DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

LEAP OF FAITH RADIO PRODUCTION with Bobby Ocean

Two things I love about our Super Radio Guru, Dan ODay:

One, he doesn’t wear the usual body-hugging spandex Super hero costume.  The more you think about that, the more grateful you become.

Two, his amazing Super Power.

Dan ODay has the uncanny ability to get more “whys” into a standard Q&A than the mere mortal. Seeing him use it in action is to marvel. He’s a natural, and carries the interest of not only himself but his many, many associates into his quest.

His Super Power, as you probably know, is asking questions. ODay can construct two part-questions, which have more contingencies hanging in the first part, each a balancing see-saw leading to so many facets of possibility within potential, you wonder, not only if it’s possible to ever arrive at the second part, but if we’ll need a map to find our way back.

Why?

One conclusion: Finding out the “whys” in your life can make you very wise in your time.

Ultimately, just the “whys” take a lifetime, because there are so many questions for all of Life’s different distinctions, classes, levels, dimensions. And so many answers.

Finding out why the heart behaves so is really finding out many reasons why. All of which lead to more questions.

Finding out why people behave in so many different ways, why plants have and use their myriad of differences, why insects buzz, why molecules hum, why Gravity attracts, why Fear demands response, in fact, takes all of us. That works out because all is revealed.

So – why not focus? OK, easy! Since we all have such an affinity for it, here are a few starter Why-Questions about radio…

Ask yourself WHY your favorite music is important to you. Why it moves that part of you. Why you react the way you do to that stimulation.

Ask WHY you can’t do better at work for the fun and personal satisfaction of it, screw waiting for a salary increase. Ask why you shouldn’t enjoy to the fullest the things your job contains that are challenging and fun. Why can’t you call the shots and re-label the “un-fun” tasks, as something more interesting like, say, “Child’s Play,” or “Part Of My Being In Demand,” or “Value-Increaser.”

Because they lead to such interesting places, one of my favorite Why Areas concerns what’s on the air:

Why are we listening to winners on the telephone say “You’re kidding,” and “Oh my God” after doing this for over a half century? (Why haven’t we better learned to coach our listeners by asking better leading questions for our promos? Commercials have been doing it for years)

Did you ever ask yourself WHY the first radio show interaction with a listener on the phone took place? (I always thought it was a great example of “It CAN happen to the average listener like you,” and wondered why they didn’t extend that relateable line of communication.)

Why do air personalities, after awarding the prize, ask their winners,  “What radio station just gave you the big prize?” (Again, better leading questions. By now a listener should have asked back: “Why, don’t you know where you work?”)

Why would anyone in radio, regardless of from which level one operates, not be very clear that this is show business?

Why would anyone looking for profit in business, look upon investments as liabilities?

Seek.

See ya along the quest.

A Woman On The Radio

I can’t believe this myth still needs dispelling.

Here’s how one guy justified it in an online posting:

“Radio stations, research and focus groups have done many studies on this subject and the result is the same and has been the same for years. The result has been that most women don’t like to listen to other women on the air.

“For example, stations that put women jocks back to back suffered because of listener complaints (mostly by women) that they didn’t want to hear women back to back and that they didn’t like the sound of either jocks anyway.”

Let Me Explain This Yet Again.

It is very unlikely that the anonymous person quoted above has ever seen any such “research.” More likely, he is parroting what he has been told by others…who in turn are repeating what they were told.

If that person did see the “research,” then he simply is incapable of separating Research from Garbage.

Before we examine the quality of said “research,” let’s dismiss his last statement as patently ludicrous:

“Stations that put women jocks back to back suffered because of listener complaints (mostly by women) that they didn’t want to hear women back to back.”

Oh, I see. Most radio stations have large numbers of listeners who spend eight solid hours with one radio station. And they complain when they hear two female hosts. Sure they do.

Most female personalities have been told by one or more PDs or managers, “You can’t do (     ) on the radio, because you’re a woman.”

You can’t talk about politics on the radio, because you’re a woman.

You can’t be sarcastic on the radio, because you’re a woman.

You can’t talk about sports on the radio, because you’re a woman.

You can’t be funny on the radio, because you’re a woman.

And how does the PD or GM know this?

“Research.”

Oh, really? May I see that research?

“Oh, no, it’s Top Secret. Nobody can see that research. But believe me, it exists.”

To Our Male Readers: Think about being unemployed. Think about all the non-returned phone calls and ignored airchecks and resumes and the frustrations of looking for work.

Female jocks put up with all the above, too, plus they’re told:

“Sorry, we already have a woman on our air staff.”

(How many readers have ever been told, “Sorry, we already have a man”?)

Or:

“We tried a woman once, and it didn’t work out.”

(Oh. But I guess they never hired a man who didn’t “work out.”)

Here’s The Truth.

Radio in North America is dominated by white males with limited educations and a very narrow view of the world. (Yes, at this moment a white male PD with a Ph.D in International Studies is firing off an angry e-mail retort. But I’m talking about the majority.)

I offer “limited educations” not as an insult but as a fact. If you’re a PD, I wonder how much time you’ve found during the past few years to read books on sociology, psychology, history or philosophy. (Sorry, reading “the trades” doesn’t count.)

But what about this legendary “research”?

This comes from gathering a focus group of radio listeners and asking some variation of:

“Which would you rather listen to:

1. A morning show with a male host and a female sidekick

2. A morning show with a female host and a male sidekick

3. A morning show with two male hosts

4. A morning show with two female hosts?”

The focus group participants search their memory databases for instances of strong female hosts…and they come up blank. They did not grow up listening to a funny, entertaining, outrageous, provocative woman jock because from the beginning of radio until today precious few women have been given the chance to develop as strong personalities.

Instead, to those focus group members, “female disc jockey” means Morning Sidechick (who giggles at the funny stuff “the boys” do) or Mid-Day Jock (“Another 17 in a row….”).

If I ask you, “Do you think you’d enjoy tuna fish-flavored ice cream?” you will search your own experiences, looking for a point of reference. But you’ve never tasted anything at all like tuna-flavored ice cream. So even if you like both tuna and ice cream, there’s a good chance you’ll vote “thumbs down” on this proposed marriage between Starkist and Ben & Jerry’s.

What does this illustrate?

People Cannot Accurately Predict Their Reactions To Stimuli That Are Outside Their Frames Of Reference.

Those focus group members literally cannot imagine what a brash/ funny/provocative/outrageous/opinionated female “DJ” would sound like. So when you ask if they’d be likely to listen to one, they reply, “Uh….No, I don’t think so.”

In 1989, few boxing fans thought Mike Tyson could be beaten in the ring. In 1990, many fans were sure he could be beaten. What made the difference? A guy named Buster Douglas, who convincingly knocked out Tyson in Tokyo.

Before Douglas came along, no one had ever seen Tyson lose. So they couldn’t imagine it. But once the image of a more mortal Mike Tyson entered the collective consciousness, people’s perceptions of “reality” changed.

FACT: Radio listeners will listen to people who entertain or otherwise engage them. Regardless of their gender, age, or race.

FACT: Darn few audience members listen to one station for two complete, consecutive air shifts. And those few exceptions do not call radio stations to complain when they hear two women in a row.

FACT: Radio is a tough enough business to survive in without having to put up with such ignorant bigotry. And that’s what it is: bigotry. The mindless embracing and spreading of unfounded, false generalizations about specific groups of people.

But right now someone is reading this and thinking, “Oh, he’s being so Politically Correct.”

Okay, maybe bigotry and ignorance are good things. Maybe women deserve to be treated as second-class citizens.

So forget about fairness. Instead, concentrate on this fact:

IT’S BAD RADIO.

And when you commit to such bad radio because of “research,” you are making programming decisions that are based upon incompetent research.

Here’s a jock whose airchecks I’ve played in radio seminars around the world. Oddly, every time I play her stuff, many (not necessarily all) of the attendees love it. Even though the jock is — gasp — a woman!

Her name is Slim.

Here is what she sounded like back in the ’80s…

Time for another look at award winning radio commercials — spotlighting the good and the bad from the 2007 Radio Mercury Awards.

This one was a finalist in the 30-second category.

The problem they appear to be showing is  that of radio not being “clean”.

There’s no way someone will hear this commercial even multiple times and associate it with the real problem, which is keeping your carpets in your home or your office clean.

Incredibly bad.

Illustration © 2009 by Bobby Ocean