Holland Cooke
I’ve been saying this for years.
Every time I hear a talk show host doing this, I just shake my head in sorrowful bewilderment.
So I was very happy to see my apparently minority view reinforced by News/Talk consultant Holland Cooke in this a piece he wrote a while ago.
RADIO TALK HOSTS: DON’T ALLUDE TO CALLERS ON HOLD
by Holland Cooke
This might be the most common wrong signal that hosts unconsciously send listeners:
“Frank from Springfield, thanks for holding on through the break.”
Polite and well-intentioned, but what’s the message? That callers have to sit on hold during several minutes of commercials? Forget it! The station should work to the listener’s convenience.
This may seem like a nuance on our side of the microphone, but it’s more apparent out there. If you’re worried about callers-already-on-hold hanging up, have the screener assure them off-air.
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LOL!
You and Cooke make a GREAT point. In addition, when you say things like that (“Steve, thanks for holding through the break” or “Tim in Billings, hold on, you’re up next after the break”) you shift the show-perspective away from the audience and shine a spotlight on a guy no one knows or cares about. I was listening to a talk show the other night when this happened. The seemingly polite comment distracted me from the conversation and made me wonder how long the poor man from Seattle had to wait to get on the show. In an effort to appease the one person on the phone, everyone else in the audience gets a subtle negative message of what it’s like to participate in the show. Completely unecessary.
Now that NPR stations have commercial-length breaks for underwriting announcements, we hear this ALL the time. Even on shows that run in many markets, hosted by pros who should know better. Thanks for the useful advice!
I’ve heard of some callers waiting to talk the host being on hold for 40 mins plus,seems a bit rude to me , sure the screener says “won’t be long thanks for waiting etc etc , but doesn’t seem like a good way to win fans
The only thing that matters to listeners is what comes out of the speaker.
For once, I very strongly disagree with Dan and Holland, but only because over the last 20 years of doing talk shows I’ve only had a call screener/producer for a few days of that time. None of the stations had phone systems that would even allow me to talk to the on-hold callers during the break without risking hangups. The big problem in this situation is that callers get immediately put on hold and have no idea what’s going on. Folks get discouraged and hang up, except for the “regulars” who know what’s going on. This means more of the same people over and over which is what we’re trying to avoid. Furthermore for those people that did hang on through a 12 minute newscast, I believe they appreciate being thanked for their patience. No one complains about ending a call with “I appreciate your call” so what’s wrong with telling them their effort is appreciated at the start?
I don’t think telling the audience “We’ll be talking to Manfred from Ashwaubenon after the news” adds anything to the show, however. I suppose it could be worked into a tease if there is a call screener, so one could reasonably say “Manfred from Ashwaubenon will be on after news to tell us why he wants to get a gun and shoot all the bad people”.
@ Pete: In the situation you describe, where your only choice is to thank the caller on-air for waiting a long time or not to acknowledge the caller’s inconvenience and/or patience, I agree with you.
That really is pretty unusual, though — not even being able to quickly assure a caller, during a commercial break, that he or she hasn’t been forgotten.
Plenty of talk show hosts don’t have the benefit of a screener or a producer. But at minimum, the radio station should be able to provide a simple telephone system that works as well as, say, the telephone in the smallest of small offices.
Yes, I have also been dumb founded by this in talk back radio. What is the new?? And it puts callers off (like myself!) wanting to ring in (Why bother if I’m going to be on hold for 15 minutes??). Get the screener to say when you ring up “you maybe on hold for 10 minutes, can you wait??”
A few stations I know call listeners back who are going to be on-hold for too long – and quite often they call back in order so it’s fair. Some even call listeners back if they are on a mobile.