Archive for category: Newsletters

You probably saw the video of the guy at game 6 of the 2019 World Series carrying two beers to his seats in the outfield when a home run hit him in the chest. (If not, you can see it here.)

He never went to put the beers down (probably because they cost $14 each). Almost immediately the short video was everywhere on the internet. The guy was awarded with a ball, and Budweiser came through with a ton of beer.  

Budweiser seized the moment and made a 15-second ad of it that appeared in game 7 of the World Series the very next night. It’s quite powerful to be in the moment and seize opportunities when they appear. 

Think about it. Doing all of this required someone at Budweiser seeing it happen, acting on the opportunity to tap into it (pun intended) that night, and mobilizing forces almost immediately to change lots of people’s schedules to create an ad that ran only once or twice. That’s impact. (Oreo did something similar during the blackout at the Super Bowl a couple years ago.)

One of radio’s great strengths is how nimble we can be. Something happens in the news or pop culture cycle, and we can immediately insert ourselves into it to get attention. 

So, ask yourself: how much content on your morning show is truly of-the-moment? Also, how fast acting are your people to create something from those moments that makes the content big (bigger) and distinctly theirs to create talk? (Need some of-the-moment content? Check out my Weekly Hot List.)

The very best morning shows are perishable. In other words, if you played what they did in a certain hour today in two weeks, it’d feel stale and old. That’s being super topical, and that’s good. Think about how much different this ad feels in game 7 (the very next night after it happened) than it would in a week or two. That’s what every show should sound like. 

Seizing the moment sometimes requires money. Oftentimes it requires innovation. And all the time it requires initiative. How much time do your personalities spend on seeing and seizing these moments so that fans have a fear (and expectation) of “missing out” if they don’t tune into your show for your funny and entertaining take? 

Need help getting your morning show to seize the moment? Let’s chat!

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 morning show content. It isn’t content, because it’s irrelevant to listeners’ lives. 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 now—now in pop culture, or locally, or in the life of the talent—is what your audience craves and connects with. Look at Kimmel, Ellen, Corden, and Fallon. Their shows are highly relevant because they focus on what’s happening right now, and they share it from their unique perspective (with a whole lot fun). 

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 they proceeded to play the sound effect of a clucking chicken over everything they did for the next half hour. 

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 67 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 town.” 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…”). 

That’s LAZY!

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, content done well), and its value (your ratings) will go up. 

Need a talent coach who’ll help your morning team think strategically? Let’s chat.

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.

Trying to get a morning talent to change their show so it wins in PPM can be one of the hardest things. Giving up control is tough, which is why I use lots of analogies to pull them outside of radio to make my points. If delivered well, they’re tough points to refute and put you in the best possible position to get the morning talent to make strategic changes so ratings go up.

I talk with shows all the time about how, instead of being on the receiving end of PPM ratings in radio, we’ve been on the giving end of it in TV: each night as we sit on the sofa with the remote control, each one of us cruises up and down the channel guide in search of a show that captivates and entertains—one that makes us laugh or engages us. We make that decision in micro-seconds before pushing the button again. 

Same with the internet. Say a friend sends you a You Tube link saying it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. We click on the link, immediately look at the clip length, and if it isn’t “the funniest thing we’ve ever seen,” we click away. 

I proffer to shows that if we treat TV and the internet that way, why should we believe listeners would treat us any differently? 

Point made. 

Need help getting your morning talent to change—for the better? Let’s chat.

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.