then become horrified when no one show up at the remote, or worse, the audience actually does show up.
My ratings back in the day were built on many breaks with dead air... it's what you do with the silence people.
Yes, but it was compelling and interesting dead air. You just knew some good shit was coming after the dead air.
This is why people love you so much despite the fact that you are such a huge douchebag.
Two real life examples of Animal’s compelling dead air…
“For Mike in Nitro, The Allman Brothers and Whipping Post on FM 1… 0… 5…”
Dead Air
“Damn CD player. It’s good thing the equipment around here is all crap. If it all actually worked right I would be forced to have a good radio show and that is too much pressure.”
Dead Air
“There were go. That’s got it. Mike here’s your Allmans.”
And
Dead Air
“Let us pray.”
Dead Air
Classic. Pure Classic.
Hey, check it out. We actually did a discussion/debate AND had time to insult each other and each other’s mothers. All of that is some compelling content for that ass. It also proves how much talent and radio smarts you can find on this board. There’s a lot of next level radio throwdown in this thread.
Bitches.
