HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR RADIO AUDIENCE IS INTERESTED?

At one of my morning show seminars, someone asked:

“When my partner and are engaged in what we think is a fascinating on-air conversation, how can we know whether or audience is interested, too?”

The answer boils down to two elements:

1.  Skill

2.  Awareness

By “skill,” I mean the ability to talk about whatever interests you in a way that engages your audience — whether that audience consists of thousands of radio listeners or just your co-worker at the water cooler.

Here’s the secret of the world’s greatest storytellers:

They don’t tell great stories. They tell stories really, really well. It’s their telling that makes the stories great.

Great radio personalities have the ability to share their interests in a manner that also interests the listener.

Mediocre jocks, on the other hand, don’t enter the studio with any thoughts, musings or experiences to share. As a result, they’re always wondering, “What should I talk about?”

In fact, here’s a key distinction between a personality and a DJ/announcer:

The DJ/announcer enters the studio each day wondering, “What can I talk about today?”

That person desperately searches for the day’s magical list of online “hot topics.” That person always is asking, “Heard any great bits lately? Any good jokes? Any good phone-in topics?”

Meanwhile, the personality enters the studio each day with pages & pages of notes of ideas that sprang from his/her own life, mind, experience and imagination…and wonders, “How can I possibly fit all of this into just four hours??”

“Awareness,” on the other hand, is simply the ability to notice that the population of your market is somewhat larger than the number of people you deal with inside your radio station.

Good conversationalists are aware of their audiences. All too many “DJs” are so focused on themselves that they haven’t a clue what matters to their listeners.

Returning to the original question:  Assuming that you and your partner have the ability to talk about something in a way that includes rather than excludes the listener — avoiding inside jokes, staying focused rather than aimlessly rambling — then here is the test of whether the topic itself is likely to interest your audience:

Ask yourself, “If I were at a dinner party, could I imagine talking about this with one of the other guests?” If the answer is yes, then you probably don’t need to worry.