It’s incredible to me that we still hear ‘bits’ on the air that were stale 25 years ago. Here are some examples of the type of stuff I’m talking about:
This Day in History.
No one cares. Especially the younger demographic. Millennials don’t remember past last Thursday. Continue reading
They say opinions are like noses; everyone has one.
The boss, the Facebook posts from listeners, the sales manager, or the weekend disc jockey, everyone has an opinion on what your station should be doing to be better. At least for them.
On this Mother’s Day I wonder what Mom would say!
Continue readingOver my more than two decades of “officially” being a talent coach, I’ve had a hand in putting dozens of team shows together. (I’ve coached over 300 of them.)
Here’s the most important thing in putting a team show together: Does each of them make the other person sound better? Continue reading
The ratings arrive. Our emotions react. There is running up and down the hallways and gnashing of teeth! DO SOMETHING!
I’ve heard some pretty wacky ways that people have reacted to ratings. Moving the deejays’ shifts around, playing music from a completely different format, and implementing formatics that make the station sound more generic and less distinctive. I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP, as Dave Barry would say.
Making programming decisions based solely upon ratings is like driving with a GPS that shows only where you’ve been.
Continue readingThis tip is primarily for Program Directors, but it also applies to air talent. Never have the air talent say your “positioning” phrase.
First of all, they’re not good at it, because it’s a “selling” thing that no one would ever say in a real-life conversation. (And most “positioning phrases” or slogans backfire anyway. Think about how many times you’ve heard something like, “Favorites of the 80s, 90s, and Today” – and then they play a song you hate.)
Let the Imaging voice do the liners. That’s what that person is for, to take the unnatural language OUT of the equation for the air talent.
Let the air talent concentrate on things that actually matter to the listener, and that he/she can relate to. Your sales pitch isn’t one of them.
