DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

A Loyal Reader Writes:

“The afternoon jock at our station is terrible! The worst air talent I have ever heard. Her ratings are in the toilet, she is mean to listeners (that’s if she even picks up the phone), she does no show prep (does it count as show prep if you do it in the middle of your airshift?), and during her shift she shops for things online.

“I know that my PD is aware of her ‘awfullness,’ but he’s not doing anything about it. He keeps telling me that things are going to change soon. It’s been about six months, and nothing has happened!

“I’m tired of taking phone calls from listeners telling me that she is terrible. I’m getting sick of people on the street telling me that they can’t listen to the station between the hours of 2pm and 6pm! What do I do? Keep my mouth shut and just do my job?”

If you play your cards wrong, one day you’ll become a program director and then you’ll have to worry about jocks who do a lousy job.

Until then, enjoy the freedom to concentrate only on your own radio program and your own performance.

I will add, however, that if I were a PD whose jock was spending her on-air time shopping online, I would give that jock one warning and then fire her if she did it again.

Dick Orkin & Dan O'Day Share A Laugh

This is the third installment in a series that began with Dick Orkin repeatedly hearing this refrain from radio station salespeople:

“I don’t like writing commercials!”

Dick surveyed a large number of radio account executives to determine their most common reasons for viewing “commercial copywriting” negatively.

One of the common answers was:

“I have no talent and everything I come up with is boring.”

You do not need talent to write an effective commercial.

You do need product knowledge (which you can attain) — an understanding of how advertising in general and radio advertising in particular work — and a genuine desire to help your client.

If you’ve been brainwashed into believing your job exists solely to provide income for your employer, either get your brain dirty again or go find some other job where not caring about the results you produce will be less important. (“Big deal, so I didn’t get that pickle exactly in the middle of that Big Mac.”)

A Loyal Reader Writes:

“In addition to my job as Production Director for a station group, I voicetrack a Sunday night shift on a small town station in another market.

“I do this shift for free because the program director is a buddy of mine and I’m just helping him out.

“What can I do to spice up the show a bit?

“This station doesn’t have much to promote because they don’t have the money for big events.

“I can’t do weather, because I’m voicetracking from 100 miles away.

“It gets boring just doing ramps between songs and a pre-break sell.

“Any ideas (keeping in mind that I do this for free, so hours of show prep isn’t what I’m looking for)?”

Even if the radio station doesn’t do big events, presumably they do something on their airwaves.

Your PD friend should make sure you know everything that’s happening at that station, all the staff, and can talk about the station, its programming and its people as though you’re right there.

“It gets boring just doing ramps between songs and a pre-break sell.”

Assuming you know what songs are being played, there’s no limit to how creative you can be in relating to the music — even in a brief time.

“Hours of show prep isn’t what I’m looking for.”

The secret to any good show — live or recorded, paid or unpaid — is show prep.

Your listeners don’t know (or care) that you’re not being paid; you’re the disc jockey on their radio station.

I say this seriously and without any sarcasm or criticism: If the fact that you’re not paid means you can’t afford to do enough prep to deliver a good show, “just say no;” stop doing the show.

First, the radio commercial….

The beginning of a radio commercial should communicate its subject matter — or, at the very least, identify the targeted listener.

But the first 25 seconds of that radio spot is gibberish.

This advertiser is telling us that the future isn’t here yet, huh? What a revelation.

And pointing out that we’re now in the 21st Century? In 2011? By now, “21st Century” has lost most of its novelty value.

Is the commercial message supposed to be about entering the 21st Century? No.

It’s about Wells Fargo’s “Way To Save Savings Account.” It’s “exclusive to Wells Fargo,” which means they’ve trademarked the name.

The commercial message should focus on the results the “Way To Save Savings Account” apparently is designed to deliver:

“We know it can be challenging to add to your savings consistently. That’s why we’ve set it up a program that automatically saves for you….”

Yeah, that’s what the radio commercial was supposed to be about.

As an account holder, I hope Wells Fargo takes better care of my money than it does of its own money that’s been allocated for radio advertising.