DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

John Leader — former major market PD, former Managing Editor of Radio & Records (who gets the blame for my column appearing there for 9 years), and for a long time one of the top movie trailer voice over artists, writes:

Forgive me if this is something you’ve discussed and I’ve missed, but…

I’ve noticed that no one ever breathes in commercials anymore. All breaths are removed (pulled up, I assume), which I’m sure saves precious time, but also gives copy-heavy reads an unnatural sense in my opinion.

It’s disconcerting listening to someone run through 60-seconds of copy without ever taking a single breath. But, most spots are doing it, so apparently it’s the norm.

Your thoughts? Or, am I just getting cranky (wouldn’t be the first time)?

We all know the reason this happens: Advertisers foolishly try to cram as much “stuff” into their commercials as possible.

Quite a few production people, meanwhile, take great pride in their ability to excise every breath from a piece — even with copy that could be shortened to enable the announcer to speak conversationally.

And that’s what is lost by this practice: Conversation. We do pause when we converse. We pause to breathe; we pause to think; we pause for emphasis.

Meanwhile, producers are forced to sacrifice communication for more words. Many words spoken quickly, with no pause for breath. Voila! The perfect commercial.

Those advertisers, copywriters and producers would profit by taking to heeding the words of Antoine de Saint-Exuper, best known for his novella, THE LITTLE PRINCE:

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

(Twelfth in a series)

A Loyal Reader Asks:

“How can you teach young jocks to ‘be real’ — to break out of the ‘I’m a DJ’ persona and become communicators?”

Videotape them as they tell someone else a story.

If you get good results, have the jock see what he does when he is “real.”

Does he lean forward, sit straighter, stretch his legs, speak with his hands….?

These are all physical clues that can help him deliver the kind of on-mic performance you desire.

Here’s an opening line that could be used for any retailer…

…which means it’s worthless.

Do people patronize Petsmart for “great values”? No, people shop at Petsmart for pet supplies.

Here comes the clue train.

If you could take the opening line of the commercial you just wrote and slap it onto another, totally unrelated spot, you’ve got the beginning of a bad commercial.

“Great values start at Sears.”

“Great values start at Wendy’s.”

“Great values start at Walgreens.”

Bad commercials start with bad copywriting.

There have been many terrific radio personalities. A number of truly great ones.

But only one radio genius: Kenny Everett.

Here’s a 10-minute video sampling. His line about “When I played a record…” is one of the all-time greatest radio lines.