Steve’s Pet Peeves – Volume 3

When you listen to 7-8 hours of radio each day like I do (each hour a different show), you’re bound to hear things that bug you.

Most days, shows are hitting it out the park.  They’re on the right topics cut from that day’s pop culture, things going on locally, and stories about their lives that position them as just like the listener.  Add to that some treatments of those topics which make the breaks sparkle.

Other times, I might get something small that makes me scratch my head wondering why they did that.

Here for you, another installment of Steve’s Pet Peeve’s Volume 3.  It bugs me when I hear shows that…

  1. Use words like: up chuck, throwing up, eating poop, projectile vomiting.  Using what I call “stop listening” words.  Instead of saying “I was up all night barfing,” why can’t you say, “I was sick to my stomach”?  The audience knows what you’re saying, and you aren’t using cringe words that make a portion of your audience turn away because they’re too graphic.
  2. Breaks that start with unexplained laughter. Listeners feel left out when they aren’t in on the fun you’re having in the studio.
  3. When something suggestive is said like, “It’s 69 degrees right now,” and the show devolves into a bad version of Beavis and Butthead.
  4. Shows that try to gratuitously manipulate listeners to stay. Like doing a half a break and then teasing the payoff, making them wait any amount of time for resolution.  Just give them the bowl of ice cream in one break and you’ll accrue positive images.
  5. Shows that don’t keep their promises in an effort to manipulate a few more minutes of listening. If you promise the content at 7:30, do it at 7:30, not 7:36 in an effort to get more minutes of listening.  You get two minutes either side of a promise to make good on it.  Don’t do that to them.
  6. Features that are time-stamped need to be at (or very close to) when you promise to do it.
  7. Explaining games in more than two sentences before playing the game. Listeners don’t have that mental bandwidth at any time of the day for an explanation of anything.  More than two sentences might mean it’s too complicated to play.  As I always say “when you’re explainin’, you ain’t entertainin’.”  You can use that.
  8. Shows that play a trivia game and get irked when the caller doesn’t know the answer to a question they think is easy. Not a great look.  Be empathetic in those moments – these are your fans contributing content to your show.
  9. Playing the Mission Impossible, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, or the Price Is Right music when playing a game. They’re all dated and predictable.  Let’s challenge ourselves to update that stuff.
  10. Talent who forget that every day you have new listeners who don’t know who you are. I’m a new listener tuning in and have no idea who’s who.  I recently checked out a show I don’t work with.  Both co-hosts were male.  I left after 90 minutes not knowing who was who.  Help me.

Deep breaths, Steve, deep breaths.  In with the good air, out with the bad!

Have a pet peeve for Volume 4 (oh yes, there will be a volume 4!)?  Email me here.

Steve’s Pet Peeves Volume 2

What’s it like to listen to 7-8 hours of morning radio each day?  Well, you’ll need to sit with me each morning to find out.  Each show gets one hour of listening so I can get a sense of what they’re up to.

The goal for any show and any talent is to conquer content and create connection.  One of the most satisfying aspects of coaching is when I hear talent do that effortlessly.

Many of these shows are mine, some aren’t.  That’s where this list comes in.  There are certain small things shows do that, at the end of the day, have a minimal impact on their perceptions and ratings.  But enough to catch my ear and become a pet peeve.  I released volume one which you can find here.

It’s time for a fresh ten we’ll call volume two:

  1. Reading texts and Facebook posts instead of curating listener phone calls. I know that’s how many listeners interact with shows now, but we still must craft breaks that sparkle with more than chatter. Hearing other listeners voices do that.
  2. Teasing what prizes you have to win. There’s very limited appeal to that tease.  Promoting your content will impact 100% of your audience. They come for content.  Not to win something.
  3. Changing something about your show because you got a few complaints online. Those four people might be wrong.
  4. The phrase “everyone loves it”.  Unless you’ve surveyed 100% of your fans, that could be wrong, too.  Not to discount that those people do love “it” but that doesn’t mean everyone does.  Everyone is not five people.  Another vote for being strategic.
  5. Things like tweaking your processing or getting new jingles or sweepers and believing they will change the perceptions of your show and the ratings will go up. Not that you shouldn’t update your presentation, but doing it doesn’t have the impact some think it does.
  6. Shows that think they should move their benchmarks around so lots of people hear them. That’s a solid mistake to make.  You can’t groom an appointment at a certain time and then take that bowl of ice cream away from those who make that feature part of their daily routine.
  7. Use of first-person words (I, me, mine). I have this to give out; I’m going to do this next; Call me now.  It should be:  We have this to give out.  Call us now.  We’re going to do this next.  Your story or opinion is first person.  All else is collective.  Don’t send the signal to your teammates that it’s your show.  What we do is ours.
  8. Shows that air guests (callers or interviews) and then dominate the conversation. Once the guest or caller comes on, they should be the center-of-the-universe.
  9. Talent who rarely say the name of the show or station on the back side of the break. You just did a great content.  Remind the audience who did it, so you get the credit!
  10. Shows that forget there are tons of people checking them out for the first time every morning. Do resets so they feel a part of the family as a first-time listener.  I recently listened to a show for the first time that had two guys as the co-hosts.  Their names are very similar.  I left a few hours later not knowing who was who.  Not good.  The anchors on Eyewitness News in your market have been there for decades.  They still reset their newscast coming out of commercials.  You’d be shocked at the number of tenured shows that forget this.

I know you’ll be excited to hear I have enough for future collections.  Have one?  Let me know here.

Steve’s Pet Peeves: Volume 1

Just before the holiday break, on a morning when I had some extra time, I decided to check out some shows I’ve been hearing about.  One placed, in a prominent content slot, celebrity birthdays.  Not that I think this could work anywhere, I felt it was time, as we conclude the year, for a list of pet peeves – the things I hear some shows do that I believe ding them.

Great personality radio is about Conquering Content and Creating Connection.  Check out our first installment of Steve’s Pet Peeves (Volume 1).  These are the little things I hear some shows do that I think are minor mistakes that, when added up, could impact their perceptions (and yes, if you’re wondering, there will be other installments!).

The things some shows do that bug me:

  1. Taking the first break of the show and telling the audience what’s coming up on the show that day (doing a rundown of that day’s content). It’s 6:05.  I’m not coming back because you have tickets to give out at 7:20 or are doing that phone topic at 7:50 or have an email from a listener with relationships drama at 8:15.  I’m here now, connect with and entertain me now.
  2. Lists and surveys and National Theme Days. There are lower forms of content, but this is prep service-driven lazy radio.
  3. Birthdays and This Date in History. Now, that’s the lowest form of content.  My goal in radio is to rid every show still doing this, who believe the audience cares.  They don’t.  We can be better.
  4. Talent who answer the phones on-the-air, “Hi, who’s this?” You don’t answer your phone that way when you pick up, right?  It sounds immensely impersonal.  Get their name and then introduce them to the audience.  It’s much more warm and human.
  5. Tie breakers in trivia games. All that does it make the break longer without making it more entertaining.
  6. “What station just made you a winner?”  You know who asks questions like that?  DJs do.  You’re a real person, not a DJ.
  7. Happy Hump Day. See #6.
  8. Social media posts where talent show how wonderful their life is. The perfect meal, the excellent seat at the game, the most wonderful vacation, a first-class seat, your new 65″ flat panel TV.  Your listeners aren’t leading that kind of life, so doing this is a disconnect.
  9. Talking about any TV show is always perilous (most of your audience doesn’t watch that show you’re talking about). But doing it and not running any audio so I have context to your comments puts listeners not watching that show you’re so excited about at a disadvantage.
  10. Breaks where someone makes a simple mistake (like slipping up on a word or accidentally saying it’s 9:13 when it’s really 7:13) and then that mistake becoming the next sixty seconds of the break. Listeners aren’t hanging on your mistake so just move on and get to the real content.

If you do one or two of the above, not fixing them won’t make your ratings go down.  Fixing them won’t make the ratings go up.  But in our quest for excellence, every second counts with the audience.

You got a pet peeve for a future installment?  Email it to me here.

The One Common Bond with All Successful Shows – Funny Equals Money

Once when Jimmy Kimmel hosted the Oscars, he gave out a jet ski to the person winning an Oscar who gave the shortest acceptance speech. 

Jimmy is a radio guy, so he thinks like a radio guy. Starting his career as an intern with Mojo in Tucson and then as a cast member with Kevin and Bean on KROQ, Los Angeles, Jimmy knows to think silly and turn it into a big win. 

Of course, the purpose of giving out the jet ski wasn’t to give out a jet ski. It was to mock a commonly held view that the telecast goes on too long and, way more importantly, so those of us watching at home laughed out loud. It worked. 

Most people viewing the Oscars haven’t seen all the movies (or even heard of half of them), so Jimmy gave us something silly to connect with—and this connection became the most memorable part of the show. He made this about us, not about those in the theater. So as a result, people are talking about Jimmy Kimmel, too. More will watch him as a result. 

Personality-drive radio must have winning images. In fact, every successful radio show has a humor image. Most shows that don’t succeed usually fail or fall flat because they aren’t seen as fun by those who listen. Remember, funny equals money.

As you coach your high profile talent, ask them NOT what they have to give out or what topics they’ll talk about on the show. Ask how they’re doing all of that so it’s fun to hear by 100% of the audience that tunes in. 

Are you interested in working with a high-impact talent coach who can inspire your high-profile talent? Let’s chat.

Making Your Mess Your Message

Who’d have thought that a morning radio personality’s death would result in fans making a pilgrimage to his studios to leave notes, cards, and flowers? Yet, that’s what happened when Kidd Kraddick passed away unexpectedly in 2013. 

One would only need to peruse Facebook comments to know why. Consistently you read things like “I felt like I knew you, Kidd” and “every morning it was just you, your team, and me in the car on the way to work.” 

Kidd was one of the innovators of ensemble cast shows and was a pioneer in understanding that to win, talent had to share their life with the audience. Kidd easily surpassed the first threshold for any show to attain success and, dare I say, become iconic. Move the listener with your vulnerability and be so honest with them that they care about you. He knew that “making your mess your message” was the powerful way to cultivate an audience with an image of accessibility and likability. 

While I am sure there were facets to Kidd’s life we never knew (there are to us all), he, along with his very talented team, put it all out there so listeners could connect. 

An admission: I borrowed the title for this blog post from Robin Roberts, easily the most liked morning TV personality in America. She talks about making your mess your message in this interview. This should be required viewing for any show wishing to understand how to be successful. 

Robin says it’s not good enough to be a great storyteller unless you can tell your story. We know near everything she’s endured, and it endears us to her—we feel like we know her. That drives Good Morning America’s growth and success. 

I hear from managers who think listeners don’t want to know about the lives of the people on their morning show they wake up with. Bullshit. For the morning show to be successful, the team must be open, honest, and vulnerable about their lives. The listeners crave and demand it. That doesn’t mean everything can or should be shared, but it’s an imperative if you want the kinds of relationships Kidd had and Robin has. 

Take an assessment of your morning program in this regard. Listen to the team for two straight mornings and make an honest judgment. Listen to see if they’re honest and if they shared those stories of their lives which moved the average listener to leave the break caring about them as people. That’s when you become iconic. 

 

Need help getting your morning show team to open up and embrace vulnerability? Let’s chat.

 

Why Duke Always Wins and the Lesson for Morning Radio

I’m a big fan of the Blue Devils. 

Living 20 minutes from Duke University, I probably don’t have much of a choice, but I’m an honest to goodness fan of the team and especially Coach Mike Krzyzewski. Having met Coach K several times when I was on the air here in Raleigh, I know that he focuses every season on only one thing, and it has nothing to do with basketball. 

Coach K says he only works on making his team care about one another. He believes that elusive quality called “chemistry” is the X factor to success. He goes on to say that if he can get his team to trust and care about one another, they’ll win (and considering Duke has won five national championships, I think he’s right.). 

When I start working with a new morning show, I’m not only listening to what they say and do on the air, but also to what they say and do off the air. When I meet and talk with the team, my radar is up for the one thing I believe can most efficiently hinder their growth: dysfunction. If it exists, we can’t move on as a group and head in the same direction unless it’s cleared out of the arteries. 

With trust and communication, everyone works harder because they want everyone else to succeed, too. This is why I spend so much time talking and listening to my clients. The more I listen to them, the better I understand what drives them to succeed (and for everyone, that’s something different). And the better position I am in to solve any internal issues that will truly step in the way of growth, the better we all are.

I recently spent a day with a major market show I love working with. We spent a bulk of our time talking through and solving some dysfunction that had crept into the room. A greater appreciation for every cast member came from this conversation. While I can’t tell you who this is, I will make this bold prediction: they will own the ratings very soon because of it. 

 

Need help getting your morning show team back on track? Let’s chat.

Be FAIR to Be Great

When I work with a morning show team, I ask them to do one main thing: be FAIR in order to be GREAT:

F: Fun/Funny

A: Authentic

I: Innovative

R: Relatability

FUN/FUNNY:

Listeners choose morning radio to have FUN. Listeners’ lives, especially now, suck (if I can be so bold). They use morning radio as their 30-minute daily escape from the BS of their day. No successful morning radio show in America wins without humor images. The more your show creates fun, the more listeners will want to be around you.

AUTHENTICITY:

Authenticity drives everything in life. As people, we make no time for anything (brand or person) who isn’t the “real deal.” Consumers (listeners) can smell a phony a mile away. The more real, authentic, and vulnerable your morning talent are, the greater the chance they’ll connect with listeners.

INNOVATIVE:

Apple drives its core following of very passionate fans by being INNOVATIVE. Every year, they release innovative products that capture their followers. Innovation is crucial to keeping P1s happy. What new ideas/benchmarks has your show done to keep fans coming back to your station?

RELATABILITY:

Finally, we gravitate in life to people just like us, which is why RELATABILITY is so critical to any show. Listeners know instinctively if the program is choosing content that interests them. Choosing content is like choosing music: only play the hits. The show should have a regular list of those pop culture and news stories listeners know of and care about to create their entertainment so the broadest coalition of listeners believes the show shares their interests.

Shows that work on being FAIR feed images imperative to building strong and positive images for an authentic and entertaining show that listeners will choose first when they wake up each and every morning.

Need help making your morning show FAIR in order to be GREAT? Let’s chat.

Where Did You Go, What Did You Do?

If I had a magic wand, I’d make many prep services disappear or rework what they offer morning radio.

With all due respect to my friends on that side of radio, too many shows use this input without ever developing the topics to share with listeners through their relevance to it.

For shows to be successful in defining who they are and what they’re all about as people (character development) so the audience can bond with them, they must have experiences in the community and in life so they have stories to tell.

My clients learn how to share stories of what they do in their communities and life on every call. This could be almost anything—attending a fundraiser to going shopping to doing laundry to taking their kids to a park.

Without talent getting out of the house, they can never gather these stories to share with their fans. So I always ask: where did you go and what did you do? Staying at home all weekend with the TV on and the blinds drawn makes for one rather boring personality. Getting involved in your community and in life generates interesting things to share with your audience.

Rick Jackson, who worked as a market manager in San Diego for Lincoln Financial, shared the secret sauce that turns average personalities into great ones (and it’s something Rick’s preached for the many years I’ve known him): personalities that cut through and are steps above everyone else gather wonderful stories and tell them well.

Stories stick. Being a master storyteller is way better than doing bits, stunts, and having clever one- liners. They might be good in the moment, but developing a bond with the audience through your experiences in life and the stories you tell cannot be beat. The great TV shows (reality, comedy, or drama) and the stellar radio personalities in our industry do this, which is why they win.

Rick goes on to say, “Great stories separate a great jock from a great personality. A great personality is the main dish in the entree and there aren’t many of those.” So for those talent who are married to your prep services, always ask how you can take an interesting item from what’s offered and personalize it so the audience can emotionally bond with you. So their reaction to the topic is not driven based solely on the topic alone, but on how it affected you.

Offer up few facts, figures, and survey results and get to your story very quickly, because inside stories are wonderful details along with twists, turns, conflict, and drama that will make you (and the topic) come alive.

If you’re a manager, ask your personalities: where did you go in the last several days and what did you do in life and the community to generate stories for your show so it shifts from being something potentially seen as generic and prep-service driven to a highly personal program.

Once done, your personalities rise above, connect with the audience, and become leverage into the station for more occasions of listening. One of our great strengths is the intimate relationship we have with those turning on the program. Accentuating and growing that element of your show leads to higher ratings and is an ongoing conversation worth having with the connected car and even more competition for listeners’ time just around the corner.

Need help learning how to become a master storyteller? Let’s chat.

Jurassic World – Why Talent Should Root for the Raptors

There’s a scene in “Jurassic World” where Chris Pratt comes upon a dying brontosaurus. Despite the fact this animal is all CGI, you’ll still push back tears. Likewise, throughout the movie, you’ll find yourself rooting for the raptors in this one.

While I won’t give away any plot twists, the reason for this is rather simple: this is a Steven Spielberg effort around a beloved and known movie franchise, and if this director knows anything, he certainly understands the value of well-defined characters. You can count the raptors in on that observation. This movie made $205-million its opening weekend and was so feared, no other movie debuted.

How does this apply to your personality-driven morning or afternoon show? While your show plot will drive its content choices, the characters you have on the program make that content sparkle and become memorable.

Shows must have a disparate group of people (even two) who are likable, yet different. Where the big win happens, which positively affects loyalty, is when your characters are grounded in honesty and the audience is moved to care about them.

Which brings us back to Pratt and those raptors. For those who’ve seen the movie, there is a human bond which happens between them which moves you to believe in all and even root for their success.

What do the characters on your show stand for? Who in your audience do they represent and speak for? Much more importantly, how much of their lives do they share with listeners so they’re moved to care about them?

There is a very distinct and definable bond between listeners of a radio station and its talent. You can only get so far talking about Caitlyn Jenner and Trump’s impeachment trial. The truly great talent who’ve crossed that magic line generate content so personal and genuine that the telling of those stories bond them further with the audience through this content which cannot be duplicated by anyone else in the market.

What percentage of your morning show’s content is dedicated to making me root for them, just like those raptors?

Need help creating a cast of characters that your audience will care about? Let’s chat.