A Loyal Reader Writes:
“I have been in radio for 15 years and I currently have a successful small-market morning show (Country music format). We have huge 12+ numbers and have been #1 in our market for six years.
“I have always been taught that the on-air topics a music intensive station should avoid are Sex, Politics and Religion. Any truth to that?
“Well, one day coming out of a Randy Travis tune, I expressed my spiritual belief in Christianity! Big mistake! Or was it…?
“We have a monthly feature on our show that includes a local psychic who comes on and we open up the phone lines for listeners to have a short moment free of charge to ask a question. They have a great time and our phones go nuts! This woman is right on about many folks, I might add….
“My dilemma: Because we have her on the show, a few listeners have called and e-mailed to question my true Christian beliefs.
“My partner and I have worked hard to develop our characters and choose material that does not go against who our characters are. And we have worked hard to have lots of variety in what we do on the air.
“Do we dump the psychic? When or how do we know what the feel of the market is?
“If lots of listeners felt that way, our phones would not ring, right?
“Do I need to address this on the air?”
——
“I have always been taught that the on-air topics a music intensive station should avoid are Sex, Politics and Religion. Any truth to that?”
Certainly the last two are true for most secular, music intensive formats.
Look at it this way:
100% of your listeners like country music. That’s the common bond among all of your listeners.
You present the music they’re so fond of, so you’ve got a good chance of bonding with them.
As soon as you declare a religious preference, you’re bound to push away some of your listeners:
If you declare yourself a Christian/Jew/Muslim/Hindu/Bahai, etc. (in a context where that wouldn’t usually be relevant), some of your listeners will apply to you some of the stereotypes that your religion has acquired.
In a country that is bitterly divided along political lines, declaring your political preference when it’s not relevant (e.g., presenting music on a music intensive station) automatically erects a barrier between you and some of the people who don’t share your political views.
I have very strong views on both religion and politics. But you’d have a tough time identifying them from this blog, because I go out of my way to avoid revealing them.
Why?
Because I’m timid? If you’ve heard me speak or read my newsletters or my books or this blog, you probably don’t think I’m generally reluctant to give my opinion.
Because I’m willing to sacrifice my beliefs for business reasons — i.e., to sell as many books as I can or garner the most readers?
Nope. My blog and newsletters (which are free), books, CDs and seminars all are very opinionated. And every time I express a strong opinion, I know that someone out there will disagree.
But I restrict those strong opinions to topics related to radio, because the people who read the blog, books or newsletters; listen to the CDs; or attend the seminars do so in the knowledge that they will be based upon my personal views of how to do radio most effectively.
Here’s why I don’t talk about politics or religion in such a forum:
My goal — my job — is to educate.
Occasionally in live seminar settings, an attendee will say something during the seminar that tempts me to “correct” his/her views regarding religion, politics, or social issues. But to do so would lessen my effectiveness in communicating the concepts I’m there to teach.
I have an obligation to those attendees — even those attendees whose religious or political views I find abhorrent. If I do something that I know will weaken the effectiveness of my communication, I am cheating my audience.
“I expressed my spiritual belief in Christianity! Big mistake! Or was it?…”
Personally, I think it’s a mistake….Unless your partner has differing spiritual beliefs and aired those differences.
And I write those words in the absolute knowledge that by publishing this on my blog, I might upset a few (not all) evangelical Christians. Sorry; I’m giving my opinion about the best ways to maximize your connection to your listeners, not about religion.
“a local psychic who comes on and we open up the phone lines for listeners to have a short moment free of charge to ask a question. They have a great time and our phone go nuts! This woman is right on about many folks, I might add…”
FIRST: I feel a moral obligation to point out that although they can be entertaining, all psychics are frauds. Some have fooled themselves into believing they have psychic powers; most simply are con artists.
I know my saying that will immediately inflame some readers. Uri Geller became wealthy fooling people into believing he could bend metal with his mind. John Edwards cons millions into thinking he can receive communications from the dead. They’re both professional liars.
I’m an amateur mentalist. If you offer to pay my regular hourly consulting rate, instead of advising you on radio strategies I’ll be happy to give you a “cold reading” that will astound you.
Some readers have seen me do a rather astonishing “mind reading” demonstration at my live “Hypnotic Advertising” seminar. How do I do it? I can’t reveal that. But I won’t claim to be a psychic.
SECOND: Why do I risk boldly declaring that there are no real psychics, knowing that some readers will take umbrage because they personally had a “psychic reading” that “described me exactly” and “contained personal details that no one else could have known”?
Because although those readers will “know” I’m “wrong” about psychics, they probably won’t think any less of me as a radio “expert.” It’s not such an emotional issue that it will poison their reactions to my views on radio.
In fact, I’ll bet that right now someone is reading this issue and thinking, “He’s wrong about psychics, but he’s right about the foolishness of needlessly alienating a large block of your listeners.” That person will dismiss my views on psychics but continue to listen to what I have to say about radio.
The only “flaming” I might see in response to this posting is from “psychics” who somehow stumble onto this blog. They are not my constituency, and their flaming me will be their only encounter with me or this blog.
THIRD: This is a very common fallacy among radio people: “The phone lines lit up, so my audience loves this topic/guest!”
Let’s see. You’ve got, let’s say, 250,000 people in your listening area. And all five of your phone lines are lit. So does that mean the guest psychic is attracting a huge audience?
No. It means the psychic is attracting five callers.
Facts of Radio Life
1. The air conditioning in the studio often is out of order. But the air conditioning in the boss’s office always works.
2. There always is a struggle to avoid being stuck with the “bad headphones.”
3. Putting a psychic on the air guarantees the phone lines will light up.
What about the people who aren’t calling? Are they entertained, captivated or enthralled?
Maybe.
“If lots of listeners felt that way, our phones would not ring, right?”
Wrong. Having lots of offended listeners wouldn’t prevent people who enjoy it from calling. As long as you manage to delight five listeners enough that they call, your phone lines will be lit.
“Do we dump the Psychic?”
You now know my feelings about psychics — my absolute certainty that they’re charlatans.
Personally, I think it’s wrong to put them on the air unless you make clear that it’s purely for entertainment value and that you do not encourage your listeners to believe they really have psychic powers.
I’m sure you don’t present the “psychic” with skepticism, and I’m sure she does tell the audience she really does have “extra-sensory” abilities.
So do I think you should dump the psychic?
From my ethical perspective, absolutely. Because I hate to see people duped like that.
From my professional radio perspective? No. Not if you believe it’s a worthwhile feature that your audience enjoys.
You’re saying that some of your fellow Christians are giving you a hard time because you’re putting the psychic on the air. The few listeners who are challenging the integrity of your religious beliefs are doing so only because you made the mistake of making an issue of your religion during your show.
“Do I need to address this on the air”
If you’re looking to stimulate a spirited on-air debate, yes.
But my sense is you do a light, non-polarizing, music-oriented morning show. If so, don’t mention it on-air.
For the few people who e-mail you to question your true religious beliefs, here are three possible replies you might try:
“Thanks for sharing your feelings with me. I’m sure that as a Christian you have my best interests at heart.”
“Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me. I promise I’ll give them the consideration they deserve.”
“I checked with God, and He told me to tell you to mind your own business.”
(Oops. I just offended another reader. Sorry.)
Comments on this entry are closed.
Outstanding advice, Dan! I’d add one more example to possible replies: “As a Christian, I do my best to respect the beliefs of others.” To religious people, belief in psychics is religious, too.
I wrote about goals in my book, The Complete Disc Jockey (in which I unabashedly recommend your “Personality Radio” for ALL jocks, radio and non). Our shows and our stations have very clearly defined goals. If something you say isn’t going to carry that goal forward, or even be detrimental, then it’s not worth saying. The talk radio folks may have political shows, so talking politics is a given. Same for the Sunday morning “God Squad” and religion. Their listeners EXPECT these topics. If you’re presenting a music show, then springing issues on them is an ambush! It will provoke a response, and the trouble is that most of those responses won’t be on the phone or clogging-up your e-mail box. Those responses will be a jab of the finger on the tuner, and you won’t know it until the next ratings book comes out.
Thanks for tellin’ it like it is!
~Sti
I disagree just a little about the religion comment. The person is on a small market station and the comment was made coming out of a Randy Travis song. We should not be afraid to give the audience a 3 dimensional view of who we are, just as Randy Travis is not afraid to give a 3 dimensional view of who he is. In some small markets in the South, almost 99.99% of the listeners are Christian. And if it is short, to the point and honest, just like Randy Travis, even those who disagree will let the comment slide. Poltitics is a different subject, unless again your views coincide with 90% of the listeners. But be careful with that one, because you may get really burned. Stay away from judges and school boards. My opinion.
If I might use my knowledge of total audience, ratings etc to more accurately analyze the scenario you used as an example.
From our audience data we have a total audience of about 144,000. Arbitron also indicates that in any quarter hour we have about 3,500 listeners in the demo. We are the top ranked station in the demo.
The studies also show an audience turnover from one quarter hour to the next to be relatively static, becoming more divergent as the gap increases between quarter hours. So lets extrapolate than the audience from the first quarter hour has been reduced to maybe 25% of the original audience in the last quarter hour. So we could estimate maybe 5,000 or 6,000 total demo users over the course of the hour, 25% who are remaining in the final quarter hour.
With 5 phone lines, and a rollover rate of 5 new callers every 2 minutes that would mean about 35 callers in one quarter hour. This would work out to 140 callers during the course of the entire hour our psychic was on the air.
The old radio adage is there are about 10 people actively interested for every person who actually calls. How accurate is this? I’m not sure, but from 20 years in the business I would say it isn’t far off.
So that would be 140 callers X 10 for a total of 1400 actively interested listeners, which is nearly half of the total audience in any quarter hour.
When you factor in the passively interesting and mildly amused one could assume that maybe as many as 2,000 – 2,500 listeners are enjoying the program.
So I reject your assessment of the total interested audience for the psychic feature. Of course this assumes the phones are lit up the entire hour, and when we do it they are. In fact they stay lit up for an hour after the psychic leaves.
Okay. I know I’m going to get a lot of stuff for this, but I totally agree with Dan. Ratings are based on a less than 5% survey of the entire audience… that was back when people were actually filling out the diaries. Now it’s all automated.
Phone lines lighting up mean exactly what Dan says. The people who are interested are calling. But it is no indicator that your ENTIRE potential audience is listening.
Radio is in danger of becoming nothing but entertainment for freaks and weirdos when psychics are considered the best option.
Besides, all it takes is for some corporate idiot to read the responses here and decide to fire all their local talent and put on a syndicated psychic morning team.
I wonder what the predictions will be on their success? After all why didn’t the people involved in the ‘Psychic Friends Network’ foresee it’s eventual demise?
Chad, 140 callers an hour? Really? You’re handling a new, unique caller every 24 seconds? Not unless your psychic can also suspend time.
It’s more likely you put 5 on hold and get one new caller each time you clear a line.
Assuming each caller gets about two minutes for their “reading”, you’re getting more like 30 calls per hour, not 140. Using your extrapolation, 30 x 10 is 300 actively interested which would be about 12% of your total at best, nowhere near half.
So although your logic seems sound, I can’t buy your numbers. I’m going to go with Dan on this one.
i believe you can let hints of it on air. If your true Christian and you cant do anything but gush over every passage of the Bible then maybe Christian radio is the way to go. If your fortay is politics that it consumes your life, then your personality may be ebst suited toward a talk show- If your stuck doing country then do whats appropriate. There are plenty of country songs that announce their love of god. And most CHR listeners aren’t as concerned with that- i say Its up to the persona you’ve developed on air.
I had two psychics on air. one for a morning show in a conservative market where people called trying to tell us we’re going to hell. And a second show where people treated it like reading their daily horoscope and thought it was neat (except the people in the station who all ran around and had someone consulting a Bible to find out if we’re all going to hell for putting this person on the air). If you want to take the show to the lowest comon denomonator and accuse the psychic of being a witch and burn them on the air. Is that your true Christian belief. (BTW- You may have been burned by other psychics but John Edward is real- People believe through faith and search forever for something that suggests its all there, Edward and a few others have the gift that becomes that bridge to confirm our faith and what we believe. And on Youtube somebody posted a video calling Edward a witch. Whether you believe in him or dont believe in him, wouldn’t it be horrible to have an actual bridge to the afterlife get stoned and murdered becuase someone called him a witch.)
I also talk about those things at a bar- we’re open about someof those topics- If you can take that part of your life and put it on the air then so be it. We all knew when Oral Roberts said God told him not to leave his tower until he had $15 million that the man was money grubbing. many people picked on the his statement- or the Bakers. Whether you choose to talk about it is up to you and your personality, but your beliefs actually flow through the way you handle other topics as well.
Try not to stone your psychic on the air- it would be better for your career.
Excellent post. Hits it right on the head.
It’s so not good to go anywhere near those subjects generally speaking on air. The US is such a wild west of extremes on both subjects it’s hard to be objective in thinking. It makes my head spin.
Chad: Usually I avoid “rebutting” comments here, because it seems unfair for me to have what might be the last word. In this case, however, I’m just talking about numbers — not about your conclusions or opinions. So I hope this doesn’t feel as though I’m attacking you.
Dave pointed out one of the mathematical flaws in your analysis: the number of actual callers. There’s no way you could come close to rolling over 5 new callers every 2 minutes. The average on-air call (see below) last longer than 2 minutes, and during that call you have 4 other callers just sitting there, waiting for their turns.
In fact, even Dave was overly liberal in his estimates. If we assume an hour of that morning drive show contains 14 commercial minutes and a total of 4 “service element” & promo minutes, that leaves 42 minutes of time available to the “psychic.”
Although it can vary wildly — from just one caller for the entire hour to a strictly enforced “one minute per caller” rule — on-air calls to “psychics” usually average 4 to 5 minutes. That means 9 or 10 callers go on-air in an hour. (And even that assumes the host barrels right through, with no digressions — no bantering with host or guest, no side comments, etc.)
Let’s call that 10 calls in one hour. With 5 phone lines in the studio, all lit up for the hour, those 5 lines were monopolized by a total of 14 callers (including the last 4, who never made it to air). It’s possible that some of those on-hold callers gave up and were replaced by others. So maybe the total reaches 17 or 18.
The second flaw lies in assuming for every caller, there are 10 others who are interested. That’s an assumption that simply cannot be made. I’ve never come across any research suggesting such an average. That would be impossible to measure, because while radio stations are able to track the number of calls that actually get through to those 5 lines, they do not track the number of callers who could not get through. When all 5 lines are engaged, there may be 3,000 other people desperately trying to call in…or none.
Even if there were an established average it would be a very unreliable figure; it would be dependent on numerous uncontrolled factors — not the least of which is the topic and/or guest.
All of this returns to my original point: I didn’t presume to assess the total interested audience when 5 lines are engaged. I did, however, reject the assumption that “all 5 lines are lit up” = “our audience is wild about this feature.”
Have Integrity in the position you hold. Respect Authority..don’t compromise…
I was just about to share this post on my wall with all of my non radio friends as words to live by in more places than just radio when you went astray. With all the talk about subjects that polarize people, why do you feel vindicated to attack psychics? I won’t flame you, I am far to wise for that or even to try to convince any non-believer otherwise. It’s just that your blog rang so very true until that point. Although I’ll agree that there are quite a few frauds who pose as psychics, I know that not all psychics are frauds. Again, I don’t hope to convince you otherwise, but you contradict yourself in my opinion. To be honest though, many people rely on psychics rather than take responsibility for their own lives. They are seekers. And in the immortal words of Firesign Theatre, “There’s a seeker born every minute.”
The US is full with people “trying to make a buck” probably more so then any other country in the world, because they live for “freedom” and “free enterprise”. That often comes with a cost. Where there is freedom, there’s also opportunity to manipulate others at their expense for the profit of others. That’s the polite way to say, scam, swindle, cheat often the gullible “sheep” that is your target. That is more so then ever today with the large # of messages in the media coming at you on a daily basis often with a “in your face” style that doesn’t encourage you to think. Common sense isn’t prevalent in corporate America. My point? There’s bound to be skeptics. That’s a good thing. But it’s also good to keep an open mind also. I’m largely skeptic on psychics, but at the same time, I’ve had some experiences that makes me wonder that some true psychics exist.It’s like anything, you have good and bad. To call them all frauds is rather foolish.