With schools back in session, time for The Radar Run. Partner up with your local police department. Camp outside an elementary school one morning and have them clock how fast cars fly by, all in an effort to remind people to slow down around schools. John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego do this big. Here’s a social media video of all they put into it.
I’m asked regularly how long a break should be. I think as long as the drama in the content can survive. At our heart, we are story tellers. Stories are how we connect and define who we are to people. It’s also how we entertain one another – by telling a compelling story. How long the break can go is dependent on the twists and turns and tension and drama in the story being told. If there’s one piece of conflict, it’s a short story. But if you have lots, it can go on longer because you’ll hold the attention of the audience. This is kinda like a scene in a reality show. The next time you watch one, note that the scene’s length correlates to the amount of drama in the scene. Case-in-point is this story as told by Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Ft. Myers, FL. Sadie had some DMV drama. As things spiraled, we hear more and more morsels of goodness to keep the listener leaning in.
Be honest, where is your enthusiasm and interest level on a scale of 1-10 knowing that it’s National Steve Reynolds Day?
If you said it was resting comfortably at a zero, I’d get it. I’m Steve Reynolds and even I don’t care. And yet I listen to some personalities who think telling me that this is National Pest Control Week or today is National Doughnut Day is content. It isn’t, because it’s irrelevant to listeners’ lives.
I tuned into a show I don’t work with last week. They went on and on that it was National Chop Suey Day in the first break I heard. I groaned, and listeners went “meh”. That’s dangerous in an age of endless choice.
A close friend calls it “empty calories with no strategic purpose in a break.” I call it chatter that doesn’t matter.
Great content is about the moment. Whatever is going on right now—now in pop culture, or locally, or in the life of the talent—is what your audience craves and connects with. This is called relevance. Look at what drives the internet. Something happens in the country and we immediately Google it to learn more. The internet is about clicks and what gets you more clicks than being about right now?
We need to stop telling the audience things like it’s National Hot Dog Day or that Betsy Ross sewed the flag on this date in 1783. I actually heard a show (not one I coach) tell me it was National Chicken Day and then proceeded to play the sound effect of a clucking chicken over everything they did for the next half hour. Exciting radio, huh?
All of this is irrelevant and lazy as content, to be perfectly honest. We need to be better than that given all the entertainment choices for listeners. I still hear some shows read a laundry list of birthdays to the audience. Remember the only person who cares that little Ally Simpson is six today is Ally Simpson. And maybe her parents. Any efforts to endear yourself to them come at the significant sacrifice of everyone else, who shrug their shoulders hearing this and mentally zone out. Ditto the fact that Mel Gibson turns 69 today. No one cares.
Reading listeners’ birthdays isn’t being local, either. Local is about what’s going on in your market and you doing something unique with it to say “I love living here and am connected to what’s going on in my community.” Offering up a list of birthdays of people who may or may not be listening is about as local as giving me the temperature in a local town when reading the weather (it isn’t) or reading a listener text and attributing it to a local area code (“someone in the 415 says…”).
Lazy content like that won’t get it done for us!
Listen to your talent and challenge them to be strategic with their content: pop culture/whatever is in the news churn (the topic must fit your brand image), knowing what’s up in your market and tapping into that, and real time stories of experiences your talent have that position them as just like the audience. That’s great, strategic content for any audience.
Each break on your show should be treated like it’s beachfront property. Erect on it only the very best buildings (in other words, relevant content done well), and its value (your ratings) will go up.
This is one of the more interesting breaks I’ve heard in the past few weeks. It comes from Wood and Nicole, Taste of Country Mornings for Townsquare. Wood lets us peek into his friendships and tells the audience he has a pal named Brian who is very ugly. He says his buddies tell Brian this all the time. What a hook, huh? Brian is dating a somewhat younger, very good looking gal and the group of friends think she’s a gold digger! So they get Brian the Ugly Guy on the phone, where Wood and Nicole quiz him about his new girlfriend. I love many things about this break you should hear: it has the hook noted above, it’s edgy from the start (the first 30 seconds really capture you), the questions are highly personal and make me lean in, and it never lives in the mushy middle. This call is good character development for Wood, based on Brian’s real life, and memorable.
Is there an electronic billboard somewhere in town where they will let you run it for a morning? As kids head back to school, take calls from moms talking about what school their kid is enrolled in. Then, give her, the kid, and the school props on the billboard for five minutes before you switch it out.
You know what might be cool? Get into the Labor Day Weekend talking with women who are expecting to have babies in the next few weeks. It could be a cool phone topic then maybe aggregate that entire list and, for those who actually give birth at local hospitals over the holiday weekend, read the entire list on your Tuesday show when back from the break
Sometimes we in radio take the path of least resistance. What’s the easiest thing to do here? For instance, imagine seeing a story about a local kid who was swimming and saved another kid’s life who was drowning. We all know shows that might not see that as content. Then others who would only recount the story so they could talk more. Then there’s the Daly/Migs Show, 99.9 KISW, Seattle who live to step into stories by finding those central to it, bringing them on, and exploring what that experience was like. It’s a very effective way to showcase their curiosity as the story unfolds. What helps this story was the T-shirt the kid wearing when they found the story. They knew he liked the station because of the band on the T-shirt, which makes the local connection even sweeter.
I’m turning over the blog this week to one of the smartest people in radio. Jim Ryan consults, coaches talent, and is one of my closest friends. After nearly thirty years programming day-to-day in New York City for immensely successful brands like WLTW, CBS-FM, and WNEW-FM, along with growing national formats for Clear Channel, CBS, and Audacy, Jim felt it was time to take control of his future, so he’s stepped out on his own. Jim not only teaches me in every conversation, he makes me laugh out loud, too. Reach him at jim@jimryanmedia.com. Ladies and gents, Jim Ryan…
Stop worrying about your future. Control it.
For lessons in controlling your future, think Taylor Swift. Like every other artist, she signed a contract when she was fifteen, giving total control of her master recordings to the labels. When the masters were sold to someone she didn’t like, she didn’t sulk away or raise the white flag of surrender. She re-recorded the songs and released them (something her contract didn’t prohibit). It was an insane amount of work. She took control and planned lots of behind-the-scenes marketing.
When radio played an original version of one of her songs (the ones owned by the guy she didn’t like), the request lines lit up immediately with Swifties telling the talent they needed to play her new versions. Companies like iHeart and Audacy moved to the new versions, mapping another Taylor win. The streaming services saw immediate results as well – Taylor’s new versions were crushing the originals in airplay. It all led this summer to Taylor buying back the original masters at a somewhat reasonable price.
Okay so you’re a radio talent and not Taylor Swift. How does all this affect you and what’s the lesson here?
How are you controlling your future? Today the work is different – it’s harder, compelling each of us to work smarter than the competition, just like Taylor. Ratings are great, but in the world of Nielsen, even the best shows have bad months. But if you’re where the eyes and ears are when not on the radio, it will enhance your win and increase your value to the station.
Podcasts of your show should be everywhere. If you have a hobby or outside interest, do a second podcast on that passion. Steve Kramer from Kramer and Jess, MIX 106.5, Baltimore, does a second podcast with his mother. How endearing is that? Being all over social media with great content could net you thousands of likes, comments, and shares.
When Scott Shannon came across the street to CBS-FM, the cash register rang immediately. It was so good, we even hired the leading seller of WPLJ, his former station! So, have a positive relationship with the sales folks and meet and know as many clients as you can. I can’t tell you how many downsizing meetings I’ve been in over my career where the topic of endorsements came up. Bring in revenue and your value enhances to the station and cluster even more. When you’re the sales manager’s best friend, it’s not just income for you, it’s job security.
Doing simple things like knowing a client’s birthday or special anniversary and acknowledging it in some fashion works to build a special bond. The days of talent being in a silo are over. Having a relationship with listeners, sales, and clients is not just required today, it’s smart business for you. The deeper those relationships, the more you’re just like Taylor Swift. In control of your future.
From Swift to shift, own your career. It’s exactly where you should be.
Do some research online of some old time diseases that no longer exist. Grab the symptoms, then share them with the audience. First to identify the now eradicated disease wins your prize.
We focus a lot on the treatments you bring the big topics of the day. Be a show that just chats at the audience and opens the phones on occasion and you’ll be seen as “pizza, pizza”. I love pizza. But not every break. Gathering street audio is a powerful way to validate doing topics because it makes the listeners feel like they’re there. And it also opens up new ways to have fun. Boston has some of the biggest pride parades every year. Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston has a few summer interns so they sent one to the pride parade to gather audio for the show. One of the best parts of this show is they see content everywhere. The audio is great, but how they poke fun at the intern at the end of this break makes it even funnier.