All posts by Tommy Kramer

Tommy has spent over 35 years as an air talent, programmer, operations manager and talent coach - working with over 300 stations in all formats. He publishes the Coaching Tip

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #386: To Tease or Not to Tease – and Why

Every once in a while, the subject of doing teases comes around again.  Such was the case recently with one group of stations I work with. So here are the teasing dos and don’ts…

DO tease:
A chance for me (the listener) to win something.
A feature of the show; a benchmark.
A guest coming on.
Information about a station event or a specific website/You Tube/social media feature.
A new song by a Major (core) artist.

Do NOT tease:
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Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #385 – Demo (Aircheck) Guidelines

Something I get asked about a lot is how you make a great demo aircheck.  Knowing how the people doing the hiring tend to listen to these, here are the best tips I can give you:

1. Put your best thing FIRST.  Don’t make me wait to get to it.  Hit me with something great right off the bat.

2. Show what you do well, then show another thing you do well.  An “A” side, and a “B” side.  If you don’t have both, you lack depth.

3. Three to five minutes is probably enough.  Even shorter can work.  I once got hired by a PD in Chicago after he only listened to ONE break on my aircheck.  If you’ve got that spark, it’ll show.  If they need to hear more, they’ll ask.

The good news is that we now have more ways than ever to share or display air work – we just send mp3s, or post the audio on a personal website or Sound Cloud. A friend of mine recently posted his stuff on YouTube.

Hope this helps.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #384 – Choose ONE

In a recent session, I went over a break the air talent had done with a nice message: how just saying “hi” to someone who’s been emotionally damaged or mistreated may be ‘revolutionary’ to that person.

But he loaded it down with too many examples before settling on that one gesture.  There’s a tendency for us to be like lawyers, “stacking up evidence” to fortify our point.  But you’re not paid by the example; you’re paid by the CONNECTION.

So whenever you could give a “laundry list” of examples, just choose one to draw a smaller, more precise target for the Emotion to center on.

A closer “sphere of vision” will bring out the more personal, visual, and emotional elements in your Content and its delivery.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #383 – Nothing is Worse than Being Ignored

One of the main things to keep in mind for any air talent is something that strikes to our very core as human beings: nothing is worse than being ignored.

If you’re on the air, but nothing you do or say really “grabs” the listener, it’s a waste of time.

Here’s a litmus test:  What stood out today about your show?  (Or any day’s show, for that matter?)  You should be able to think “Oh yeah, yesterday was when we did this…”

If you can’t recall something memorable from your show, neither can the listener.  We all know about stations who’ve been in a market for years, but with no real success.  Let’s not be one of them.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #382 – Memories and Shared Experiences

When you do something on the air that makes the listener think “Me too,” you hit the jackpot.  Memories and shared experiences aren’t just about what happened and when it happened.  They’re about the Emotions that people feel when they go (or went) through them.

This is why “interesting” isn’t the same as “relevant.”

When you tap into Emotions, you gain DEPTH.

Most of the subpar shows are just about things, data, facts, and “fluff” srories.  These are almost always boring.  But when an emotion is called up, people “lean in” with their ears.

Emotions are the goal of everything that we do.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #381 – What you CAN do that TV CAN’T do

One of the main arguments against radio today is that “people would rather watch TV.”  Or stare at a computer, tablet, or cell phone screen.  For our purposes, let’s just use TV as an example.

I watch an NBA game, and BETWEEN TWO FREE THROWS (!) they run a commercial.  (The game itself, of course, is shrunk down so that my 70-inch screen might just as well be the 24-inch screen I had in 1988.)  This is SO invasive.  Announcers in every sport talk right up to the moment a pass or pitch is thrown.

And baseball has been so ruined by TV directors that you see a pitcher, then – in the middle of his windup – they change cameras to show the batter, then another switch is flipped and you see a player field the ball.  They could all be from separate games, and you wouldn’t even know it.

And NFL games?  Don’t even start.

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Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #380 – A Tip from Acting Teacher Roy London

If you’ve worked with me or read any significant amount of my stuff, you know that a lot of what I coach comes from the acting world.  Although he only lived to be 50 years old, Roy London has been a heavy influence on me.

A fine actor himself, over the last fifteen years of his life, Mr. London became one of the premier acting teachers in Hollywood, a profound influence on the likes of Sharon Stone, Jeff Goldblum, Hank Azaria, Geena Davis, and Garry Shandling, just to name a few.

One of London’s main tenets is “It’s all about Love.  Every choice comes from trying to connect with Love.”

Man, that is spot-on.  While some radio talents have had success being negative and snarky, the ones that most people hold dear are the ones who are consciously trying to connect on a human level.  And Love is the highest of human values. Continue reading

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #379 – Why Your Slogan Can Mess Up the Air Talent

My brilliant friend and associate John Frost recently heard a station that used the slogan “We Actually Care.”

These people are obviously… well, stupid.  As a coach, this concerns me because the air talent that has to live UP to what the station says about itself is virtually crippled by it.

First of all, the only possible inference of that phrase is that they’re better than the stations that DON’T “actually” care.  (But I’m not familiar with any station that has “We Actually Don’t Care” as their slogan.) Continue reading

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #378 – The Boulder in the Lobby

If you listen to the air staff, way too many stations nowadays have what I call “a boulder in the lobby.”

“The PD has no power, so we can’t do things we want to do.”
“The wrong people DO have power, so the best ideas can’t even get heard.”
“The GM is just a Sales Guy, and doesn’t understand Programming.”
“The new owner is just a financial guy, and doesn’t know anything about radio.”

In one station I worked at, a person they hired to fill a key position lived on a houseboat, and bathed in a lake.  He always smelled like catfish dung.  It got so bad that several coworkers left various deodorants on his DESK, and many complained to the boss – who did nothing about it.  Slowly but surely, people left the station.  I know that sounds kind of gross, but it happened.

So here’s the deal: as a Talent, when you come into the station every day, you have a decision to make.  You can walk around whatever the “boulder” is and give it your best effort to do radio that’s worth listening to.  Or you can go work somewhere else.

What you should NOT do is stick around, but have a grousing or negative attitude.

New York Yankee great Joe DiMaggio, in his last season, once ran hard on painful bone spurs to make a difficult catch.  Mickey Mantle (who was in right field as a rookie) told Joe that he needn’t have done it because Mickey had it in his sights.  But DiMaggio answered, “There’s always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time; I owe him my best.”

So do you.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #377 – The Film Editor’s Eye

In the movie world, a lot rests on the Film Editor’s “eye.”

“Errors of continuity” – like a shirt tucked in one moment, then untucked in the next shot, then a moment later it’s tucked in again – can ruin the film.  The Editor is always on the lookout for things that, somewhere in the brain, just don’t “add up.”  Those little things destroy credibility.

I hear the same type of things all the time in radio, but of course, they’re spoken rather than pictured.  For example:

An air talent refers to something that I wouldn’t have a clue about unless I was listening 15 minutes ago.

Or a jock goes to a contestant or a caller and says “Hi, Marsha…”  How did you already know her name?  Not logical.

The jock says “Jennifer tripped over it…”  Who’s Jennifer?  Your wife?  Your daughter?  Your dog?

Keep in mind that my timeline (as a listener) isn’t the same as yours.  Don’t assume that I know what you’re referencing.