At its best our format is more than just music and quacking dee jays. It can be the largest church in town and a gathering point for the tribe (which author Seth Godin describes as “a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea”).
Transforming your station from a passive medium (we talk about anything we want and you HAVE to listen) to an active one (“all of us talk about the same thing at the same time”) involves two specific techniques your air talent need to understand.
- Know what to talk about (see Frost Advisory #116 – Frank Gifford’s 82nd Birthday)*
- Know how to talk about it
Learning the second involves air talent moving out of their comfort zone and observing how others do it. Examples of unique camera angles can be found in unlikely places.
Valentine’s Day through the camera lens of baseball? Cleverly MLB.com created Valentine cards featuring some of baseball most notorious brawls.
This card features Texas icon and all around fine citizen Nolan Ryan defending the mound against Robin Ventura, an obvious scoundrel and low-lifer if I’ve ever seen one. Boo! Hiss! Rumor has it that this incident almost got Nolan elected governor, but he wouldn’t take the pay cut.
Another great Valentine’s camera angle is Dove’s “Tell us: What makes you feel beautiful every day?”.
Talking about relevant things* in a unique way allows your station to move into being leader of the tribe, which “offers a chance for all of us to talk about the same thing at the same time. This is part of what it means to belong.”
*This technique is not about taking something irrelevant and forcing its way on the air. See Frost Advisory #55, “Relevant… Then Interesting.”
