HOW RADIO PDs CAN HELP THEIR IMAGING DIRECTORS, Part Two

Recently I shared with you 5 ways for radio program directors to help their imaging directors.

Here are five more.

6.  Don’t Underestimate the Intelligence or Awareness of Your Audience.

“Great promo, but our audience wouldn’t ‘get’ it.”

Unless you’re using inside radio jargon, what makes you think the audience won’t understand?

Someone please remind me what intelligence test we had to pass before we were allowed to become disc jockeys (and then program directors).

In truth, many radio programmers are less aware of the culture at large because a symptom of The Radio Disease is our tendency to live radio 24/7.

7.  Do Share with Them the Emotional Response You Want to Elicit.

The most important question is not, “What do we want to say?”

It’s “What do we want them to feel?” (Thanks, Chuck Blore.)

8.  Treat Them Special.

With networking and syndication, often the imaging guy is the only truly local person whose work consistently is heard on your radio station. (Yes, your station might outsource the imaging, too. Alas.)

You want that person to be happy.

Don’t you?

9.  Give Them the Tools They Need.

We radio people have a long and proud history of “making do” with what we have. But that’s part of the industry’s youthful stage, and radio now is a mature business.

“There’s lots of free software out there. Use some of that. And your Kaypro 64 is a real workhorse.”

In a mature, intensely competitive market, forcing your production people to create your station’s imaging with antiquated or amateur tools isn’t “making do”; it’s “making doo.”

Not all tools, by the way, revolve around work stations.

Example:

If your Imaging Director (or Production Director or Creative Services Director) spends more than 36 hours a week in the production studio, install a mini-refrigerator in that studio.

She can stock it with her own refreshments, but every time she opens it during yet another marathon production session, she’ll silently thank you.

10. Give Them Deadlines.

Not as a whip, but as a gauge.

Your Imaging Director is overworked. Every 10 minutes someone drops something new in his inbox.

Tell him when each project is due, so he can prioritize his workload.

It’s discouraging to stay up half the night, trying to perfect a piece, only to be told the next day, “Oh, it was just an idea I had. Let’s put that one on the shelf and maybe one day we’ll look at it again.”