Archive for category: Audio

What do you do when your church going 80-year mother, a Chicago Bears fan for life, detests Aaron Rodgers and he’s hosting Jeopardy that night?  You charge up your phone to get commentary about what she thinks.  So did John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego weeks ago as Jeopardy continued to offer up guest hosts with the death of Alex Trebek.  Bring me there.  That’s the message of this post.  Make me feel like I am in the room with you.  John knows his mother would be opinionated and fun with topic. So the show had options:  recount the story themselves, get Bonnie on the phone after-the-fact, or record her in real time as she drips with emotion.  It’s option “C” every time because that’s a higher level of drama for the audience to glum on to.  That she’s older and works at a church is a wonderful setup.  Remember…when in the middle of emotion, record it.  These work parts will help you better tell the story and you will make the audience hearing it feel like they were there with you.

Nostalgia is in and I bet you remember all those family meetings you had when you were a kid.  Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston decided to air one.  Karson’s young son, Barrett, recently called a family meeting at the dinner table to discuss a few things that were bothering him.  This is awesome character development for Karson because we’re getting to know him as a dad.  That’s the core of character development – am I getting to know something about you that makes you relatable to me?  What’s fun about this is the interaction between Barrett and his parents.  Also listen for its execution.  Karson didn’t just record the table conversation and air it in its entirety.  He edited it and they talked around parts of it so the team could keep their in-studio chemistry and commentary at the forefront.  Great radio is doing relatable content in a unique way that allows for natural humor and humaneness.  This ticks those boxes.

One filter in your prep process should be – is there audio we can play in this break that will help make it sparkle?  There was a time (in the olden days!) when the only audio available came from the prep services you subscribed to.  But with the internet, audio is everywhere.  Breaks with the cast just talking about a TV show they watched are not as good as breaks that have audio from that TV show.  This is for a few reasons:  first, the audio provides much needed context for those who didn’t see the show (most of your listeners) so they understand better your comments.  Second, listeners need “audio stimulation” so they don’t drift and audio inside a break provides that, helping keep their interest.  So always look for audio for any topic you do.  Here’s a simple, yet effective character break from Christine and Salt, WTIC-FM, Hartford.  Christine got a letter from her son’s school and wondered if it was real.  A local TV station confirmed it.  Their use of that audio did the two critical things above, which made the break better perceptually.

Bold, aggressive characters help you put the car on the freeway and floor the vehicle immediately to 85 miles per hour.  That’s what Karson’s wife, Lana, does on Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston, every time she’s on.  Lana has a sweet southern accent (which stands out in Boston, Massachusetts and is an immediate asset in a break).  But what Lana does even better when she’s introduced to the audience, is that she immediately goes on the offensive with her content.  There is no ramp up to get there.  The team introduces her after paraphrasing the dilemma about to be discussed, and she goes on the attack, which draws listeners in.  This is a story about Lana going away for the weekend, forgetting her wedding ring, and then being hit on by two guys at the airport – great relationships stuff.  Karson says there’s a double-standard at play, and Lana defends all of this.  It’s fun, relatable, and self-deprecating.  And because how it’s designed (the content happens immediately – listen to how much they get done in the first thirty seconds), listeners hang on for the wild ride to resolution.

Would you, could you do a break like this, as heard on John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego?  John’s dad had been in failing health for some time.  This is a show that keeps no secrets from its listeners.  They are intimately aware that when you move the audience to care about you (and in turn you care about them), the show becomes important.  Radio is the most intimate form of mass communication there is.  Thousands of listeners at any one time based on numbers from Nielsen.  But in reality, we all know our strength is that it’s really just that one person experiencing it when they listen.  The audience traveled the journey with John and his father over the many years this show has been on in San Diego.  The countless times John would have his father on for many reasons, they were quite aware of the bond between the two, even when John was making fun of him.  So it was appropriate that John include listeners on his last days, too.  Here is a break of John talking about his father a few days after he lost him.  The description of his last few minutes are incredibly powerful and could only be done by a talent experienced and seasoned and one comfortable to do so.  This is emotional, balanced, and radio at its most powerful.  Do you have this kind of relationship with your audience?  You’ll win bigger if you do.