We hear a lot these days about being “transparent” on the air, and I get what the spirit of that is. But being totally transparent can be too close to the bone.
I always use the term “being open.”
Being open is different, and better. If you’re unsure where the line is between openness and transparency, just remember this: Nobody goes to a party to watch a guy fight with his wife. You’re in the Entertainment business. Some things SHOULDN’T be revealed.
It’s easy.
It’s easy to let grass grow and have weeds in your yard. It’s easy to not practice and be a bad guitar player. It’s easy to be the last player on the bench and not get into the game.
It’s easy to have a bad radio station.
Play anything you want. Wing it with your content. Talk as long as you like.
Get a load of this… my friend Jerry Reynolds, who does “The Car Pro Show” in over 40 markets now, told me that he listens to WBAP in Dallas every morning. When he gets to work, he turns on their app and listens to the show on his phone as he walks into the building. Once in his office, he plugs his phone into his computer (so the battery won’t run down too much), and continues to listen through his speakers until the show is over.
Now all the statistical evidence today would tell you that this is very untypical…
But I’ll bet it’s not. I’ll bet it never was. People find their favorite personalities and they become friends; companions in their lives. With whatever available time they have, they listen. It’s just that simple.
We forget, don’t we?
We forget what real people go through every day.
We forget the messages they are bombarded with, the struggles they face, the negative influences on their kids.
Real people perceive your radio station within the context of their lives. Often they tune in to get away from the negativity, to be affirmed for the good in people, and to be reminded of the hope we can have through our faith.
The recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida remind us with every event heroes emerge. Yes, the front page is often filled with stories of villains, but our stations have other stories to tell.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”
~Fred Rogers
J.J. Watts used his football fame to raise more than $37 million for hurricane victims in Texas. Houston icon Mattress Mack turned his 100,000 foot furniture showroom into a shelter for those left homeless. Rusty and Jeff are not famous; just a couple of guys with a bass boat, but they are heroes to my friend Ty McFarland after rescuing his family from their flooded neighborhood.
Maybe it is easier for us to see the heroes in extraordinary times but maybe it is just as important to tell the stories when times are ordinary.
With every 9th caller to win a family four-pack of cardboard there is a hero.
With every mom or dad trying to surround their children with positive influences there is a hero.
With every routine traffic accident, with every mundane weather report, with every insignificant time check, someone is being a hero to someone.
But we forget, don’t we?
The other day, for about the gazillionth time, I heard a jock who had a phone call thing going use the exact same story he had told to start the whole thing off as he went into a call.
In our session the next day, I told him, “I don’t get why you’d do this. We just heard that story a few minutes ago.”
His thinking was that if someone just tuned in, they needed a reset to understand the call about it.
Oh, yeah! That was the one with the hurricane!
I guess we’ll never forget Momentum 2017.
There were more Tweets and Facebook posts about hotel reservations, flight schedules and security lines than the speakers, artist performances, and social events.
People shared most about what they shared the most.
A subject came up in a session recently that I’ve written about before, but want to pursue a little further in an effort to help you find your vocal “pocket.”
A very talented jock I’e worked with for a few months told a good story on the air about how after you marry, you find out what things you and your spouse see differently. In this case, his wife had ordered takeout food, and to his surprise, there was an extra pork chop that he didn’t expect. So he put it in the refrigerator to have for lunch the next day.
Wow! What a week for our friends along the Texas Gulf Coast in the path of Hurricane Harvey. I personally have friends, co-workers, and family with flooded homes and disrupted lives.
As the Christian radio and music industry heads to Universal Orlando for CMB’s Momentum the Weather Channel beacons out the cone of uncertainty for Hurricane Irma. It’s never a good thing when you see Jim Cantore standing in your front yard.
In times like these there are lessons to be learned, even about our programming.
Continue reading
It was either Sir Isaac Newton or Isaac Hayes who presented the “3 Laws of Motion” in this “Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis.” The other Isaac sang the theme to “Shaft.” His second law deals with momentum, the force gained by a moving object.
I’m not going to pretend to know what this means, but it is the scientific formula of momentum: p = mv
Many of us will be attending the Christian Music Broadcasters “Momentum” in Orlando this week. My hope is there won’t be a lot of physics involved, but it always presents a fantastic opportunity to become a driving force from what we learned.
Momentum plays a role in all phases of successful stations.
Continue reading
“Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.”
Laurence J. Peter
Leadership is the most difficult role anyone can take. Leaders step up, make decisions, and do the hard things – which not everyone understands. Not so tough for managers who keep the status quo under control.
I hear a lot of comments about “good leaders” and “bad leaders,” and while there are some that fit those definitions, we have to be sure we’re not labeling people through the lens of how we see ourselves. Continue reading
