In coaching young air talent, there’s always that moment when you assess what their specific gift is – that one thing that stands out about each person – and you have to find a way to broaden their vision.
That’s when the first challenge is issued – to become more consistent. Anyone can have a good hour or a good show, but getting that to be EVERY hour, EVERY day, is “the first step up.”
Some people think the work is done with a good week, or a good month. But that’s just scratching the surface. Take any TV show that runs for years, and you see this challenge met. The first episode hopefully makes people like the show, and want to see it again. But it also sets a standard of what the viewer expects FROM the show every time they tune in.
It’s the same in radio, and “raising the bar” is the first hurdle. And it all starts with Content. Since you can’t do the same thing every day (“benchmarks” aside), you have to reinvent how you approach the show. The Beatles didn’t just stop with “She Loves You.” Only three years later, they did the “Sgt. Pepper” album. Then along came further experiments, instrumentation, and nuances. There’s a huge distance between “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
So… work on your craft, EVERY SINGLE DAY. As my friend and associate Alan Mason says, “Good enough… isn’t.”
You want to be Consistent, yes, but you also want to be consistently GOOD.
