Disclaimer: I’m biased. I wrote this one, as part of our Dork-A-Pellas CD.
Ken R. produced it exactly as I heard it in my head.
July – August, 1994: July was typically quiet for me. My only trip was to Cleveland, where I spoke at the McVay Media’s Programmers School. My topics were Building A Winning Morning Show and the premiere of my Total Quality Service Radio Station seminar.
This trip prompted me to offer the following piece of Information For Airline Passengers: It is possible to get up from or sit down in your seat without pulling down the seat in front of you. (Pass it on.)
It was during the Cleveland trip that I found myself wanting to kill a taxi driver. On the way from the airport to my hotel, the driver was telling some sort of story, and he said, “So I picked up these two men at a downtown hotel, a couple of middle-aged guys — you know, like us.”
I have never before been called “middle-aged,” and I was terribly offended. Needless to say, he did not receive a big tip. (We middle-aged guys are notoriously cheap.)
In August I finally made my first visit to Montana, courtesy of Bob Hoene and the Montana Broadcasters Association. Bob brought me in to conduct two days of seminars: How To Create Maximum Impact Radio Advertising and Air Personality Plus+.
A couple of weeks later found me first in Montréal and then in Québéc City, conducting two days of seminars for Télémédia, thanks to Sylvain Langlois.
Day One was a commercial copywriting seminar for their salespeople; Day Two was an air talent seminar, complete with simultaneous translation. (The year of French class when I was nine years old has been of surprisingly little value in my “middle-aged” years.)
Hotel Vogue Bathroom
In Montréal, I was housed at the Hotel Vogue, a very nice establishment. (How nice? Well…The bathroom had a shower AND a separate sunken bathtub…as well as a telephone and a TV.) The first day’s seminar was held in the “Amphitheatre Bell” (name after Alexander Graham Bell) – the only seminar site I’ve been to that has its own skating rink.
As soon as I returned to Los Angeles, I spoke to an international group of radio people — from Egypt, Botswana, and a couple of countries I hadn’t even heard of. Although each country has its own cultural distinctions, I’m always struck by how much in common radio people from around the world have in common with each other.
Next Week: I get attacked by bees in Germany.
A jock just sent me his aircheck, asking for feedback. He’s not new to the business, but it’s obvious he hasn’t had much guidance during his career. From the cover letter that accompanied his CD, I can feel his passion for radio.
But he’s made the mistake common to so many: Because it’s so easy to be a bad or mediocre disc jockey — anyone can achieve those levels — he has assumed that becoming good or great is easy, too. All he has to do is keep practicing at the mediocre level.
But it doesn’t work that way. In addition to talent (a good thing to have), the truly successful radio personalities work at it. They think, they write, they plan, they aircheck themselves, they invest in materials that will help them improve and/or will improve their programs.
That’s obvious? Okay. But it’s also unusual. Most jocks show up for work, do their best, go home, come back the next day and do their best — but never improve because it doesn’t occur to them to treat radio as a craft.
Here’s one simple, “obvious” suggestion I gave him:
The biggest thing you need to add is warmth. As corny as it sounds, you (I mean you, personally; I do not necessarily mean everyone on radio) should smile widely before opening the mic and keep smiling throughout the break.
People who don’t know better might scoff, “Oh, he wants me to be a ‘yuk jock.'” Those people don’t understand that although it might look odd for you to be smiling so much, it won’t sound that way.
“On TV, I look normal.”
There’s something about a radio microphone that saps much of the warmth from most voices. You’re familiar with the TV expression, “The camera adds 15 pounds”? (Hence, all the actresses who in real life resemble scarecrows.)
Well, the radio microphone removes 50% of the natural warmth of your voice, and you need to find a way to compensate for that.
On this aircheck, you sound bored. You sound as though you’re there because it’s your job to be there, not because you’re doing what you want to do.
Suggestion: Concentrate more on sounding as though you want to be there and that you’re talking because you have something you think is worth it for the listener to hear.
A reader asks:
What do you think of running station promos first every time in each commercial break before any commercials?
Warning: My response will upset many program directors and consultants.
Current conventional wisdom holds that it’s a good idea, because it accords your station promo the coveted First Position in the stopset.
The two spots most likely to be remembered are the first and the last in the break. In Learning Theory, these are known as the Primacy and Recency effects.
The first one has the advantage of being heard before the listener potentially is turned off by a bunch of commercials. The last (the most recent) has the advantage of not being followed by any other commercial message to compete with it for the listener’s attention.
Personally, I think running the station promo first does a disservice both to the station and to the station’s advertisers.
1. Reserving the single best commercial position for the radio station sends a sad message to the advertisers: “We’re more concerned with our results than yours.”
How many magazines reserve the back cover or inside front cover for their own in-house ads? No, those prime spaces go to paid advertisers.
The smart radio station charges a premium (15% to 30%) to guarantee first or last placement in a commercial break. Just as magazines charge premiums for their most valuable ad pages.
2. You condition your listeners to expect a bunch of commercials whenever they hear a station promo. Your promo becomes their cue to mentally or physically tune out.
To make matters worse, most station promos properly end with the station’s name. So the Conditioned Response is for listeners to associate your station’s name with commercials.
Traditional Top 40 radio programming (my own training ground) stressed the importance of immediately following your call letters with music. This long has proved to be a very smart, effective strategy. Regardless of your format, it makes the most sense to juxtapose your call letters with the primary entertainment or information product for which listeners tune in.
Third, a good station promo is entertaining and involving. But if you follow today’s “conventional wisdom,” you force your listeners instead to think of your promos as “just” commercials. Honestly, how would you rate the average commercial on your station? Worth tuning in for? Or just clutter?
Rather than compete with your advertisers and reduce the image of your own promos, I recommend not including your promo anywhere in your stopset. Instead, run it solo elsewhere in the hour. You’ll shorten your commercial breaks, allow your sales department to charge a premium for First Position, and greatly increase the probable impact of your promos.
(I’m reminded of some programming genius who was quoted in a trade publication several years ago as saying that to make his station’s long commercial clusters seem shorter, he “breaks them up by including a couple of station promos.” Uh-huh.)
Finally, an anecdotal report:
Here in Los Angeles, years ago, I often listened to very good morning show. The station that broadcast this show:
1. Was the worst-produced major market station I’ve ever heard.
2. Began each (very long) stopset with a station-produced promo.
As soon as a stopset began, I’d automatically turn off the radio not because I wanted to avoid the commercials (commercial creation is one of my specialties, and I would listen to all-commercial radio if I could) but because I couldn’t stand to sit through 30 or 60 seconds of mindless, artless, inane, station-produced drivel.
In this case, the fact that every commercial break began with an embarrassingly bad station promo conditioned me to tune out the entire stopset. So I never heard any of the paid commercials on that station.
Do you suppose the advertisers would have been pleased to learn that the station inadvertently yet actively encouraged people NOT to listen to their commercials?
This week’s smackdown isn’t as cruel as you might expect. First, here’s the commercial….
The Good Thing To Notice In That Commercial: Your attention automatically is drawn to the singer, and — surprisingly unusual in radio advertising — she is communicating the sales message: “It’s easy to open a WAMU checking account online in under 7 minutes.”
All too often, it’s the announcer who delivers the sales message, while the singer “entertains”…and the message never is heard.
The Bad News (I mean, aside from the fact that they since have gone bankrupt): “Opening an online checking account in under 7 minutes” is hardly a Unique Selling Proposition. About as shocking as “now with ATM machines!”
What the heck was this commercial trying to accomplish? Can you imagine even one person opening a new account with WAMU as a result of hearing this spot?
But….Notice how you did hear that lame message. Why? Because your attention was drawn to the singer, and the singer delivered the (lame) message.
