DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

January 5-9, 1998: On the first Monday of 1998 I flew to England, where Claire Paul had arranged for me to conduct a seminar for several BBC local stations and then to participate in a panel session for The Radio Academy.

It’s a 10 – 11 hour flight from Los Angeles to London, and this time (I had made the same trip just two weeks earlier) I decided to try sleeping through most of it; perhaps that would enable me to arrive feeling completely refreshed.

After the in-flight dinner, I took a sleeping pill and slept until just before we landed — even missing breakfast. Claire picked me up at Heathrow Airport and drove me to the Langham Hilton, across the street from the BBC. But when I reached my room in mid-afternoon (Tuesday), I still was tired…and hungry.

I ordered a sandwich from room service, unpacked, ate the sandwich, collapsed on the bed…and woke up 3 – 4 hours later.

I had thought about seeing a play that evening, but now I wouldn’t have time. So I just sat around and vegetated all evening, eating another room service meal for dinner and channel surfing the television.

(I don’t know why, after checking every channel and finding nothing worth watching, I cling to the unfounded hope that if I go through them all again I’ll stumble upon something great.)

Yeah, I Watched It. We've All Done Things We Regret.

How zombie-like was I? Well, I watched much of the Sylvester Stallone movie, LOCK UP. Enough said.

Finally I went to bed at 3:00AM and awoke feeling remarkably refreshed at 5:00.

For 45 minutes I lazily enjoyed lying in bed and looking out the window at the empty London streets below. Then I got up, showered, collected and replied to my e-mail, and did some writing.

After a leisurely (but, for me, moderate) breakfast downstairs, I embarked on a stroll through London at 9:00.

The weather was remarkably mild for London in January, perhaps 50 degrees or so…perfect walking weather. From a couple of blocks away, I noticed two very large signs, on either side of the street, that said “GOLF SALE” and pointed toward a store.

As I got closer, I realized each of the signs rested atop an eight-foot wooden pole…and each pole was being held in place by some poor bloke whose job it was to stand there and hug the pole to keep it upright.

Although 50 degrees is very comfortable for me to walk in, wearing an open jacket, for most people that’ s a bit chilly. These two guys had to stand there for hours, motionless, absorbing the wind & cold. That can’t be a very enjoyable job.

Soon, however, I stopped thinking about them as I continued walking. I really felt terrific: fully rested & fed, with a very nice hotel as my base, in a place where (for a change) I understood the language, wandering aimlessly about one of the world’s busiest cities.

Walking up Oxford Street, the sidewalks were crowded with people rushing to work.

I, on the other hand, had absolutely no commitments to meet that day. It was a great feeling.

In fact, I had to restrain myself from approaching strangers and saying, “Pardon me, but I don’t have to be anywhere today.” Or, “Can you tell me the time? Oh, never mind, it really doesn’t matter.”

Next: Taking a chance on a crime novel in  Selfridges’ basement.

Were you ever told something like, “You should never say goodbye at the end of your show, because that tells people you’re leaving”?

You were told wrong.

As a radio DJ, it’s a good bet that you believe in the value of “one-to-one communication” between air talent and listener.

You talk to your audience; you don’t shout at them.

You’re creative and compelling — yet conversational.

You’re a genuine “personality,” not “just an announcer.”

You create a personal connection with your listeners. You share your wit, your humor, even your life.

But at the end of your show, you just…disappear??

Imagine This:

You’re at a party, engaged in an enjoyable conversation with someone you’ve just met.

You glance away for just a moment, but when you look back…the other person has disappeared.

How would you feel?

Mystified, certainly. Off-balance. Maybe slightly offended.

The person just vanished without even a “see ’ya later”?

That’s what it’s like when the last song of your show ends, the next program begins…and you never even bothered to say “see ’ya.”

Sure, you want your audience to stick around for the program that follows yours. But you also want to maintain that bond you’ve established with your listeners.

The Standard, Dumb Way

Of course, many jocks do say goodbye at the end of their shows. But most of them do it so weakly, so ineffectually, so….so lamely that it’s almost embarrassing:

“Well, uh, I see we’re out of time, so, uh, thanks for being here with us today….”

Good grief. You didn’t put in all that “show prep” to end the day’s program with a wasteful, weak whimper like that.

Next Installment: Smart ways to “say goodbye” without sending your audience away.

Avi Cicirean came all the way from Romania to attend the last-ever International Radio Creative & Production Summit.

At the end of a long, exhausting two days, he shot this impromptu video.

An axiom of dramatic writing is: Action is Character.

You might have heard the expression, “Actions speak louder than words.”

They certainly speak louder than radio station positioning statements.

A positioning statement spoken in a void, with no substantiating action, is just an empty boast.

One of the smartest guys in radio, Randy Michaels (in case you missed it, he recently returned), refers to most radio station positioning statements as “selling their aspirations.”

In other words, those stations proclaim what they wish listeners were thinking about them:

That they’re the best station….

Or that they play the best mix….

Or that they’re the only station everyone can agree on at work.

The example Randy gives is:

“And now back to more of our Hot Talk, with today’s topic: Which is your favorite color — red or blue?”

Well, you can call it Hot Talk. But that won’t make it Hot Talk, and it won’t fool your listeners into believing it is Hot Talk.

“We always talk over music because we want to reinforce that we’re a music station.”

When you talk over music, you’re not a music station. You’re a “talk over the music station.”

Sometimes at my live seminars, I’ll play a station promo that spends 67 seconds boasting about how “all we do is play great oldies.”

And before the promo ends, they add, “And if you’re ever in the mood for some great Country music, tune in our sister station….”

When the promo finally finishes, the disc jockey rambles on for several more seconds as he fumbles his way through a song intro… and then we hear music.

What you say you do is important.

But only if what you say you do actually is what you do.

Because Action is Character.