DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

Jim McGrath turned me onto this, at radioearth.com, which graciously gave me permission to share it with you here.

The staff and management of DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO neither endorses the actions of this DJ nor the opinions and/or allegations expressed in this audio recording.

This is a feel-good spot for the California Teachers Association. It’s designed to give its members a warm-and-fuzzy feeling. But it does nothing to help those children who deserve a chance to learn.

The kids’ singing is cute. So cute you want to vomit.

The singing is too muddy — a complete waste. The children aren’t to blame; the audio producers are. (Wait, it is possible the producers were at the mercy of a Higher Up With A Brilliant Idea.)

The sound quality is appropriate for a grade school musical performance, where actually understanding the words isn’t crucial to the audience’s enjoyment. But if you don’t understand the lyrics being sung in a commercial, what’s the point?

Musically, it’s terrible. You tell me: Is that melody catchy, or is it tedious? (Is it even a melody?)

David Sanchez, President of the California Teachers Association, probably is a swell guy and a dedicated educator. But he’s not a very good voice performer. So why is he on this spot?

The first announcer tag is fine: A child’s voice clearing stating, “This message was brought to you by the California Teachers Association.”

But whoops, they’ve got to add a slogan: “Because every child deserves a chance to learn.”

Nothing wrong with that slogan. In fact, it’s strong and well crafted.

But the kid who gave the “brought to you by” tag should have continued with the slogan. It’s a single sentence:

“This message was brought to you by the California Teachers Association, because every child deserves a chance to learn.”

Why did they switch to a second kid’s voice?

Well, if this were a school performance, the reason would’ve been to showcase as many of the children as possible — out of fairness and also to limit the number of “Why didn’t my little Johnny get to sing a solo” complaints.

If it were a TV commercial, they would have switched to a second and possibly a third child to visually display diversity. We’d see two genders and, probably, at least two racial or ethnic backgrounds.

But this is a radio commercial. Having two voices in 8 seconds speak in a linear fashion (not engaging in a dialogue) doesn’t make any sense here.

The combined voices at the end, by the way, are used to deliver a second slogan: “Because no child succeeds alone.”

HERE COMES THE CLUE TRAIN: What’s your Core Message — the one thing you want the targeted listener to hear, to understand and to remember? Is it “deserves a chance to learn,” or is it “succeeds alone”?

Answer: Neither. The Core Message is “success at school starts at home.” Jettison the distracting, competing slogans and stick with that core message.

Seriously, I am.

I’m the only person in the world who, as a result of hearing this commercial, went to the CTA’s website “for tips on how you can help your child in school.” (In case you missed it, that’s what they wanted the listener to do.)

After clicking on far too many links, I found their “7 Tips to Help Your Child Learn.”

I’ll bet I can turn each of these tips into pretty darn good radio com– Oh. Maybe I can’t. Not that there’s anything objectionable about those 7 tips. Well, at least the first five; I fell asleep during “…your children can learn fractions and measurements while you prepare favorite foods together.”

Okay, let’s click on “52 Ways to Help Your Child Learn.” Did they deliberately format those 52 ways in a manner guaranteed to discourage people from reading it, or is that a happy accident?

Oh, but you can download a PDF version. I’ll bet that one is highly readable.

Ah, no. It’s exactly like the HTML version. Go ahead, take a look. Tell the truth: How likely are you to read that thing?

I give up. Nothing on that site — Hey, wait! “99 Ways to Say Very Good.” Maybe….

Oh, yeah. There’s our commercial.

(A DIFFERENT ADULT VOICE FOR EACH ONE OF THESE)

GREAT!

Good!

That’s RIGHT!

GOOD WORK!

I’m very proud of you.

WOW!

I knew you could do it.

TERRIFIC!

Couldn’t have done it better myself.

Nice going.

EXCELLENT!

OUTSTANDING!

That’s it!

FANTASTIC!

Way to go!

Good job, (Child’s Name).

ANNOUNCER: Want to help your children succeed in school? Encourage them, every day. There are so many ways you can say to your child, “Good job!” A message from the California Teachers Association.

Yeah, I changed their Core Message. You got a problem with that?

Terry’s last few years of life were tumultuous: His illness, personal relationships, his continuing habit of becoming geographically restless and moving every couple of years (Long Beach, CA; Las Vegas; Durango, CO; Vegas again; Dallas).

He spent his last Thanksgiving at my house, with my family.

Six months later he was hospitalized, for neither the first nor the last time. When he heard I was going to visit Terry in the hospital, my 4 1/2-year old son asked me to bring Terry a letter. Matthew dictated, and I typed it up.

May 1, 1994

Dear Terry,

I hope you feel better soon.

We miss you.

I hope we can send you a copy of THE TREEHOUSE. That’s a computer program where you can do music and animals and all this stuff.

I wish I could have visited you yesterday. I can’t wait until we see each other again. Come over here soon.

There was a Moon Bounce at Kiely’s school’s carnival, and there was this rope thing and you climb up on it and then there’s an enormous blue slide and then you go down it. And it’s so much fun going down it, it’s very fun.

I’m going to a carnival this Sunday. I hope there will be a Moon Bounce, and I hope there will be the rope thing where you slide down and it’s so much fun.

Do you have a pet animal?

I hope you get this letter today.

I hope I can invite for Thanksgiving again.

I love Terry. I hope I can give you a flower.

I hope I will give you a movie that no one likes in this family.

I hope we can go to a Thai restaurant soon, with Terry and Daddy and Matthew.

When Daddy visits you today, he will bring a book just for Terry. There’s a rooster on the front.

Matthew wrote this letter.

Love,
Matthew

Illustration ©2008 by Bobby Ocean

Happy Birthday, Terry Moss

As far as I know, Terry Moss’ first entrepreneurial venture was a monthly aircheck service called CAL-ROCK. As a young DJ, I was a subscriber.

His next contribution to radio personalities around the world continues to bring smiles to DJs and listeners alike: The first volume of what became a 5-LP series, Cheap Radio Thrills.

(Originally I had planned to mail all of my Preferred Customers a special offer this week: The Cheap Radio Thrills package — which now is 3 CDs — at half-price. I thought it would be nice to do something to get Terry’s audio baby into the hands of even more radio people. But I feared it would seem tacky, that I was using Terry’s birthday as an excuse for a sale.

(Finally I hit upon a compromise: Only the people who read this blog posting will know about the 50% discount offer, and I’ll take it down next week. Because there are thousands of people on my Preferred Customer List but, uh, fewer readers of this blog, that means just a few sales will be made — so few that I’m hoping it will protect me from accusations of greed.)

As any old American DJ will confirm, for many years radio stations were required to broadcast periodic tests of the Emergency Broadcast System. Here’s what the listener would hear:

For the next 60 seconds, this station will conduct a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The following is only a test.

That would be followed by this test tone:

Then the announcer would return to say:

This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The broadcasters of your area in voluntary cooperation with the FCC and federal, state, and local authorities have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency, the Attention Signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news, or instructions. This station serves the [ ] area. This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System.

Invariably the jock would read that copy in a monotone, there’d be silence, then the test tone, then the jock would return to read the close with the same disinterested inflection.

Terry decided to change all that — with these two cuts from Cheap Radio Thrills. Here’s the introduction:

After the intro, the test tone would be broadcast. Then this cut would be played, complete with a donut for the announcer to read the boilerplate copy that begins, “The broadcasters of your area…”

Question: As a listener, which test would you be more likely to pay attention to? The one delivered in the bored monotone, or the musical version?

Clearly far more people would actually listen to the musical rendition — which really upset the FCC. People actually paying attention to the E.B.S. tests??

So in its infinite wisdom, the FCC decreed that the Emergency Broadcast System test could not be sung.

Bored monotone that no one listens to = Good.

Entertaining version that many people listen to = Bad.

Tomorrow: Farewell to Terry Moss — with a little help from another Radio/Production Guy: Bobby Ocean.