FIVE MORE RADIO PROGRAMMING FALLACIES

Recently on this blog I shared Five Radio Programming Fallacies.

Here are five more.

6. “Don’t say goodbye at the end of your air shift.”

The goal is a valid one: not to signal to the listeners that it’s time to leave.

(Survivors of my Air Personality Plus+ seminar know I’m referring to the importance of Avoiding Egresses.)

But if you’ve succeeded in establishing a one-to-one bond with the listener, if suddenly you disappear then you break that bond.

A good radio show is a conversation with the listener. (Serious, humorous, playful, challenging, contentious — but a conversation.)

Imagine you’re sitting on a park bench, engaged in an interesting conversation with someone. You turn your head, look back — and the person suddenly is gone. A bit jarring, no?

Still, you can “say goodbye” without saying goodbye.

You can hand off the show to the next host, in a bit of crosstalk.

You can promote tomorrow’s show, promote an element of the next jock’s show, and then slip away: “Remember, (Celebrity) will be live in the studio with us tomorrow. Meanwhile, (NEXT JOCK) is here and he’s just dying to give you a pair of tickets to the (Artist) concert….”

7. ” ‘Actualities’ are very important to a newscast.”

I certainly believed it when I was a News Director.

Why?

They give the illusion of news.

And to a radio person, they feel like Radio.

But reliable research indicates the radio audience just couldn’t care less.

Newscaster: “We asked Sheriff Jones if any arrests have been made….”

Sheriff Jones: “No arrests have been made thus far, but we’re working on a number of promising leads.”

Most of us were taught to “add audio.”

But if listeners to a music or entertainment station sit through a newscast, it’s to find out what’s happening in their world.

Yes, probably in the 1920s it was exciting for listeners to hear politicians’ actual voices. By now the novelty pretty much has worn off.

Exception: If the new voice adds a deeper layer of emotional impact, then it makes sense to use it.

8. “Because ‘no one listens more than 30 minutes,’ every 30-minute segment should be fully self-contained.”

In other words, in any 30-minute period, the listener should hear a microcosm of your entire program. If you have characters, trivia questions, phone calls and music, then within any 30-minute period the listener should hear a character, a trivia question, a phoner and some songs.

This helps fulfill the 30-minute limit prophecy.

You don’t want the listener to feel a sense of completion after just 30 minutes. You want the listener to sense that the longer she listens, the more fun she’ll have.

(Reminds me of another “expert” who was quoted in a trade publication as saying, “Because radio averages 7% of the ad dollar, reps should ask for 7% of the client’s advertising budget.”)

9. “Imaging = Clever Liners.”

Okay, no one actually says that aloud.

But most radio programmers and producers think “imaging” is comprised of two elements: cleverness and production tricks.

One of my pet peeves is programmers or imaging directors who ask me, “Where can I find some clever liners?”

Instead they should be asking, “What does our station truly represent? What is the core listener experience that differentiates us from our competitors? And how can we express that in a powerful manner?”

10. “You should put music under everything, for ‘forward momentum’ and to ‘keep it interesting.’ ”

If you need to put music under something in order to make it interesting, then by definition that “something” is boring. How about making it actually interesting?

As with news actualities, music should be added to voice only if it increases the emotional impact of the message.

You don’t create forward momentum by adding music, any more than you add action to a dull movie scene by making lots of quick cuts.

You create forward momentum by structuring your program (and your station) so that each element organically leads to the next.