Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Ft. Myers, FL with Logan’s Relationship Report Card

It’s an added benefit when benchmarks are so strategic they define a cast member.  Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Ft. Myers, FL spend part of their week talking about their significant others on the show.  That’s part of being vulnerable to define who you are.  We decided to flip that script.  Every Monday, Logan’s wife comes on to grade him as a husband based from the weekend.  Did he not finish chores around the house?  Did he take his wife out for dinner?  What happened in their relationship over the weekend, from his wife’s perspective, that gives her equal time and further humanizes him?  She tells the stories and attaches a letter grade.  Thus making it very relatable to our female base, with many being envious to do it, too.  In this version, he gets an “A”.  But the real fireworks happen when he doesn’t.  This is strategic character development wrapped into a weekly benchmark.

Famous People From Local High Schools

With high school graduations right around the corner, why not spend some time finding out what famous people went to area high schools?  Then, invite them on your show to re-live those glory years.  Make yourself available to record these at their convenience.  Find five and you can have a theme week when graduations are happening.

What Great Talent Want More than Anything Else

We’re at the end of another thrilling March Madness.  The elite survive and move on in the tournament.  I’m captured by something Duke’s iconic Coach K said while on the Pat McAfee Show:

“Greatness wants to be coached.”

He said this when asked what it was like to coach basketball’s elite:  Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Dwayne Wade, LeBron James and others on the Olympic basketball team.  Pat wondered if he asked them to check their egos at the door.

Quite the contrary Coach K said.  Elite performers have an ego – it’s part of what motivates them.  He told them to bring their egos into the room as long as they could form one ego together that would drive the team.  We know the results.

Over the many years I’ve coached radio talent, there are many qualities that bind the radio elite I’ve been fortunate to work with.  They have egos, but their greatness wanted to be challenged.  That pushing and pulling and questioning of talented people, open to this feedback, helps get them to heights yet unknown.  Their greatness wanted coaching.

Two stories.

The wonderfully smart Dom Theodore called me on a Monday many years ago.  He was programming then CBS’s new Top 40 AMP in New York City.  He wanted me to come to town that Thursday to interview someone they were considering for mornings.  Someone who was out-of-the-box.  They were wondering if they were crazy considering this person.

I am normally leery working with celebrities outside of radio.  They tend to think their persona alone will drive their radio success.  Two hours after having a one-on-one chat with Nick Cannon, I told Dom they’d be dumb if they didn’t hire him.  I was captured by Nick’s aura and passion for radio and told him I would need direct contact with him if this was gonna work.  He really had no idea how to do radio.  While I respected the room (cohosts and producers), the show would rise and fall with Nick’s decisions.  He gave me his cell.  When I got to Laguardia, I texted him and got a reply in thirty seconds.  A good sign.  That’s how it went with Nick.

Nick made every meeting, even if it meant taking the red eye from Los Angeles.  He called to ask questions and for advice.  He thought about radio all the time and worked to learn how we do this.  Despite the station not succeeding (because of a little thing called Z100), I adored Nick.  His greatness wanted coaching.

Ditto Ebro Darden at HOT 97 in New York.  I was taken by this incredible article done on him in Barrett Media last week.  Ebro’s no longer on terrestrial radio.  But look at how he’s elevated.  Ebro, as you would imagine, is no wallflower.  We’d sit in meetings and challenge each other.  Never raised voices, but convictions on both sides.  All I had to do was access the New Yorker in me.  Maybe he didn’t like it in the moment (maybe he did?), but there was always a mutual respect.  Ebro is where he is now because his greatness wanted coaching (from me in small part and I am sure many others in his career).

If you only want to be coached on your terms, you don’t want greatness.  You want comfort.

Ebro and Nick (and the many other great talent I’ve worked with) have convictions and a vision for their shows.  They also crave the conversation to improve.  They want someone to challenge them and hold them accountable.  None of that scares them.

The core attributes of those who get to greatness (you must have all three):  Aptitude (their talent), Attitude (we embrace growth positively), and Work Ethic (we out-work everyone else).  There’s much in radio we don’t control.  But these items noted here, the through thread of excellence, are choices in our control.

Radio is dying?  Not if we have personalities with greatness who want to be coached.  Those folks thrive regardless of the environment.

Chris and Dina, WMAS-FM, Springfield, MA with Remake or Not

Align with the station’s music brand and you’ll no doubt accomplish two important items:  you’ll weave your show into the bigger station brand (very smart) and you’ll broaden the appeal of your program because that’s one of the reasons listeners turn you on.  Many listeners on the younger side listen to the songs you play and don’t know, because of their age, that some of them are remakes.  I hear you older demos reading this and groaning – haha.  Chris and Dina, WMAS-FM, Springfield, MA see this as opportunity for content.  They brought in an engaging co-worker and quizzed them by playing the more current version and the other station employee had to determine if it was a remake.  A super smart idea you can steal and do anytime.

Tasty for the TSA

You know those TSA workers at your airport?  They’ve been working without pay for the last month because of the government.  Might be a good idea to partner with a client or two and bring them lunch one day this week as a thanks.  Before you do, make sure every TV station in town knows it’s happening and you’ll likely get coverage.

Morning Magic, Magic 106.7, Boston with Getting to Know You

Upon launch, an important thing in character develop is to put out larger things about your persona most of the listeners can connect with first.  You have kids, I have kids, let’s be friends.  You’re married, I’m married, let’s talk.  You like sports or have pets, I like sports or have pets and we can vibe.  But what happens when you’ve been around a while?  Well, much like in real life, the longer you know someone, the better you get to know them and that, usually, is around something that would be fringe at the start.  Such is the case with Morning Magic, Magic 106.7, Boston.  David, Sue, and Kendra are very well known by the audience.  Time to reveal something quirkier, but deeper.  How many spices does David, the cook, have?  How big is Sue’s mudroom?  How many receipts are stuffed into Kendra’s purse?  We learn about each other in stages.  So should the audience about you.  Deal with the macro or bigger qualities first.  Then, over years, go deeper.

The Gas Tank Challenge

Gas prices are back in the news.  There’s not one of us, when filling up, that doesn’t play the same game.  The gas is flowing and you try to disengage the pump at an exact dollar amount ($52.00!).  Have a competition amongst the cast to see who can come closest.  This could be a fun on-air conversation with a wrap-up of pushing the videos, and announcing the champion, on social media.

💣 But The Phones Blow Up When We Do That… 💣

Why It Matters:  because doing same old, same old and allowing the phone lines or social media reaction to guide your content strategy are coin flips.

The week of November 3, 2025 was a particularly tough one at the intergalactic headquarters of The Reynolds Group and for your old pal Steve Reynolds aka the Top Ten Talent Coach®.

I spot checked two different shows that week and something so horrific happened on both that it took multiple therapy sessions and some gummies to deal with.  Only now can I talk about it.

I tuned in and both shows had on psychics.  Cue the thunderclap.

Hype and hyperbole aside, I did bristle at the content choice and imagined what both would say when I asked why.  As a former morning guy, I tend to know the excuses before I hear them.  I was well-versed in using all of them to justify a content choice that was both bad and non-strategic.

Here’s what they’d say: “but the phones blow up every time we do that.”  As if the phones were an affirmation of a smart decision.  They might be right.  But they could also be wrong.

I wanna make two points:

  • It scares me to make content decisions based on direct feedback from what you get on the phones, when listeners talk with you, or what you see on social media. Not that those people are wrong for themselves, but it’s dangerous to extrapolate what a few people say and believe it’s correct for all.  Four blinking phone lines means that those four people are reacting to what you’re doing.  Without research, there’s no idea what everyone else thinks (test recall and perceptions and you’ll know much more than what blinking phone lines or social media likes/posts say).  If listeners tell you how wonderful you are, that’s their truth.  But remember, no listener will ever reach out to say the opposite.  It’s easy to be romanced into thinking that that’s how everyone feels.  But, emotions (good or bad) are never a smart way to decide about content for your show.  Tens of thousands are listening at any given moment.  That five said something is noise in the grand scheme of things.  The question I’d ask both shows above is this:  how did having on a psychic fit our content strategy?  If that can be answered satisfactorily, then let’s do it.  If it can’t, then we shouldn’t.
  • The specific issue I have with psychics is that it isn’t a modern content choice. It’s quite old school and might say to the audience – we do this because we’ve done this and that should be good enough for you.

One show I work with decided to pull the old standard War of the Roses last year.  It got us our best streaming downloads and tune ins, but the show lost favor with it and, in a reassessment of our content strategy, we believed it no longer fit where the listeners are in life.  In a world with lots of arguing and deception, they and the show’s hosts hearing about cheating couples no longer was right.

That’s not to say drama doesn’t work.  We just had to update doing dramatic things, but no longer through this feature.  I’m not advocating taking this feature off if you do it, just sharing the conversation I had with this show about its fans.

We pulled the feature (everything went online and on demand for those who like it) and came up with new (modern) ideas to get stuff like that on the air.

Some talent reading this will wanna defend psychics.  I’ll make it easy.  Email me here to make your case and let’s have that spirited conversation.  But we need to be more strategic and inventive to get to our win, given the vast number of choices listeners have for content and connection.

Let me leave you with this great quote from Harry Styles on Howard Stern on the best advice he ever got in his career (clip here).  Harry said:

“I think one of my favorite things a friend once told me is remember that everything that people say about you isn’t true.   Whether they say that you are horrific, it’s not true.  And if they tell you that you’re the best thing ever, it’s not true.”

Certainly, accept those comments.  That’s the truth of the person sharing it.  But…your plot and content strategy beat all of that.  Can you honestly and dispassionately connect the dots between whatever you decide to do on your show and that?

In a world with lots of noise all around us all the time, choose well and smart.  And ignore the feedback you get from those blinking lights and social media posts.  It’s always dangerous to decide only from those.

Zog and Ivy, Power 96, Miami with My Cousin Is a Disappointment

You’re getting married in 18 days and your dad is too old to drive at night.  So what do you do?  You ask a family member to pick him up so he can be there on your special day.  That was the case for Zog and Ivy, Power 96, Miami.  Zog is soon to get married – his cousin agreed to pick up his dad months ago.  Yet days out of the ceremony, his cousin started to balk, having forgotten.  The very best content comes from real life and this is a terrific example of that.  I post this for you to hear two things:  first, listen to how authentic Zog is in telling the story.  When you tell the truth, you are your most genuine.  You can tell there is no embellishment of this story.  Second – listen to the callers react to Zog.  The big takeaway is that they feel like they know him personally because so many of them offer to pick up his dad because his cousin won’t.  That’s connection and one of the primary goals of every talent.

The Show With the Brogue

St. Patrick’s Day is next week so it’s time for the Show With the Brogue.  Re-work all your sweepers to be topical-sounding that day by having them redone in the classic Irish accent.  Don’t know anyone who’s Irish or can do the brogue?  That’s where A.I. comes in!  Be topical that day with lots of St. Patrick’s Day content, but make the show sound it, too.