If you’re so busy doing so many things – so many contests, so many (management) “initiatives,” so many other jobs (podcasts, voice tracking another station, writing website articles, social media postings) – you will inevitably lose Creativity.
You only have so many breaks during a show to talk about ANYTHING. There are always things to plug, but you can’t plug everything equally.
The winning template is to only have one “big” thing and one “little” thing. Say a major contest as your Big thing, and something else as your little thing. That way, you still have time to do something creative on a regular basis as a main ingredient of your show.
Look, it’s a challenge for an air talent to talk about something for the millionth time and still breathe some creativity into it, but they’ll do much better at that than they will trying to fit an impossible number of things into the show to the point that there’s no time left to do ANYTHING creative.
Be careful as a PD or GM not to put too many things on the plate, because past a certain number, you’ll not only lose creativity, but you’ll also lose spontaneity – leaving nothing to listen FOR.
Remember, I can look at your website and see all the crap you want to promote. Your primary job should be to ENTERTAIN me at LEAST as much as you inform me. When you lose that balance, Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, and Amazon Prime music take your place in line for my time spent listening.
