DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

Illustration © 2009 by Bobby Ocean

Daya Ottley, a radio personality with Family Focus in Trinidad and Tobago, was a Repeat Offender at this year’s International Radio Creative & Production Summit.

Not only is he an excellent voiceover artist; he also really knows how to use PowerPoint. See for yourself…

May, 1995 (continued): In Berlin I did some work with r.s.2, whose program director was a former Armed Forces Radio broadcaster (and old O’LINERS subscriber) named Rik de Lisle. (Rik since has sold his soul and become a highly respected programming consultant.)

Given the hotel’s low quality standard in the U.S., I didn’t expect much when I was told I would be staying at a Ramada Inn. I was shocked to discover a very nice place. (Well, it appeared very nice; I was there only long enough to sleep.)

From Berlin I flew to Cologne, where Jeff van Gelder met me and drove me to Oberhausen, where the following day I presented Air Personality Plus+ for NRW. (This was a return engagement).

Then it was back to the airport and on to Leipzig, where Dr. Monika Friedrich arranged for me to share a panel session with Delta Radio’s esteemed Adam Hahne. That session was a lot of fun, but that made two visits now to Leipzig without having the time to see any of that historic city.

Note To Air Travelers: It is entirely possible to stand up from one’s airline seat without pulling down on the seat in front of you.

I was reminded of this on my flight home from Frankfurt.

Some guy walked up the aisle and used the backs of passengers’ seats as though they were railings. (No, he wasn’t disabled.) In the midst of this, he pulled my seat backward. I happened to be sound asleep at the time. When my seat suddenly jerked backward, I jerked forward (like sitting straight up in bed when awakened by a loud noise)…and knocked a glass of water onto the woman sitting next to me.

She did not appear to be amused.

LEAP OF FAITH RADIO PRODUCTION with Bobby Ocean

When I joined the popular music radio circus, the music that motivated me – Top Forty – was the most fun imaginable.

It was all about the music. Who was in the recording studio, when would this or that superstar release their next work, “have you heard the ama-a-azing new song by…” We looked forward to each and every day, delighted in being right in the middle of it all, as the music unfolded.

It was SO all about the music: we wore it, played it, lived its lifestyles, as the music entertained, evolved and experimented. We figured it would always be like this, the creativity never-ending, the music constantly fresh and exhilarating.

Not so today. Since all this is no longer a generation’s own first, and age-specific music has become big business, there is not nearly the same degree of  anticipation, fan support or shared interest. Too bad.

Especially ironic with the Top 20 populated by such a multitude of Beatles songs.

But one of the big lessons we learn is just beyond the Timeline, from yesterday ever forward. It’s what was INSIDE the stuff we enjoyed when we were so pumped in our younger years. It was all about the music BECAUSE the music was fun. I mean REALLY fun. First time experience, once-in-a-lifetime, peak fun.

Of course you cannot recreate the era or those “good old days,” but you clearly remember the standards for fun you were given. Your reactions to the fashion, the experimentation, the flair, the outrageousness of what you have been through – are your vast emo-bank, Vault of Feelings, labyrinth of fun feelings, from which to draw. Develop it. Whatever your project, it can be more effective figuring fun into the mix.

That does NOT mean every promo, commercial and documentary should contain comedy; EACH contains its own individual blueprint within. But fun is something you allow into the process. Fun is something everyone likes, and sorely misses whenever not present. Fun is naturally here in plenty, instantly available when we get whatever-is-blocking-our-direct-experience-of-it out of the way. And, perhaps 95 percent of that is thinking.

Thinking? Uh huh, because either we haven’t been practicing or we haven’t been trained in focusing on that which we want, rather than “everything else in the world,” usually at the head of the line – our fears.

Fears are not real because they are not HERE. They deal exclusively in confabulations. [Great word, confabulations; thanks, Dave Foxx, N.Y.] The ONLY life they enjoy is when being paid attention to by you.

Don’t fight ’em. Just pick your way through them like negotiating a crowded boulevard on the way to get a pie. Acknowledge ’em quickly, but be moving quietly forward, no autographs, thanks, and on you go. Fun, just ahead…

If you’re in music radio today, it’s up to you to make the connections that engender excitement, interest and loyalty in the artists and songs you’re playing, employing your wonderful feelings of fun inventory. Same applies to religious, talk, sports and kid radio, just substitute theme/event/activity/topic/ for  performers and hits.