In two earlier postings, I wrote about the misguided instructions that many radio DJs have been given — being told they never should say goodbye at the ends of their programs — and then looked at ways some top personalities sign off with their own catch phrases.
But you don’t need to end with some kind of pithy saying.
Maybe you’ll end each show by giving the listener a very strong reason to tune in tomorrow.
Maybe you’ll end with a comment that reflects the day’s events or the content of the program you’ve just concluded.
An example of this would be Harry Shearer, who ends each of his weekly radio shows with an invitation to join him next week, adding:
“It would be just like…” — and then he fills in a reference to something quoted earlier in that program.
Or Ira Glass, another public radio host who ends his This American Life program by rolling through the credits of the people who worked on that week’s show. When he gets to the name of the manager of the station where the program originates, he identifies the manager and says something like:
“Who often can be heard in staff meetings, saying…”
— and then Ira replays an off-the-wall statement made by one of the people featured on that week’s show.
For example, Glass ended one program by crediting the station’s manager and adding:
“…who, mysteriously, says to me every morning when he sees me in the office:
“(RECORDED VOICE FROM EARLIER STORY) Madam, you smell delicious!”
My own on-air style was to offer a compelling “tease” for the next jock’s program.
The “tease” would be complete fiction.
And although my listeners quickly learned that the next jock was not really going to broadcast the just-discovered home recording of Paul McCartney working out the song that later became known as “Yesterday” while singing in his bathtub, it gave me something to say at the end of my show….
Gave my listeners something to look forward to….
And gave the jock who followed me something to fear.
But none of those examples works for you, right?
Of course not.
You have your own personality and style.
Which is why you’ll do it your way.
But if you haven’t already, please consider “standardizing” your show close.
A good radio show is a conversation between you and your listener. (Even if the currency is mostly music, not words.)
And a good conversation doesn’t simply cease. It concludes.
But one of my Radio Programming Letter subscribers asked me, “What about forward momentum? Saying goodbye is kind of like a period, is it not?”
On a regularly recurring radio show, saying goodbye more like a comma.
That comma implies:
“More to come.”
For the radio station overall, the forward momentum is sustained when the departing jock gives listeners a very good reason to stay: a strong tease, promo, verbal interplay with the next jock, etc.
Remember:
A good conversation doesn’t simply cease. It concludes.
