Be Bored More. Here’s Why.

Have you ever been at a red light and picked up your phone?  We all do.   Know why?   We’re bored.  And checking email, texts, or worse, engaging the endless scroll of social media fixes that, as we look for something, anything to solve that boredom.

I’d like to make the case that our lack of boredom is one of the things that makes radio less entertaining.  I’ll explain, considering I spend 100% of my time helping shows not be boring.  (There’s a difference between you being boring and the benefit of you being bored.)

I’m always asking shows I work with, “Yea but what are we going to do with that to stand out?”  Our step back from being creative has a huge downside.  People don’t talk about us, they’re not captured by our imagination and curiosity, and we do fewer things that listeners find memorable so we’re not top-of-mind.  I think the solution appears when we go get bored because when we clear our heads, creativity happens.

I get bored in Umstead Park, right by my house.  I leash up Willow Two Toys® and Sam the World’s Neediest Dog® and we go for a walk.  No phone, no music, no headphones, no disruptions.  I turn the “gotta figure this out” dial down to zero.  Only nature and my wandering mind.  And what enters my brain when I invite in some boredom are solutions to challenges, ideas, and ways to innovate I didn’t have when I was filling that boredom with an endless search for something to solve it.

I don’t profess to have any super creative abilities.  But I have found, when I create that brain space by walking through the park, things magically happen.  I don’t know why and can’t predict when, but it happens.  We don’t do enough of that.  As an example from last week, we have a holiday concert at one station and the morning show has 100 tickets to give out.  Instead of doing pairs of tickets so lots of listeners win, or the dreaded Family Four Pack (someone kill this, please), the walk through the park brought me the idea to give all 100 tickets to one listener.  The morning show promotion Deck Your Doors was born in the park because of the boredom.  The talent and brand manager loved it and now we have something that’ll make our show stand out.

When I got back to the office one day after pondering this, I Googled “the impact boredom has on creativity”.  What I found was amazing.  An article came up by Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor.  As did a video (below).  It’s worth five minutes of your time.  He said:

“We hate boredom because it makes us think about things we don’t like.  But boredom switches our brains to bring us creativity, solutions, and even less depression.”

So, I’m here to say go be bored.  Find a park, let your feet touch grass figuratively, leave the phone behind, and let your mind wander.  If you’re one of my on-air talent, try this weekly and watch what happens to your creativity.

Any of us could bang the drum on radio’s issues.  One thing in our control is what fuels our innovative spirit.  Those of us of a certain age remember the wild west days when we’d think of an idea on Tuesday and it’d be on the air on Wednesday.  It doesn’t just have to be standard phone topics or family four packs.  We need quirky ideas and treatments to the right content on our shows that capture the listener’s imagination because they came from ours.  Doing fresh things with the right topics will make whoever is listening in that moment stay because it’s so compelling.  Getting more bored might bring you those ideas – it’s what works for me.

I recently decided to add to the boredom menu.  I bought a bike.  While my friends all have bets on when I’ll end up in the emergency room, I’m betting that the boredom of the rides, with no phones or distractions, will unlock more of my curiosity.  A few days ago, the boredom of a ride brought me the idea for this blog.

I understand how the phone manufacturers and social media algorithms have addicted us.  But some boredom unlocks creativity.  So, let’s make some room for that to reclaim our full imagination.  Ditch that bonus meeting or Zoom (unless it’s with me!) and create space in your week to let your mind wander.  A walk in the park is my secret weapon.  Maybe it’s yours, too.  It could help your problem solving and increase your creativity, too.  Then watch how much more inventive and memorable your show gets.

Q100, Atlanta’s Biggest Challenge When Bert Leaves

Coming this Monday, the all-new Molly and Steve Show (laser effects).  They lit up Binghamton, and now they’re bringing their number one morning show (extended echo to accentuate “number one”) to the ATL.  Molly and Steve – they’re real with more fun (canned laughter), more prizes (cash register sfx), and War of the Roses.  The all-new Molly and Steve Show – you won’t wanna miss it – starting Monday right here on Q100 (jingle, up tempo song).

Human beings gravitate to routine and structure.  The Bert Show on Q100 in Atlanta has been a part of that for decades.  And poof, one day soon, it will go away.  What will happen to his massive, loyal following in Atlanta and across his network of stations?  However the station handles this moment could determine its success for many years.

Maybe you’re going through this, too.  I’d like to help.  But first, can I take you out for bite to eat?  My treat.

I have a friend who owns a bunch of restaurants where I live in Raleigh.  Almost all of them are successful.  I asked her how that happened.  While location and the food experience are important, she shared a template for launch which both fascinated me and is one I’ve adopted when introducing a new show to any audience.

It’s the soft launch.  Low profile, zero hyperbole, none of the hype.  All of that chest-pounding about how great things will be is for all of us, insiders who want to communicate that a show is so damn good, they’ll be damn good for listeners, too.  You must earn your stripes, and she reminded me that the higher the expectations, the greater the chance of failure.  Promotion heightens expectations.  Listeners hate hype and hyperbole and eventually reject it because it’s never that good upon a first listen.

Her soft launches are very quiet.  They open and whoever finds them gets the experience as the host team, kitchen crew, and wait staffs find their chemistry.  Figuring all that out quietly and with little attention and no klieg lights shows her where the speed bumps are.  Once that’s all smoothed out after a few months, and word-of-mouth starts, is when they consider promoting a more mature product.

I’ve launched tons of shows over the years.  My most paramount rule and the companion to every decision we make, is to do no harm to the existing cume.  They’re there for many reasons:  loyalty to the old show, habit, they like the music, there were features they enjoyed.  When people wake in the morning, they like routines.  And they hate when those routines are disrupted.  So, acknowledge this and go slow lest that cume scatter.  If we lose them, it costs money to get them back.  Protect it.

Goal #1 is to endear the new show to the exiting audience.  Here are the general rules I ask shows to follow when they’re new to the station or market:

  1. Topics should be familiar because you aren’t.  Familiarity is so important when people wake up.  Play the hits when it comes to topics.  Nothing unfamiliar.  Topics:  what’s going on locally, what’s up in pop (popular) culture, stories of your life that show you’re just like them, and music/artist-based content (so the show weaves itself into the larger station brand).
  2. Affirm and earn images that you’re fun, genuine, friendly, and authentic in every break.
  3. Character development is very important. Introduce yourself by being honest and sharing your life.  Letting them get to know you helps form that connection which leads to being familiar and loyalty.  A goal should be the audience saying, “they’re just like me and I feel like I know them.”  You don’t get that done in one break.
  4. Be interested in them so they’re interested in you. Lots of phones, lots of storytelling.  Put the focus on the audience.  Nothing is more powerful than you getting them to talk about their favorite subject – themselves.
  5. Avoid the point-of-fatigue that happens in breaks by under-staying the welcome. Short breaks lead them to wanting more.
  6. Music is your friend right now. Lots of music holds their hand through the transition.
  7. Be careful of the treatments to your strategic content so listeners don’t think, “They’re trying too hard to impress me.” In three words:  don’t be wacky.
  8. Benchmarks, especially now, help provide that structure I noted above. They give you the best chance to define the show and get into the listener’s morning routine.
  9. Respect the past. What fits the brand and what expectations do longtime listeners have?  Meet those in every break.
  10. No promotion of the show just yet because promoting something heightens expectations by users. This is a soft, quiet launch.

My restaurant friend said that, while food and location are important to each of her places, it’s the dozens of people she employs who make that experience come to life.  She’s worried about them and the other group of people – those who float in to eat who have no formed opinions of her restaurant (aka listeners).  Managing all of that takes precedence.

That conversation re-wired how I think about debuting shows.  The talent you’ve hired might get frustrated at the slower pace, but it sets up the existing cume (who hate change) to have a better chance to react positively to what you’re doing.  Whoever follows Bert is in a unique spot to save that audience.   But only if they’re strategic will they have their best chance to protect what’s there.

It should be the Molly and Steve show because they’d kill.

Want a one-sheet of the above rules?  Grab that here.

The Kennedy Connection

Two summers ago, in a brainstorm in Boston with MIX 104.1’s Karson and Kennedy, we were tasked with developing a big, new idea to combat depressed summer cume.  Lots of folks were on vacation or not paying attention to radio and we all wanted to do something big to capture the imagination of the audience and create tune in.

In and around all the ideas being offered, I asked an odd question that kinda popped in my brain:  what is the longest contiguous street in Boston?  We fired up the Google machine and found out that Washington Street spans five towns and 14-miles.

I suggested we go on a long walk one morning for charity.  That became Kennedy’s Wicked Long Walk.  Kennedy just did her second walk and, in one day, raised over $70,000 for Samaritans, a local charity that serves young people who are challenged with mental health issues.  Kids and mental health are the show’s causes, with the latter being important to Kennedy, as she’s been quite open with the audience about her mental health.

To create talk and momentum, we developed a five-day story line to add drama, tension, and interest, with the walk being our final chapter.  Year one it rained, year two had even more of the feels.  This year, people walked along with her with their dogs, mayors of the towns greeted her along the way with proclamations, police departments lined up to celebrate what she and the show were doing, business owners said hello as she passed.  NBC10 in Boston even followed along (video here).  All of it live on their air, as they asked fans to donate to help the struggling charity Samaritans.

I’m not one for metrics but let me share some impressive numbers.  Over $70,000 donated from more than 700 individual donors in one day.  Samaritans provided to Kennedy the donor list and she wrote a thank you to every single one of them.  She shared where their money was going and what it meant to her that they cared enough to help.  Can you imagine how it felt for those who gave to hear from her?

Listeners wrote back to thank her for the show making them laugh on the way to work and how proud they were of she and Karson for being so open about mental health.  Kennedy shared that the replies were so moving, she’s saving them for days when she’s having a bad mental health day.

Kennedy suggested this blog and wrote me:

“At the end of the day, I think they felt like we had a connection.  Isn’t that great radio, though?  Connecting?  The only difference between us and A.I. is the ability to connect on a human level.  I’ve been crying on and off all day with what listeners shared back with me.  I’ve never felt so connected to our listeners in my life.”

There’s that word again – connection – the one word I keep using that bonds you to anyone in your life who’s important.  That’s how you create radio fans, too.

Here’s my point:  there is an immense amount of stress, negativity, anger, and tension in the world.  Running in the opposite direction, which is what this show (and all the shows I work with) do so well, is smart.  Listeners are begging to be around a brand that not only does good in the community, but creates opportunities for them to do good, too.

Seven hundred different people donating money in one day is amazing.  Yes, listeners gave because they love the show.  Of course, some donated because they’re philanthropic and care about the cause.  But a reason people give is also a bit selfish – they give, too, so they can feel better about themselves.  Karson and Kennedy create those opportunities for their fans and are rewarded in loyalty that translates to #1 ratings.  If you do more of that – support your community and a cause important to you – you will deepen the connection, give listeners a chance to feel good about themselves, and elevate the images of the show with those who don’t or can’t.

This show gets the big and small stuff – they do things with relevant content that create wonderful experiences in the moment and big things that cause talk and keep them top-of-mind.  Kennedy’s Wicked Long Walk is a new tradition for the show that asks listeners to help join forces for a cause that’s important.  It’s a bold, different way to give fans a chance to do so, too.  In turn, that deepens the bond – the connection- between Karson, Kennedy, and their Producer, Dan.

That.  Is.  Great.  Radio.  That is what we do well and need to do more of.  Taking are of the community and asking the audience to help.  Lean into that.  If you do more of this stuff with your big, powerful show and radio station, you’ll win bigger, too.

I helped launch Karson and Kennedy sixteen years ago.  Their show is successful for many reasons.  That they are so connected to the market and their listeners is central to all of it.  They’re up for a Marconi in a couple of weeks.  I hope they win.

The Blog That Saves Your Job

I’m told the story of the market manager who went to find the morning show at 10am to congratulate them on their great ratings the day prior and they’d already left.

Seriously, that still happens in radio?  Yup.

We’re not so much in the radio business as we are in the business of radio.  A mentor taught me years ago there are two seasons in that business world.  The season of “I need you” and the season of “you need me”.  He said we should always be in the season of “you need me”.

Given that, let’s talk about how you shift the seasons to protect yourself.

This blog’s for my on-air folks.  Which season are you in?  In an industry that’s contracting, having any advantage is smart.  There was a time when great ratings insulated anyone from a RIF.  Today, more is expected from each of us to create value for those we serve.

I got let go from an on-air job years ago.  Several weeks later, the manager wanted to re-hire me, but in sales.  I said no because that was real work.  I used to think that just having great ratings was enough to keep my job.  No longer.  Radio companies are “for profit” and we creatives must help.

Let’s help you move from the former season to the latter.  Let’s talk about two areas that help you get there:  the money and the culture in your building (how you’re perceived).  I’m not suggesting you’re not doing any of this or haven’t tried, but take these as reminders of ways you can become even more valuable in the building.

My friend Jim Ryan wrote a great blog on these pages a few weeks ago about how Taylor Swift took control of her career.  This expands that conversation.

First, let’s talk about the money.  If you’re close to it, you’re much more valuable to your cluster and company and insulated from a RIF:

  • What kind of relationship do you have with the AEs? This isn’t “I know them, and they like me.”  This is do you take them for lunch.  Do you actively engage them regularly to make their job easier?  Do you go on sales calls to close deals?  Do you know lots about their lives, so they know you care about them and their work?  You’re the star of the station to clients and can close a deal with your presence in a meeting.  But you must first have a relationship with the AEs to impact that.
  • Do you know and pay attention to the top local accounts on the station?  I’m aware of a talent who knows these clients and regularly finds himself on their side of town.  He shows up on occasion unannounced to say hello and thank them for believing in the station/his show with their marketing money.  What kind of impact does that have both financially to the station and to their image with station management when they find out?  This talent gives clients his cell and tells them if they ever need anything to call.  It always gets back to the AE and manager that the talent did this.  He’s respecting those clients and protecting them, too.
  • Do you have endorsements? They’re great, huh?  For the decision-makers on that side, do you know their birthdays and other important dates in their personal life and acknowledge them?  Do you regularly take them for lunch (on you!) to see how they are?  If you snag extra tickets to a local concert or sporting event, do you offer it to them as a gift for their belief in you?
  • Do what others won’t. Grab some personalized thank you cards online and every week, write a handwritten note to these folks to thank them (clients and co-workers) for what they do for you and the station.  I cannot express enough the power of doing this.  No one does this, which fuels why you should.
  • Do you frequent an establishment regularly? Why not extol the value of marketing to them and work with an AE to turn them into a client?
  • Could your content get better if you involve a client in an appropriate break? Building any value-added, with the AE and station knowing, helps you shift seasons.
  • Say yes, even if there’s no win for you. Showing up when you’re not expected is a positive.  Building that equity is long-term smart.  There are still talent whose first question when asked to do something is, “What’s the talent fee?”  In this environment, that’s a no-no.

Now let’s tackle being seen and being additive to your building’s culture:

  • When I was a baby DJ starting on a morning show, I lived close to the station. Many days, when out running afternoon errands, I’d show up at the station for a few minutes to say hello to everyone.  If you do a morning show, when was the last time you saw the afternoon folks?  It’ll scare the hell out of those there at 4pm, but being seen by everyone is important.
  • Work the halls. I know there might be fewer people in the buildings now, but walking around the station checking on everyone, seeing what’s up in their life, are connection points where they know you care for them personally.
  • How about that support person, promotions assistant, or engineer who did something to help your show? You know those personalized note cards I mentioned above?  Sending one to their home or leaving it on their desk saying thanks goes a long way to you shifting in the seasons.
  • Ditto the above, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. You feel special when someone remembers yours.  Go remember theirs!  That’s low effort, but high impact.
  • Internal marketing is important. Putting together a synopsis of your show for everyone, with links to audio, lets them know your pride.  I work with shows that do this.  It’s very powerful.
  • Do you regularly develop content that can be better with other personality’s involvement? Prove there are no silos by involving other talent in your content.  You’ll help make them bigger stars and they’ll end up returning the favor by talking about your show on their program.  This also works if any co-worker has a sense of humor or bold take on a topic.  Make them stars, too.

Doing even a fraction of the above moves you through the seasons.  It creates the season of “you need me”.  Then when budget cuts happen, they realize they can’t lose you.

I know there’s a lot here if you are on-the-air and it’s overwhelming to ask you to do more.  But, in the current environment in our industry, this protects you because it shifts you perceptually by the decision-makers from the season of “I need you” to the much more valuable season of “you need me.”  That’s the season you always want to be in.

The million-dollar talent and successful personalities I’ve touched over the years do all of this – it’s part of their ethos and personal business model.  If you do it, double down.  If you don’t, start today.  Then get saved.

It’s National Steve Reynolds Day (And Other Things You Don’t Care About!)

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.

Taylor Didn’t Wait – Neither Should You

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.

The One Thing Missing from Morning Show Bootcamp (And It Isn’t You)

Early August brings the tradition of the Morning Show Bootcamp.  This year in Austin.  A few hundred personalities who believe in radio gather to improve, grow, and network.  As I reflect on the many I’ve attended, there’s one thing always missing that you should know.  Before I reveal that, an admission…

When I’m working with a show, I never set as a goal ratings success.  I won’t let the show do it nor will I.  We don’t control the vagaries of Nielsen nor market conditions so it’s impossible (and even dumb) to say #1 is where we’re headed.

What I do set as our only goal is:  excellence.  If we work on everything associated with being excellent, then the ratings happen.  I’ve lived this too many times in my many years coaching shows.

When I started this work in the early 2000s, my mentors did a terrific job teaching me strategy.  Great radio is about conquering content and creating connection.  I knew this was central to earning images that compelled more listening and deeper loyalty from fans.  Philosophically, that hasn’t changed much over the years.

The conversation I felt I’d have more than any other back then was about leadership.  I needed to understand leadership better and be able to teach it.

Living in Raleigh, I became a Duke fan and Coach K had written a book in 1999 called Leading with the Heart.  I re-read it last week and its message of leadership is more salient now, given where we are in the industry.  It might be the single best book I’ve ever read on leadership.  I quote it often and always note what Coach K preached is why Duke always wins.

In the book, he talks about The Fist.  The five attributes of every winning team – each finger that makes an impenetrable fist.  He worked on these five items before he taught how to play basketball.  This is also something I work on before ever talking radio:

  1. Building trust amongst the players. I ask everyone if they believe others on the team will make a decision in their best interest before their own.  Every single ounce of success comes from trust.  Is it there?  If not, how do we get it?
  2. Is there a sense of collective responsibility amongst the team. Do I accept responsibility for what you do and is that reciprocated.  No team wins if it’s every person for themselves.
  3. Can everyone have honest communications? You can never build trust if you can’t be honest.  You must always tell the truth.  There is this ongoing pulse many believe that we can only be positive with talent.  Why?  If I am going to make a full commitment to your growth, then you must accept that the positives come with the negatives (delivered properly).  I’ll never quite understand why we must always be positive.  When it’s earned, yes.  It might sting in the moment to hear when we miss the mark, but talent respect you more when you’re completely honest.  And they know if you are.
  4. Do we have pride in what we’re doing? Excellent radio can change lives and make people less lonely.  Do we have pride for our show, our station, our cluster, our co-workers, and our community?
  5. Finally, do we care about one another as people? This ain’t just about what we do when at the station.  If I know you really care about every facet of my life (especially outside of the station), then you can truly have an impact on who I am as a person.  If I reciprocate, we all elevate.

Do all of that, and you will build a culture that gets growth.  Then get the radio part right on top of that and you achieve excellence.

What’s missing from Morning Show Bootcamp?  Fear.  It’s a creative gathering where talent leave empowered to do more.  There is no fear at MSBC.  Fear is a crippler for creatives.  And there’s lots of it right now.  The lack of fear is what makes it most exceptional.  The single biggest thing I do besides talk about strategy and build the team’s leadership is communicate that I believe in them.  I take fear away from the room and they get very productive.  Confident players slay every day.  Then the magic happens.  They conquer content and create connection unlike anything else and do the kind of radio that has impact.

Taking fear away and reducing all the anxiety so many in our industry have because of where we are, is how we get to the only goal in our control:  excellence.  And when we do this, we get to that other goal I never set – ratings success.

Before you chat with your creatives about the break topic, its length, prep, the tease, how they got into it, etcetera, reduce the fear.  Be the calm in the chaos and watch what happens.

Seizing the Scandal – The Coldplay Couple and Creative Relevance

Stephen Colbert, in a 2018 interview with Howard Stern said, “My show is about whatever the conversation is today.  We’re about what the audience is talking about right now.”

The big story last week was the couple that got caught cheating at the Coldplay concert.  I need to tell you no more because it was everywhere and you know it.  Your audience does, too.  We are in the engagement business, and we win when we own the moment.  So, I wondered what radio shows did with that topic as it lived at the center of the pop culture universe.  How did they seize the moment?

There have been two phases of radio to me.  Pre- and post-deregulation.  I have affectionately referred to the days before big companies could own everything as the wild, wild west.  We’d come up with an idea today based on something in the news and it’d be on-air-tomorrow.  And often, it was loud and outrageous and captured the imagination of the audience, which was very good.  It created talk for us as FOMO set in which gave us an extra measure of listenership.

Much of today’s radio is filled with fear because every idea must be vetted thought multiple layers and, as I break out in a cold sweat…the lawyers (whose reflexive move is to tell us why we can’t do it).  We need to get back to what we were.  Not reckless, but imaginative.

Because the central theme to the Coldplay couple story is so universal (it was about relationships and cheating) and the topic was so pervasive, I asked my radio Facebook friends what they did to tie themselves into the story, so the audience stopped on them.  Here’s a sampling (with tons of kudos to each for compelling into their show Stephen Colbert’s vision for his – being about the moment):

  • Mojo in the Morning at Channel 95.5 Detroit did Cheat Away at Coldplay where they asked listeners to confess their affair on-air to win tickets to the group’s concert in Miami.
  • Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston did a custom song in Kennedy’s weekly feature The Impossible Parody heard here and seen here. Because this happened in Boston, they also gave away tickets to the concert with Karson’s Cold Plunge for Coldplay where the first listener to get him into the dunk tank won (a great video for social media).
  • Dave Wheeler at Townsquare’s Big Frog 104 in central New York got the station’s mascot in on the action with a social media image.
  • The great Paige Neinaber had some of his shows do pictures of talent hugging their HR directors in the same pose.
  • Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah at WRAL-FM, Raleigh are seemingly in a thruple in their social media post.
  • Christine and Salt, WTIC-FM, Hartford had an appearance planned with a local baseball team. They wanted to record a video for the jumbotron warning cheaters at the game what could happen.  The team nixed it, but I absolutely love that they came up with the idea.
  • At KLOS, Los Angeles Nik Carter gave the 95th caller dinner for them and their sidepiece when he played a Coldplay song. Likewise, Otis at The O Show suggested giving away three-packs to something.  For you, your wife, and your mistress.
  • Heather Froglear at K-FROG, Riverside and Moug and Karla, B96 Chicago did social media images to go along with on-air content (here and here).
  • Producer Melissa Bunting from AMP Mornings with Katie and Ed in Calgary shared this break about the story. Great use of audio.
  • In a brainstorm with a show, we considered hiring divorce lawyers for the spouses of both people involved.
  • Everyone got in on this, including the Philadelphia Phillies, who did the Coldplay Kiss Cam.  This isn’t radio, but watch to the end because it’s hysterical.  We need to do this, too.

All great stuff that put each show in the story and in a way that made the audience stop to take notice.  Sample the above to get inspired.  Bravo to everyone noted here (and you if you did something, too) for changing their show the next day when this story took over the national conversation.  Note that not everything above required a prize – it just needed some innovation.

To continue to thrive, we need more mischief in radio.  We must seize moments when the big stories appear.  If we’re about right now in inventive ways that fit the show’s brand image, listeners will want to be around us.  Let’s create more FOMO like we used to.

Radio doesn’t have a listening problem.  We have a top-of-mind awareness problem.  And that’s on us to fix, just like the shows above did with the Coldplay couple story.  Radio wins when it’s about right now in clever, unique ways.

The Button Fans Wish They Could Hit

Have you ever watched the latest installment of a favorite Netflix show and not hit the “skip intro” button that appears on the screen?  We always hit that button.

TV shows living in the yesteryear had memorable, sing-along theme songs we can all still recall.  Who doesn’t know the name of the bar where everyone knows their name?  Or the familiar guitar twangs of the Seinfeld intro?  Both are iconic music markers signaling fun was about to happen with characters we know and love.

But, no more.

Increasingly, streaming services give us the chance to opt out of a show’s intro.  Know why?  Because it’s fluff that delays what we came for:  content.  Let the storytelling begin.  And to delay the reason we’re there heightens chances we might leave or feel unsatisfied.  The story, the drama, and the humor of characters interacting around the plot is why we show up everywhere.

Yet, in radio, we still do these BIG LONG SETUPS on almost every break.  Our version of a theme song wasting valuable seconds that delay what listeners crave:  content.

If we could put a “skip intro” button on the radio, it’s a guarantee the audience would do what we do – hit it.

So, take this one-day challenge:  on every single break, when the song ends, and the break is about to start, begin with the first sentence of your story or content, indicating its drama and hook, to get the audience to lean in and pay attention.  Lest they grow restless and seize the chance to change the channel because intros delay what fans really want – entertaining and engaging content.

It’ll be uncomfortable in your headsets, but when you nix the prelude, you’ll see engagement in the break go up.  Then do it every day, every break.

Because listeners don’t have a “skip intro” button is even more reason to do it when you prep your content.  Great shows conquer content and create connection – this is a puzzle piece that will help.

Snuff the fluff, and just give them the good stuff.

Steve’s Pet Peeves – Volume 3

When you listen to 7-8 hours of radio each day like I do (each hour a different show), you’re bound to hear things that bug you.

Most days, shows are hitting it out the park.  They’re on the right topics cut from that day’s pop culture, things going on locally, and stories about their lives that position them as just like the listener.  Add to that some treatments of those topics which make the breaks sparkle.

Other times, I might get something small that makes me scratch my head wondering why they did that.

Here for you, another installment of Steve’s Pet Peeve’s Volume 3.  It bugs me when I hear shows that…

  1. Use words like: up chuck, throwing up, eating poop, projectile vomiting.  Using what I call “stop listening” words.  Instead of saying “I was up all night barfing,” why can’t you say, “I was sick to my stomach”?  The audience knows what you’re saying, and you aren’t using cringe words that make a portion of your audience turn away because they’re too graphic.
  2. Breaks that start with unexplained laughter. Listeners feel left out when they aren’t in on the fun you’re having in the studio.
  3. When something suggestive is said like, “It’s 69 degrees right now,” and the show devolves into a bad version of Beavis and Butthead.
  4. Shows that try to gratuitously manipulate listeners to stay. Like doing a half a break and then teasing the payoff, making them wait any amount of time for resolution.  Just give them the bowl of ice cream in one break and you’ll accrue positive images.
  5. Shows that don’t keep their promises in an effort to manipulate a few more minutes of listening. If you promise the content at 7:30, do it at 7:30, not 7:36 in an effort to get more minutes of listening.  You get two minutes either side of a promise to make good on it.  Don’t do that to them.
  6. Features that are time-stamped need to be at (or very close to) when you promise to do it.
  7. Explaining games in more than two sentences before playing the game. Listeners don’t have that mental bandwidth at any time of the day for an explanation of anything.  More than two sentences might mean it’s too complicated to play.  As I always say “when you’re explainin’, you ain’t entertainin’.”  You can use that.
  8. Shows that play a trivia game and get irked when the caller doesn’t know the answer to a question they think is easy. Not a great look.  Be empathetic in those moments – these are your fans contributing content to your show.
  9. Playing the Mission Impossible, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, or the Price Is Right music when playing a game. They’re all dated and predictable.  Let’s challenge ourselves to update that stuff.
  10. Talent who forget that every day you have new listeners who don’t know who you are. I’m a new listener tuning in and have no idea who’s who.  I recently checked out a show I don’t work with.  Both co-hosts were male.  I left after 90 minutes not knowing who was who.  Help me.

Deep breaths, Steve, deep breaths.  In with the good air, out with the bad!

Have a pet peeve for Volume 4 (oh yes, there will be a volume 4!)?  Email me here.