DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

Final installment in a series excerpted from Fundamentals of Radio Programming by Randy Michaels….

As a program director, you should think through your Clock Technology.

Typically we build categories, and most of the Selector databases I see have Power Currents, Secondary Currents, New Currents, maybe some Night Currents.

When you get to a certain test score, you move it to Power. Then when it falls off a little, you move it back to Secondary.

I say, “Don’t do that. That’s goofy.”

Let’s say you score music on a scale of 1 to 100. And let’s say 80+ will be your “Power.”

Well, there are two very different kinds of “75’s.”

There’s the 75 that is in the “Adoption” phase. And there’s the 75 that’s in the “Decline” phase.

They might have the same value to your audience.

But Flow is one of the multiple variables in the science of radio programming.

Let’s say I’m introducing a new record.

I want to cradle it between two familiar records. Maybe a Power Current plus one of those 75’s that’s on the way down but is very familiar; it’s good to put that new record between those two.

But if also in that category I’ve got a bunch of climbing records, and now I’ve got two new records in a row.

Wrong!

By the same token, I may not want to play two sort-of-tired records back-to-back.

So it’s fine if I have a sequence of Power/Climbing B/Recurrent.

But how about Power/Declining B/Recurrent? Now I’ve got two rather tired records back-to-back.

I don’t know why every radio station in the world has a “B” category with both up and down records. You need to split them.

A “75” with higher “unfamiliar” than “burn” goes into “Climbing.”

A “75” with higher “burn” than “unfamiliar” goes into “Declining.”

I think that makes a lot of sense.

And by the way, what determines that is not Mediabase.

It’s your audience.

Do not be embarrassed if a song has been out nine weeks and is still climbing because it’s still unfamiliar to your audience.

If something the record company is still working is over or declining for you, don’t be embarrassed to move it.

You’ve got to look at your scores. But PDs in America lack the confidence to do what’s right:

“Mr. Famous PD moved that record down? I’d better move it down, too!”

I talk to PDs who are so proud: “I did just what Mr. Famous PD did.”

“Really? His market is heavily Puerto Rican with no Country listeners and you’re in the South and the Number One and Two stations in your market are Country, and you did just what he did??”

Do what’s right for your audience.

Don’t worry about national trends.

Jeff Jackson submitted this commercial for the Critique-A-Spot-A-Thon at this year’s International Radio Creative & Production Summit.

That might be the first good commercial I’ve ever heard for a state lottery.

The key line in the song was, “I’d advise all the gals and guys to go for the $10,000 prize…” — nice multiple internal rhyme there, by the way.

And what makes this a good commercial rather than just a promising idea is the casting of the singer: She’s a real singer, and she commits to it 100%.

She’s not “playing the role of a jazz singer”; she’s being a jazz singer, with no fooling around and no winking at the audience.

What a refreshing change.

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was unlike any TV sitcom…ever.

This video is a never-broadcast introduction to the pilot episode — which was shown to advertisers before the series premiered.

In fact, by the time they went on the air they changed the opening to the animated version that fans of the show probably still remember.

Yes, Tuesday Weld is there. So it’s definitely worth watching. (Also “Catwoman,” but I never was a fan of the Batman TV show. But apparently it’s a big deal to that program’s fans.)

Max Shulman (author of the book upon which this TV series was based) was one of the funniest American writers ever.

Ever.

Read any of his books or stories, and you’ll see for yourself. Laugh-out-loud funny.

(There’s also a funny connection between Shulman and one of my favorite radio personalities from San Francisco. No, you can’t guess who the radio person is. Let’s save that story for another day.)

Although novice writers sometimes make the naive mistake of giving a novel’s protagonist the author’s first name, it truly is the mark of an amateur. In an author’s note at the beginning of THE ZEBRA DERBY, Shulman declared:

“Let there be an end to this silly business of authors never giving their own names to characters in their novels. False modesty, faugh!”

Which is why 24 different characters in that novel are named “Max.”

Legendary radio programmer Chuck Blore discloses the surprising inspiration that led to the first radio station jingle that was built around an “audio logo.”