DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

I believe I stole the term “Mr. & Mrs. Stupid” from one of my newsletter subscribers.

If not, I adapted some other term from that subscriber.

(Funny how I manage to forget the name of the person whose term I blithely throw around during my radio copywriting workshops, huh?)

While you’ve never met them in real life, you’ve heard them in plenty of radio commercials.

The format is, roughly:

MRS.: Honey, why are you (__________)?

MR.: Because (__________).

MRS.: But didn’t you know (__________)?

MR.: Really??

MRS.: Yes, and in addition they (__________).

MR.: Wow! I guess I’d better (__________).

MRS.: I think maybe we both should!

MR. & MRS: (laughing)

Recently someone defended such inane commercials by saying you can’t write “naturally” when you have only 30 seconds in which to communicate your commercial message.

Being limited to 30 seconds doesn’t preclude writing believable dialogue. A good radio commercial is nothing more than a conversation with the targeted listener. You’ve had 30-second conversations that didn’t sound like Mr. & Mrs. Stupid, haven’t you?

A Loyal Reader Writes:

“I heard my Program Director use ‘Oh’ when giving out a phone number.

“I explained, in the best way a 6-time college drop-out can, that ‘Oh’ is a letter, not a number. ‘Zero’ is a number (or lack of), and therefore should be used when giving out a number. Saying ‘Oh’ instead of ‘zero’ is only proper if you like to end sentences with a preposition. Do you know where I’m coming from?

“He responded that Dan O’Day said to use ‘Oh’ not ‘zero’. Knowing that you most certainly do not love your last name so much that you would alter American English to the point of using ‘Oh’ whenever you can, I have to inquire as to your logic behind this, if it is true.

“Please help us resolve this difficult issue.”

My #1 rule of communication is to speak the language of the person to whom I’m speaking.

If I’m in a culture (or in a community) where people tend to say “oh” when referring to the “zero” in a phone number, I’ll certainly say “oh.”

If speaking “correctly” were my primary concern, I would’ve referred to the year 1999 not as “nineteen ninety-nine” but rather as “one thousand nine hundred ninety-nine.” That would have been proper, but it would have derailed more conversations than it would’ve facilitated.

There are other reasons that “oh” often (not always) is more effective than “zero” when giving a phone number or address — reasons relating to the human mind’s resorting to “chunking” as a memory aid. “Zero” contains one more syllable than “oh.” Sounds inconsequential, but when stringing together a series of sounds, “oh” is easier than “zero.”

I do agree, however, that a preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with.

If ever I were to go back on the air (don’t worry, there’s no amount of money that would be worth my getting up at 4AM every day), here’s one very dumb contest I absolutely would do:

Dan O’Day’s Mystery Flashback Year

You have to guess the year I’m thinking of, using the clues I  disperse during my show.

No, you have not ever heard this contest anywhere else.

Not the way I’d do it.

Here’s a quick sample:

Guess what year I’m flashing back to this morning!

Here are some clues:

* The Beatles recorded their first record.

* Roger Maris hit 61 home runs.

* The orginal film version of “The Parent Trap” was released in movie theaters.

And today’s Mystery Flashback Year?

1937.

I never said those things happened during the Mystery Flashback Year. For some reason, 1937 just reminded me of them.

It hasn’t occurred to me until now that there is one good side effect of radio’s consolidation:

It’s drastically cut down on the number of “those other stations are jerks” promos — because now “those other stations” are owned by the company that owns your (and all the other) stations.

Which leads to this commercial critique…