Archive for category: Planet Reynolds

It was the Monday after the Kentucky Derby many moons ago.  My on-air partner and I decided we needed to use that topic for content on the show.  So, we hatched this brilliant idea to call the McDonalds up the road from the station, claiming we were the owners of the horse that came in last place, to see how much they’d give us for him, saying he’d make for delicious hamburgers.

Genius, huh?  We live in the attention economy and thought those three minutes would certainly keep listeners from going elsewhere.

At 10:00 that morning, we were hauled into the GM’s office and informed we’d lost the McDonalds account.

Fortunately, we had a very good manager who awarded creativity and risk-taking.  He understood, gave us a pass, and replaced them with another client paying a higher rate.

Don’t bank that idea for next year.  The world (and business environment) is different now.

I listen to radio all over the country and, in too many places, hear pleasant people having pleasant conversations around acceptable topics.  In this environment, that won’t cut it.

Where are my renegades?  The mischievous people?  The quirky who can capture the imagination of the audience and cause talk?

I am NOT suggesting you be reckless or inappropriate.  But we do need to foster an environment of silliness again if we’re ever going to stay top-of-mind with our fans, so they develop this fear of missing out.

We ain’t gonna get that through a prep service or being inoffensive and playing it safe with bland conversations and phone calls from listeners chiming it.

Yes, I know the corporate folks look down on this and the lawyers default to “no” a lot.  But how do we work past this to find the sweet spot for people who can do it?  I know we’ve chased many of them away from our industry.  But that doesn’t absolve those of us who remain from thinking that way, too.

Pleasant all the time is our enemy.  It makes radio completely missable. Take a stand, access your sense of humor for silly angles that can be leveraged into talked about breaks.  In one word:  innovate without doing wacky radio bits.  Wait, that was six words.  Sorry.

I had a show once that bought a ton of girl scout cookies.  They invited in two teachers who built a big Jenga tower with the cookie boxes.  The teacher who made the tower collapse lost, and the other got all the cookies for their school.

Or the Boston show that was outraged when Dunkin’ changed the name of the Boston Cream Donut to the Philly Cream Donut.  The Flyers were making their Stanley Cup run (rivals to sports-loving Bostonians).  They had listeners bring their Dunkin’ merch to the station to burn unless they changed the name back.

Or the talent who mused on-air, concerned he left the iron plugged in before leaving for work.  A C-level show would have left it at that.  A B-level show would have opened the phones, asking listeners if they’d ever done that, too (kinda lame, but it’s something).  This show went A-level and sent the co-host home to check.  A narrative with tension!  And while en-route (all of it on-air), they called his insurance agent and found out he hadn’t paid his renters insurance.  Ouch.

Or the show, in new digs, who found a crushed Cheez-It in the carpeting and called every other talent during that program, asking their favorite snack, to figure out who dirtied the studio, pissing off the chief engineer.

We don’t need prizes and contesting isn’t the elixir.  We need imagination.  Doing something imaginative to capture all who are listening will feed the fear of missing out.  An image every show needs to get that extra measure of audience to set you apart.

I’m inspired when I watch old Letterman clips on YouTube.  He was a master at it.  So was Colbert.  I know they had teams of people to suggest this stuff.  But we need to access those odd things more if we’re going to survive and thrive.

So much of what I hear lives in the Sea of Sameness.  Shows that do this kind of stuff will prevent people from leaving.  You’ll capture them for a moment to see what happens next.  If you create attention through imagination, you can then persuade listeners to stay longer, come back, or have a deeper relationship with your show.  If you don’t create imaginative attention, then you can’t.

Let’s go already, radio.

PS:  Because I know you’re wondering, Pavlovian came in dead last in May’s Kentucky Derby.  He had 30-1 odds.  Today, there’s a better than even chance he’d make a delicious quarter-pounder if anyone is willing to make the call.

PPS:  Colbert wrapped up being on CBS on a Thursday night.  The very next night, he’s hosting a cable access show in Monroe, Michigan.  Absolute, total silliness.  I dare you to not laugh at this.  It’s a giggle-fest.  We need more of that.

Your fans are driving to work, listening to you, and having fun.  In the quiet, darker moments, what feeling might they be experiencing?  We hear much about a loneliness epidemic in society.  It impacts us all, whether we wish to openly acknowledge it or not.  Loneliness is a public health crisis and no longer a fringe issue.  In the quiet spaces of life – the commute, the cubicle, the kitchen at night, we all have pangs of feeling alone in this hyperconnected world.  These are the exact moments where personality radio excels.

Not to be nostalgic, but when I was a kid and found radio, I would often listen alone in my basement bedroom on Sherman Drive in Newburgh, NY.  As an insecure 15-year-old, I left every listening occasion feeling as though I was hearing my best friend on the radio.

One of my unaided goals for any talent is for the audience to leave saying, “They’re just like me.  I feel like I know them.”

Over the years, we’ve leveraged away advantages.  Some of that we did to ourselves:  we’re less local due to syndication, we’re less unpredictable due to the lawyers and corporate control, and we have ceded music images to music-only services like Spotify and Apple Music.  Some of that was done to us:  the algorithm and passive, endless scrolling.  Personalized feeds feel social but aren’t.  Spotify knows what you like but it really doesn’t know you.  It can’t laugh with you, it can’t root for you, and it can’t comfort you when life gets complicated and punches you in the gut.

One attribute we’ve never lost is our intimacy.  What I learned from my early mentors, that radio is just you and me, still holds.  Every one of us on-the-air has received a call from a listener who had a tragedy in their life, and we were what kept them company through it.

I’ve always wanted the NAB to adopt a new slogan that reinforces to listeners and advertisers this immense strength no other medium has.  I want that positioning statement to be Radio – We Make You Feel Less Lonely.

Not to turn this into a Steve therapy session, but all of us have varying degrees of loneliness in our life.  You or I might not admit that to anyone vocally, but deep down inside we do.  Despite how fast life moves and all these devices we’re addicted to, many of us have pangs of loneliness.  Concurrent, we also feel that, regardless of how hard we try at anything, no one is rooting for us.

I know, this is deeper than you’d expect from me this time.  But here’s where radio shines brightly and we need to lean into this if we’re going to stay relevant.  It’s a lesson on how to deepen the bond with listeners, turning them into fans.

Tackling loneliness as an ongoing community service project is powerful.  Acknowledging this, as I have done here with you, is deeply vulnerable.  I ask shows to talk about this, reinforcing that in a world where people don’t think anyone is there for them, especially during tough times, we are if we do radio right.  So, listeners leave knowing they have a friend, even if they’ve only been there for fifteen minutes.  Radio – We Make Listeners Feel Less Lonely.

Great radio is grounded in Conquering Content and Creating Connection.  There’s nothing more powerful than addressing and solving the loneliness problem each of us experience.  That’s connection.

I was captured by this short video shared by the morning talent I work with at 3FM, part of the National Public Radio System in the Netherlands.  A cast member was about to see a friend she’d not visited with in years.  She mused about how long it might be before they’d see each other again.  So, she wrote her a letter, bared her soul, and offered this private, very intimate moment for all the audience to hear.  As you watch, take note of her cast-mate’s faces.  They sit in awe.  You’ll view this and leave with the same thought I had – I feel like I know her, her values, and how she treats people.  And you’ll want a friend just like her in your life, too.  Radio here made their listeners feel less lonely.

It was neither polished nor “radio perfect”.  It was human.  And in that moment, the studio disappeared, like we were eavesdropping on something sacred.

Somewhere in that audience (somewhere in your audience), there’s a listener all alone, like I was when I found radio.  If we do radio right and dig deeper than trivia games and relationships-features, they won’t feel alone when any segment ends.  Just like I didn’t.

Let listeners know that, and you’ll change their life as they become less lonely.  You’ll change your life, too.  And be reminded why you fell in love with radio as a kid.

If radio is going to matter in the years ahead, it won’t be playing the right songs or having the right benchmarks.  It’ll be because we made someone feel seen, heard, and less alone.

What radio does so brilliantly when done right is make listeners feel less lonely.  Maybe radio isn’t in the music business any longer.  Maybe we’re in the companionship business.  You wanna win?  You want legacy stuff?  Make that job #1 and you will.

Our ability to be intimate with listeners is radio’s superpower.  And could be its next great future.

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.

I cover in Planet Reynolds the strategic chess moves personality shows must make to win images, audience loyalty, and ratings.  But let’s flip that board.

Here are twelve ways a tenured show can slowly get itself into trouble.  This won’t happen overnight.  A dramatic ratings collapse won’t happen.  But inch-by-inch violate enough of these, and you’ll be coasting.  Because smart competitors love strategic confusion, you’ll also be quietly building a launchpad for one of them to steal your audience.

Time for an unapologetic inventory:

1. Neither the show nor the cast hold a distinct point-of-view. Great shows stand for something.  Winning personality radio ain’t wallpaper.  It’s opinionated, it leans, it chooses.  A show or cast without a point-of-view becomes audio oatmeal – emotionally forgettable.  Listeners bond with conviction.
2. There is poor role and character definition. If everyone is everything, no one is anything.  Sharp shows have a defined cast.  Think Howard Stern.  He’s the gravitational center.  Robin is the counterbalance.  The supporting cast fills in the blanks.  No roles on that show are blurred.  Whether a large ensemble or just two people, if you can’t share your real life and defend your angle honestly, you become an actor in a play no one wants to see.
3. The show fails to capture the moment for content choices for the demo. Great shows seize cultural lightening.  They know what the audience is talking about today, not last week.  They then stamp it with their own personality.  They don’t wait for a prep service to tell them what mattered yesterday – they are always on the right edge of what’s happening now.  Relevance has a half-life.  Miss it and you’re left doing something that might have expired.
4. The show loses touch with its constituency. Your audience is a tribe and you’re in it.  Listeners can easily forgive an idea that doesn’t work, but they won’t forgive feeling unseen.  Make them always say, “we get you.”
5. The show does not innovate. Success has a seductive lullaby.  The ratings are fine, TSL is steady, the cume isn’t eroding.  So, you end up doing what you did five years ago.  Yikes.  Audiences evolve, attention fragments, and you don’t operate in a vacuum.  Innovation means sharpening your show.  Adding new segments and ideas bats back stagnation.
6. C-level ideas turn P1s into P2s (or don’t turn P2s into P1s). This is death by mediocrity.  Bland, C-level ideas, never inspire.  They just go unnoticed.  Create appointment listening by not doing things that end up being background noise.
7. The show becomes unfunny or un-fun. Don’t let your show leak its joy.  Listeners tune in to escape the seriousness of life, companionship, and to be around something that wakes them up.  Laughter and fun are the one thing that binds every psychographic in your audience.
8. There is no “cume urgency” in what they’re doing. Why should the audience tune in right now?  If there is no reason to show up in this quarter hour, you’re training the audience to go elsewhere.  You must have “don’t miss this” built into your show.  If the show lends the vibe of “safely later”, it will be consumed later.  Or never if that’s what is found elsewhere.
9. There is a loss of motivation and work ethic. Tenure, for some, can breed entitlement.  Prep shrinks, risk-taking fades, and meetings become shorter.  “We’ve arrived so no additional work is necessary” becomes the mantra.  The audience knows if you’ve prepped for them.  They can also hear autopilot.  I love when I’m across the street against this with a truly hungry show.  Comfortable = vulnerable.
10. Egocentricity.  Don’t become obsessed with yourself, believing you’re the sun to the audience’s universe.  The audience must always be central to what you do.  Flip that equation and they will slowly check out.
11. The program becomes predictable. Routine builds familiarity.  But predictability breeds boredom.  Don’t let tension disappear by being so predictable that there are no surprises in the show.  For all its faults, even SNL is constantly refreshing the cast, its angles, new segments and characters, and fresh executions.  Predictability is comfortable.  But comfort is not a growth strategy.
12. They are not involved in the community. When you and your show are absent from community events and grassroots touchpoints, you weaken the emotional connection you built.  Make your presence be known by being everywhere.  Embed yourself into your city, even if you’re syndicated.  That will pay off with more content, more connections, and allow you to present more humanity to your audience.

Time to take an assessment.  You won’t necessarily lose an audience for violating one of these.  Or even three.  But every unchecked weakness opens a door.  Be soft without realizing it and a strategic competitor could eventually rise up.

So, take an inventory.  Or better, have your show do it and, if you’re a program director you do it, too.  I’ve created a grade sheet here if it helps.  Then compare notes for an honest conversation about the show so you stay sharp.

Because sharpness isn’t by accident.  It’s by disciple.

Last week, I was sent to the grocery store.  My partner is the cook in our relationship, and he directed me to get peeled tomatoes for a recipe.  I dutifully drove to the Harris Teeter and found them in aisle five.  Ah, success!  But then dread and dark clouds hovered over.  Did he want the tomatoes with basil?  The ones with oregano and garlic?  Plain?  The ones already chopped or whole?  Did he want the Hunts or Contadina brand, or could I buy the less expensive Harris Teeter brand, which was on sale?

So many decisions.  I froze in fear of choosing incorrectly, as I have often done, arriving home and again getting “the look” that “you got the wrong ones.”  So, I did the smart thing and FaceTimed him for the right answers.  I didn’t feel so bad because when I was heading to the checkout, another guy was holding his phone up to a Teeter employee and said, “My wife wants me to buy these.  Can you bring me to them.”  Ah, another spouse anticipating that he’ll get the wrong thing, too.

I have a disease called Permanent Content Brain.  The phrase was coined by podcaster Pablo Torre who admits, as do I, that everything I see I wonder how it can be content on a show.  I am reminded of talent who go about their lives and never see the power of this kinda stuff to help them be relatable or use it to create fun stories the audience identifies with.  So many say “nothing happened to me yesterday” yet when I dig deep and get inquisitive, so much content appears.  They didn’t see it because they weren’t paying attention.

So, I wonder how we get more of these shared experiences on a show to connect with fans.  Here are a few things to consider:

• Stop looking for a story and notice the friction in everything you do. It wasn’t about my going to the grocery store as much as it was about fearing “the look” and bold move to FaceTime so it wasn’t another Epic Steve Fail®.  Where you get uncomfortable, irritated, or feel awkward is the story.  Great radio doesn’t come from what happened, it comes from what felt off.
• Pick a side and use bold language. Mushy middle breaks or ones that express all points-of-view die quickly.  Fake opinion for neutrality is death, too.  Great radio lives on the margins.  Hate/love are much better than like.  Powerful verbiage activates listeners.  Examples: “self-checkout is a scam,” or “if you’re paying for groceries with a check, you must be over 80,” or “the cart return thing is really a character test some people fail.”  It’s near impossible for a listener to not have an emotional reaction to any of those frames.  Using language like this includes the audience from the start.
• Get to it with a powerful hook at the start. “I had to FaceTime my partner from the canned tomato aisle, so I didn’t come home feeling like an idiot again” is a great way to make listeners lean in to hear the story.
• You must pivot from it being about you to being about the audience. Do that and you’ll get similar content from them which will be entertaining for all to hear.  Actively think of this line, “Is it just me or…” and you might have a content break.  The mistake many make is that it’s just about them – make it about the audience and the connection forms as stories from everyone appear.
• When asking the audience to advance your content with their stories, never ask “what do you think” or “has this happened to you”. Be specific: “your spouse sent you to the grocery store and you were once again a disappointment in the task – tell us what happened.”  Specific questions get better calls and listener engagement.  Never ask yes/no or agree/disagree questions.  If your reply to them is “why” or “tell us more” you’ll go on a fishing expedition for their content and get little.  Be specific and they’ll have stories with lots of details.

If you can do everyday things like go to the grocery store and pay attention to see the friction, get an opinion, and look for relatability, you’re guaranteed to leave with content.

The next time you go somewhere, don’t rush or do it mindlessly.  Pay attention and note three things that annoy you, give you judgment on something, force an opinion, or make you experience an emotion yourself.  One of them might be content the next day.

Then you’ll never say again that “nothing happened today”.

You must notice everything to develop Permanent Content Brain.  A great disease to have if you are a content creator.  I put together a checklist to train your brain to get there.  Grab it here if you think it’ll help.