Make My Day, Steal This Blog

This blog isn’t for you.  I’ll explain why after I tell you how I met my friend Lori Lewis, radio’s social media guru.

“We define our image every day by how we make people feel.”  I didn’t say that.  Lori Lewis did.  I was a fan and read everything Lori wrote because I always learned something from her.  Joel Denver had asked me to present at one of his Worldwide Radio Summits and I wanted to include her quote in my talk.  I did and credited her because she said it, I didn’t.

Several people took screenshots of the slide and texted it to her.  By the end of the day, she’d emailed a thanks and we’ve been friends since.  When putting the presentation together, I decided if I couldn’t be the smart person who said it, the second best thing was to be a smart person who quoted the smart person.

This blog isn’t for you because you probably don’t steal other people’s work.  But, someone has stolen from Lori Lewis recently and she’s rightfully pissed off.  She wrote a piece for Inside Radio on this then posted about it on Facebook to much reaction.

I’ve been stolen from, too.  By a handful of people over the years.  I almost always hear about it.

Which brings me to a blog I co-wrote about Yacht Rock for Coleman Insights a year ago.  One of the takeaways I shared was how important it is to legally protect your intellectual property.  Lori has her IP, I have mine.  It’s what fuels our work because it’s what we believe and it’s also our livelihood.  But that doesn’t mean people can’t steal the stuff any of us have worked hard to create and present it as theirs.  One of the best things Jon Coleman taught me when I started my company was to protect my stuff legally.  So, I do.  In the past when others took the things I worked hard to create and passed it off as theirs, the lawyers said it was a violation.  I’m not one to wither from that, so I placed tough phone calls to tell those people that that © is real.

I bet lawyers work for the radio company you work for, right?  Snicker at that and then put them to work.  If you come up with something all yours, get trademarks for all of it to protect yourself.

As I was finding my on-air style when I was young, a caring PD named a bunch of successful personalities to listen to so I could hear how they did it.  He then said, “To copy one is plagiarism, to copy six is research.  Do your research.”  We all borrow ideas from other shows.  There’s nothing wrong with that, until you take someone’s actual content and present it as yours.  Good broadcasters are always listening to other shows for inspiration.  Continue to do that.

But if you plagiarize content and do it verbatim without permission or accreditation, you’re stealing.  I know of shows that take callers from others podcasts and use them on their show with the same phone topic.  Some programs have the same trivia feature.  Show A works hard on their questions and Show B listens to A’s posted version and takes (pilfers) their questions.  I am aware of one show only hours away from another who does something worse.  They’re both major markets a few hours apart in a big southern state so let’s call them Show D and Show H.  Both have the same dating feature.  Show D does the original, Show H transcribes the back-and-forth word for word, records it, and presents it as their own weeks later.  Don’t believe me?  I have the receipts (audio proving it).

You don’t do this, I bet, so get those lawyers working to protect your stuff.  That’s my main message to you.  What can be service marked?  Well, I am not an attorney (sorry, mom) so dial up those lawyers who always seem to say no and run those things you developed by them and let them tell you what can and can’t be legally protected.

Please know, I am not angry.  My effort here has been to do two things:  remind you to get service marks on the things you do that you truly own (your intellectual property) and to inspire you, and all of us in the business, to make your show a true reflection of you, not someone else.

We learned when we were young that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  In Steve speak, I’ve added to that:  imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but taking someone else’s intellectual property without permission or attribution is unethical and a shitty thing to do.

Protect yourself.

John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego with Show Us Your Cans

Many shows will do their big community service project before the end of the year.  It’s important to remember that you’re talking with two distinct groups of people when you do this:  those who will give and those who won’t.  The latter group is much bigger.  Your goal is to impact the images of those listeners by showing them your heart and humanity.  A yearly project for John and Tammy, KSON San Diego is their annual Food Fund where they ask listeners to donate canned goods to the local food bank.  It’s a tenured and very successful project for them.  Their fans always step up to help them reach their goal.  But with a nod to the latter group of those who won’t or can’t give and with the objective of impacting how those folks view the show, John did a goofy song this year called Show Us Your Cans.  It brought humor to the effort and helped the fundraiser operate on multiple levels emotionally.  The song and full break are below.

Tales of the TSA

With the holidays in full swing, we’re entering a time when your airport will be very busy!  Lots of people travel only a couple of times a year and have no idea what’s allowed in their carry-on.  See if a current or former TSA worker in your city will come on each week for the rest of the year and tell you a story of something they found in a traveler’s bag that resulted in a reaction your audience would love to hear.  Tales of the TSA!

The AD Rowntree Show, KSHE, St. Louis with Politics At Thanksgiving Dinner

If you talk about topics and make observations the typical listener might think, “How does he know what goes on in my house?” you are in a good spot to be tagged positively as relatable to the audience.  This is why each show I work with plays in the sandbox of what the average listener might be doing right now when prepping.  The AD Rowntree Show, KSHE, St. Louis knows that politics will somehow make its way to the Thanksgiving dinner.  So that was the topic.  They asked the audience who’ll first bring up politics, alienating everyone.  When you are in the zone of relatabilty, that’s when most listeners will have fun.  Here’s one call they received on the topic where a listener disguised his voice out of a fear of being heard by the person he was convinced would be the violator!

And Then The Cops Were Called

Here’s a new feature to debut this week called And Then The Cops Were Called.  Throw out a scenario, then asked for situations around it where the police got involved.  This week:  Thanksgiving happened, and then the cops were called.  Stand by for the great stories.

 

The No Politics Pledge

No doubt one of the family members invited to Thanksgiving dinner will bring up politics.  Uh oh, right?  Draw up a short “repeat after me” no politics pledge.  Open the phones to ask listeners who in their family will first bring up this topic at the dinner table and make them take the pledge so they don’t participate in it.

Foxx and Annie, WCBS-FM, New York City with Annie’s Baby Announcement

There are things that happen to cast members on a show that are indelibly memorable and highly connective.  Having a baby is one of them.  It’s so relatable to the audience and gives them a chance to cheer for that person.  We searched for many ways to announce the pending birth of Annie’s third baby on Foxx and Annie, WCBS-FM, New York City.  We felt the news to be large enough to do something bigger than just share it with the audience.  The unique idea we landed on was asking the audience what celebrity they might know who’d do it for us.  Our first pass was to get listeners involved in helping construct the ending.  All along, though, we had the celebrity chosen.  The program approached the iconic play-by-play guy for the Yankees, John Sterling, who gladly agreed.  Our job each day is to take our relatable topics and do them in a unique way.  This one’s an A+.

The Power and Peril of Paying Attention

Many of us know someone in radio who’s met Taylor Swift.  They gush about how nice she is.  Some reference a handwritten note they’ve received from her, with something personal inside, after the visit.

You’ll get no cynicism from me.  Taylor’s a smart marketer who understands her two customer bases:  her fans and those of us who play her songs and talk about her in our content breaks.  She pays attention to us, so we pay attention to her.

Reflecting on this, I ponder how much radio’s talent is paying attention to radio’s constituencies and if they derive power from it.

We are so conditioned to never hear back from anyone.  With all this technology, the power of a human touch still reigns supreme in developing a relationship with a brand.  I recently changed car companies.  The brand I was driving ignored me and made it very difficult to talk to an actual human being.  The new company won my loyalty because they paid attention to me.

Pay attention to the fans of your show.  How much time do you spend replying to listeners who interact with your program in any way (even on social media)?  It’s time consuming, but the upside is immense.  A show recently used the derisive term I hate for a listener who’s always looking to win a prize.  She gives us many quarter hours and can decide, if she got a meter, whether you’re in first or fifth place.  This isn’t about giving listeners prizes to win their affection.  It’s about paying attention to them, which is even more powerful.

Pay attention to your listeners and they’ll serve you the power of positive chatter and more listening.  I’ve been on market visits where I’ve seen talent, when out for dinner, pay attention to listeners who recognize them.  Those folks leave bigger fans and, like Taylor, gush about the talent.

Pay attention to those on your show and the rest of the airstaff.  Every success comes from having a positive culture.  If you’re emotionally connected to your team and the airstaff, they will help you move everything to a win.

Pay attention to your co-workers.  Do you manage up and down in the building regularly?  Do you spend time with the other people at the station to show appreciation and make them feel valued?  These people can help make your show more successful.  That engineer you talk to about his weekend?  I bet he’d fix a piece of equipment faster.  That salesperson who’s anniversary you celebrate?  It’ll be easier to say no to a promotion she wants that won’t fit.  These folks can help you power through tough times because you pay attention to them.

Pay attention to clients.  Do you have an active relationship with the biggest local clients of your radio station?  With respect to the hard-working folks in the sales department, you’re the star of the station to the clients.  Do you have a relationship with those people who trust your brand with their marketing dollars?  Do you pay attention to them?  Visit them at their store?  Know when their birthdays are and send a card?  Regularly thanking them for believing in your show and the station with their money is a difference maker.  Doing simple things like this makes you quite powerful in the building.  And it’ll shield you when ratings and revenue are down, and your market manager must make hard decisions.

We are an intimate medium.  Folks feel like they know us.  Return that favor by paying attention to them.  Paying attention gives you a superpower to craft your future because more people will believe in you and are on your side because you do that for them.  There’s great peril, too, if you don’t.

Maybe there’s a 2024 resolution here that elevates you to epic in how you grow your brand.

George, Mo, and Erik, KILT-FM (The Bull), Houston with Dress Codes

One of radio’s strengths is the relatabilty of its talent.  When the audience leaves the show having a perception that you are just like them, a connection happens that fuels authenticity.  We only hang out in life with people we have something in common with.  That’s why it’s so important to share your life and do things which indicate you’re a regular person.  George, Mo, and Erik, KILT-FM (The Bull), Houston excel at this.  Mo thinks there should be a dress code when you go to certain places.  Like your kid’s school or the Walmart.  Once you present the topic and listeners nod their head in agreement, you’re connecting.  Here’s a simple, yet powerful phone topic they did.  Hear how they present it, then the listeners contributing because they see it, too.  This is real and that’s why it works.

The Enablers

Thanksgiving is now a few weeks away and you will need to turn into The Enablers.  Ask listeners where they’re going Thanksgiving Day and then give them express permission to eat as much as they want that day, including at least three desserts!