You Don't Have To Be Boring

Now and then you read something that simply says everything you wish you could have said, but only better.  Mike Elgan did that for me and in the last few days, I've been chopping his points into small, easily-digestable pieces while also showing how it all relates to creating content on radio.

The technology and tech culture writer offers these tips for doing what you have to do so often on the air:  provide facts and information that are either in the station's interest or an advertiser's is such a way that it doesn't drive your listener either to change stations or put you on ignore, which is almost as bad.

Here's a much better idea: put as much of the information as possible on your blog, podcast, the station or the client's website.  If you're at a live remote broadcast, have a handout on paper with all the special prices and items the client hopes to move today and use your time on the air talking in entertaining, fun ways about the benefits to the listener of coming by to see you right now.

You'll want to add a bit of that information to your liner or live read, but only to make an impression, not to convey specific facts and figures.

Elgan:  "To understand how this works, deconstruct Apple announcements, for example. They show numbers not so you'll learn the information, but to leave you with impressions. (Fast growth! Big sales! More apps than other phones!)"

The words you say -- should be focused 100% on making people interested in you and your message and on creating a positive impression.

Communicate the nitty-gritty details in a lovely website or social networking page so that people you interest can do get what they need to know.

Don't be boring there either. Add video, or at least pictures. Tell stories with both them and your voice. And sprinkle emotion throughout.

And finally, says Elgan: "Any writer will tell you that words matter."

Follow these basic tips on language to make your talk powerful:

• Use short, basic words. (Isn't that sentence more powerful and memorable than "Utilize diminutive elemental units of language"?)
• Use the active voice when you can. (Passive is the worst. Imperative is the best.)
• Be specific and avoid vagueness. (It's impossible to be too clear.)
• Avoid cliches and jargon. (If you've heard or read a phrase several times before, don't use it. Just talk plainly in your own words.)
• Cut everything you can. (If any picture, point, story or other element isn't absolutely necessary for what you're trying to communicate, get rid of it.)

Most radio personalities are repetitive and sound the same (boring).

But you don't have to be.

Props to scribe Mike Elgan for this week of very useful reminders.

You can grab an audience's attention and build lasting memories by thinking like a writer.

How To Present Like A Writer

Radio personalities too often approach their daypart like it's a transfer of information as Mike Elgan writes on killer presentations in Computerworld : "I have all this information on what (the station is doing) I want you to know, and when I'm done presenting you will now have the information."

This is the worst kind of delusion, because everyone knows it isn't true. People usually retain little more than a general impression.

So if you want to make your bits entertaining and unforgettable, you should learn from people who are good at enjoyable and memorable communication: Writers.

How to present like a writer

A typical backsell breaks down communication into subjects like these:

• Our branding.
• Our music position.
• Title and artist of the song just played.
• Push card.
• Pre-tease what's coming up.

These might be the right categories to discuss if the people in the audience were passionately curious about you and your radio station and what it's selling.

But they're not.

In fact, the reason you're actually THERE is not to satisfy curiosity, but to inspire curiosity. A forced march through your advertisers' "details" will inspire nothing but despair (does anyone want more details in their life than they already have? radio should BAN the word "details").

A good writer is more likely to break down the parts of communication into the categories that reflect how the human brain works, like these:

• Mental images.
• Stories.
• Emotions.
• Facts/info.

Over the next few days as I summarize Elgan's powerful article with radio in mind, let's look at each of these categories and how you can organize your presentation around them.

Lets begin with mental images.

Professional communicators, and especially writers, pay close attention to mental images. When nonfiction writers want readers to imagine something memorable, they use a good visual metaphor.

When politicians want voters to forget something horrible, they avoid mental images and instead use euphemism and jargon -- which is language that has been stripped of visual imagery.

That's how any skillful communicator manipulates an audience: Use visual imagery to create memories; use euphemism and jargon to erase them.

One of the reasons most radio bits are so weak in when measued by listener engagement is that jocks use euphemism and jargon like "nice to have you along on your Tuesday," "the time right now, " "the temperature outside," "before that," "we started off with," "the latest from," etc because they think it sounds "professional."

It doesn't. It's amateur-hour communication.

You are emulating the verbiage of a personality you probably admired a decade or two ago when you first wanted to be in radio.  You aren't even talking like "you," you're imitating everyone else.

A good metaphor is effective because it imparts a strong mental image that faithfully communicates an idea and makes it memorable.

You can tell people that a particular cow is yours, but nobody will forget the fact that you own the cow if you sink a smoking, orange-hot branding iron into the animal's flesh.

It would be easy to forget the abstract idea of metaphors being memorable. But you won't forget the mental picture you now have of that cow being branded.

Writers use metaphors. But as a radio talent, you never have to use them. Until now.

When you want to create a mental picture in the minds of your audience, show them the picture!

Elgan writes:  "The best business presentation I ever saw used slides that didn't have a single word on them. Every slide was a photograph. When the speaker talked about the growth of his company in the '90s, he showed a striking picture of a race car as he talked. When he moved to the post-recession decline, he showed a picture of a car on fire.  Ten years later, I still remember his presentation."

Seth Godin did that at CRS 2009.  One of his messages was for radio to make it easy for listeners to create a "tribe" and recruit their own "followers" for you.  I remember that four years later because he painted pictures in my mind with his presentational approach, which just seemed like conversation which the Power Point slides amplified, but he almost totally ignored, unlike most Power Point presenters.

I have never done a presentation for my client stations or other speaking engagements 'the old way' since!

Yet, most of the radio people in the room seem to still talk habitually in the face of his demonstration of how to be memorable and informative.

Word pictures are memorable. Walls of data are forgettable. So if you want to be unforgettable, use more metaphors and similes in your content breaks and far fewer words and numbers.

Deliberately "show" your listener the mental images you want them to remember and associate with your raps.

Very important: Use "real" pictures, not fake ones.

Never use stock verbiage, which stinks of artificiality. If you want to represent happy people using your radio station at work, for example, use names, voices, texts, social media comments of actual people in real workplaces.

Help your listener picture real products, real employees, real users, real problems, real tasks.

Or if you're illustrating a concept for an advertiser, make sure you "show" scenes of real life, rather than staged or faked scenes.

It's more important for your pictures to be real than to be "professional" sounding.

And, you know what?  Magically, each listener will have a different, personal, equally genuine experience customized just to them on the movie screen of their mind.

Pictures For The Ear: Emotions & Stories

In the Computerworld story which inspired this week's thread, writer Mike Elgan cites a striking scene from the AMC TV series Mad Men about a memorable presentation.

In the show, advertising creative director Don Draper convinces Kodak to call its slide projector the "Carousel."

It's a powerful presentation because the whole time Don is talking, he's showing amateurish snapshots of his family, which is so powerful and evocative that one of his colleagues runs out in tears.

The scene was conjured up by writers who understand the overwhelming power of pictures.

1.  Stories

The human mind is hard-wired for stories. We crave them. We need them. We can't resist their appeal.

So tell stories in your "show." In fact, thanks to Facebook, texting, Twitter, Pinterest, email, phones, you have the capacity to constantly be in the moment of listener life right now, inviting her to share her family scenes verbally.

A good story has a beginning, a middle and an end and involves at least one protagonist -- a person that other people can relate to who experiences the events in the story.  In the beginning, there's a balance. In the middle, that balance is disrupted in some way. And at the end, a new balance is established. That's what a story is.  The key to bringing stories into your content consistently is to personalize the information you're already giving. Instead of talking about some big change your station went through, tell a story about the person or people who made that decision that led to the change, and explain what they went through to reach that decision.

            -- Mike Elgan

 2.  Emotions

"People remember and crave images and stories," he continues. "The other thing people remember is emotions. In fact, when your audience leaves the meeting room, your entire presentation will be judged on only one thing: How you made them feel."

Good emotions for radio talent to instill in audiences include happy, shock, makes me feel good, fear, nostalgia, joy and excitement. Use them all.

But most of all, people remember humor.

More Elgin advice:  "Don't do "schtick" or prepared material.  Don't tell jokes. Instead, expose the humor in the material you're presenting.  Instead of trying to go for the big laughs, convey the mildly amusing shared reality you have with your audience.

Keep it real.

Think Like A Writer

Part of me wants to just link to this Mike Elgan Computerworld story and tell you to read it, relate it to radio and go forth, doing killer shows.

However, knowing many readers of my blog are like me and prefer to consume info in bite size, good-tasting pieces, I want to take the next few days to apply the tips directly to you.

"A lot of today's radio is boring, but don't blame consolidation, budget cuts or your General Manager. Instead, learn to communicate the 'write' way."

How can Howard hold a listener's attention for hours at a time with nothing but words?

Want proof?  He has it.

Almost immediately after his first broadcast on January 9, 2006, seven million+ people signed up for paid subscriptions when he left free radio to jump to Sirius Satellite Radio.

Have you wondered how good film and video writers can keep people glued to the screen when the whole Internet beckons?

Over the coming week, thanks to Elgan, I'm going to tell you how to apply skills from the craft of writing to make your broadcasts enjoyable and unforgettable.

But first, let's understand why most radio personalities are so bad.

What's wrong with radio the way so many of us do it today?

What comes out of radio speakers and ear buds usually involves a lot of pretending.

The speaker pretends to be excited.
The audience pretends to be interested.
Everybody is faking it.

Most radio promos, commercials and "breaks" are packed with fake images -- stock verbiage, audio clip art and other inherently false imagery.

The human mind is very good at detecting insincerity and fakeness and is repelled by it.

Most talent fails because they're working on bad assumptions.

• The listener (one person!) cares about you and what you have to say. (They don't.)
• The person you're talking with (not to!) is thinking about what you're saying. (They're not.)
• The individual you hope to engage (never 'an audience'!) can grasp the details of your complex bits on first exposure. ("She" can't, and "he" won't.)

Reaffirmation: A Note From A Friend

Anne Silberman writes:

Since I've been out of radio for a few years, and have lived all across the country since 2010, I've had a chance to talk to many people, casually, about their relationship with their favorite radio stations.

These conversations happened out of the blue and quite naturally (usually when I mentioned what I used to do for a living) but they've added up to something meaningful for me. When I was on the air, it was natural for me to think of the listeners as a collective. A group who were fans of the music on the station. I had a job to do and it was nice knowing that there were folks out there listening. While I was rarely a "big personality" on the station, I did some promotions and appearances, and did my best to be kind and respectful of the listeners who showed up to get a bumper sticker and say "hi". But, perhaps I always kept my emotional distance from them.

Since I've been off of the air and living down from the clouds, I have been able to witness the loyalty of the listener from afar. What has struck me most is how people truly identify with a station.

I see the looks of pride in their faces, when they mention a particular morning-show host or the music programmed. This happens whether the person is a fan of Country music, pop or adult alternative.

They mention their station, and a 'secret smile' appears on their face - like they are having a special memory, that makes them feel 'at one' with a larger force. They go "inside of themselves", for a second, and then come back to the conversation. What is it about radio that makes such an intimate connection with people? The voices and music enter their heads and mingle with their own world and thoughts in a way that TV or the Internet doesn't seem to do. Even today, with the on-air product, so pre-packaged in many ways, it still happens. These people have formed a real relationship with their radio friends and when one of them is suddenly gone, they feel a real loss.

In Harrisburg, PA, where I grew up, a friend still talked about a DJ who had been fired from a Christian station a year ago. This can't be taken lightly.

Maybe, as a kid, I used to have that secret smile, too, when I thought of WKBO, the station I grew up with.

30 years later, I can still remember all of the names of the DJs on that station AND their day parts! "Alexander in the Morning", "Slim Jim Buchannan", "John St. John" and "Big Jim Roberts" were as much a part of my teenage years as my friends and their cars.

Probably got into radio because just listening to it made me feel like I was part of something great.

It makes me so sad when I tune into a station and I hear listless voice-tracking and generic promos and station IDs. If the Program directors and corporate-controlled programmers could only see the faces of the people, as they were describing the station, I think the world would be a better place. 27 seconds to talk up a record might not be enough to connect!

I just wanted to write this to somebody who'd understand. Thanks, Jaye, for letting me vent.

You Need A Station "Results Manager"

No one wants irritating, ineffective commercials on the air.

So, how do they get there?

If you agree with me that many of the spots your station airs cost time spent listening by causing tune-out and thus aren't effective in actually marketing anything (other than building brand name familiarity by associating the retailer or product for a repetitive negative memory), it's time to review the process which allows that to happen.

Theory:  sales person closes the deal and is told that the commercials will arrive via email, snail mail or ftp site. 

The lone person in the building all night, watching over all of the stations in the cluster is charged with doing the "dubs" based on a production order from traffic.

Quality control is most likely no one person's responsibility, other than - hopefully - the all nighter is cautioned to flag anything that might be illegal, such as one that contains "prize, chance and consideration."

It's time for a more specific policy designed to at least call someone's attention to what could be an offensive, poorly-produced, badly-written commercial.

1.  Have everyone who is charged with loading a spot into the system code each one with a letter grade from "A" to "F" and compare the scheduled run dates with the copy to be sure that it won't sound out-dated.

2.  Create a "customer results manager" position, hopefully one of your most detail-oriented and creative people, to review anything with a "C" grade or lower and also any copy that may require updates toward the end of its run.

3.  When your new "CRM" finds something that needs improvement, that person alerts the seller, who calls the client and asks "are you getting the expected results now that your commercials are running?"

4.  If the client says "yes," tell him about the need for an update and offer ideas to improve the impact and power of the message.  If the client is pleased with things as they are, I do not recommend rocking the boat, but if the advertiser is open to listening to alternative ideas from your creative team take the opening to impress 'em with your caring and follow-through.

They'll call it terrific, above and beyond, customer service.

Have your "CRM" create a discrepancy report with an overview of these actions to be reviewed by Brand Manager, Sales Manager and Market Manager.  You'll smile each time you hear their "new" commercial.  Ratings go up.

Better creative gets better results.  Once your client tells you that you improved her business, that's a perfect opportunity to ask for a hike in rate, don't you think?

More money for everybody!

Is Your Show, Your Commercial, Your Imaging "Sexy?"

One of the best aspects of what I do for a living is that the job description changes constantly.

Consulting requires understanding changing listener tastes, working with executives and coaching talent seems to call on new skills, requiring always learning new things every day.

In 2012, Job #1 is helping Gen Xers and Leading Edge boomers "engage" and increase usage from Millennials. We're "Digital Immigrants" (learning new media as a second language, having been raised in an analog world) and they're "Digital Natives" (they learned to play video games, program a TV remote, interact with a computer before they spoke their first word).

The size of "the Taylor Swift generation" (click to watch the insightful video produced by Natalie Vardabasso and Kristina Emmott as a midterm project) means they simply can't be ignored, as the oldest of them are about to turn 30 and already they dominate the 25-34 demo.

I have been wishing I could find a way to let their parents and grandparents who still hope to be relevant in media for at least a few years more hear how life sounds to their Millennial listeners and now it's possible thanks to this man.

Meet Jad Abumrad: The man who Canada's Globe And Mail this week said has "made public radio sexy." (click to read the article)

The show uses any tools it can to illustrate the ideas it presents and hold the listener’s attention: tiny musical compositions, for example. Sound effects such as eerie echoed munching noises bring the listener to the ocean floor where scavenging hagfish devour a whale corpse. Layered voices talking on top of each other pass the story from person to person, just like in a real conversation. And rather than the formality of introducing each new speaker that listeners are accustomed to, these appear with the sound of throat clearing or a quick “ready?” before they are even introduced. For Abumrad, all this evolution is about fighting back against what he calls the “tune-out moments” of conventional storytelling and using the language of sound to jolt his listeners out of the inertia of the familiar.

How many "tune out moments" are there in your programming? Ask anyone in a PPM market: tune out moments literally do cause REAL tune-outs and drive ratings down, whether they happen in a song, a commercial, a promo, stationality elements or when an air personality opens a microphone.

“It’s totally accessible, which is awesome. I think that’s a trend in radio, and especially podcasts, making it accessible,” says Colleen Joyce, a 29-year-old living in Victoria, BC.

Do you have more listeners to your podcasts than to your terrestrial radio broadcasts? And, by the way, how are your numbers 25-34, let alone 18-24 and teens?

Perhaps you should spend some time experiencing WNYC's Radiolab.

Something Extra

The upscale Klimpton Hotel chain Hotel Monaco prides itself on every location in the company having a unique story and our downtown Seattle one is so pet-friendly that they place a goldfish in every room.

Guests are informed that it's their job during their stay to feed the fish.

So, when I check into any hotel, I'm always hoping for a little extra "something."

Mostly, I'm disappointed, feeling lucky to maybe have some shampoo, hair conditioner and lotion.

In Vancouver, this week I routinely checked in and was welcomed to The Park Inn by a little rubber ducky on the tub.

It caught me by surprise and made me laugh out loud, which is highly unusual for longtime road warrior me, who checks into at least two or three hotels a week and by and large finds the experience pleasantly-routine.

Radisson's chain has started to become so famous for the tactic that they're even getting mentions on the internet.

As you write station imaging, create your bits, add content to your website, social media posts and package it all for broadcast, please don't waste my time.

But, don't forget to throw in a rubber ducky or a goldfish too.

Awards Are Nice, But Great Results Are Nicer

Canada's Astral Radio learned last week that two campaigns broadcast on its stations have been awarded at the Media Innovation Awards gala in Toronto.

McDonald's Restaurants claimed the Gold in the Best in Radio category for its "McTraffic" campaign, while Michelin won the Silver in the same category for its "Le bon pneu peut tout changer" campaign.

It's great to win these prizes, of course, but it's even more gratifying to begin to understand how to measure proof of success of the campaign and its related contest.

Astral stations recorded more than 10,868 clicks on the different web formats of their campaign and, even more impressively, received a record number of contest entries in a very short 11-hour period: 11,450 entries across the two networks.

Let's all commit to sharing our success stories with one another, not just for bragging rights but to make everything that goes between the songs as entertaining and effective as possible.

RIF or RIP?

Applying the term "reductions in force" to the firing of people and reordering of financial priorities from content creation, street presence, local middle management and customer/listener service to debt reduction can be a misnomer, sending the wrong message to anyone hoping to gain market share as companies like Clear Channel and Cumulus decide what to keep and what to discard.

Asian martial arts proves that it's quite possible to quickly prevail against a stronger, bigger adversary if you understand what true force is and how to leverage it.

My first lesson in this fact came in the late 1970's when I left local radio in San Jose to join consultant-syndication company Drake-Chenault.

One of my first client station visits was to North Carolina Summit Broadcasting General Manager Roger Stockton, who I was trying to convince that his radio station should move from one of our 24/7 syndicated formats, "Great American Country" which was voiced by the legendary Bob Kingsley to adding a live morning show and other "live and local" dayparts.

"Don't people wonder if Bob ever sleeps?" I queried Stockton.

He replied, "they don't seem to, since we have an 18 share in those time periods."

Consistent music rotations, a familiar voice front and also back announcing all of the current music and tight formatics compared to what other choices Triad country listeners had was sufficient force to win big at the time.

That station was WTQR and fortunately Stockton and his company had the foresight to add budget for some great personalities over the next few years, thus maintaining a ratings juggernaut that has endured for decades.

Now, of course, it's a Clear Channel station and is both in the crosshairs of its present ownership's "RIF" and its Entercom direct country competition which is working to make it an "RIP" instead.

Jay Meyers, CEO of Adelante Media Group and a former Clear Channel executive told Inside Radio yesterday that where a personality is located doesn’t matter.

“Local and relevant are important but live and location are not,” he says. “What matters is whether the content keeps the listener in touch with their community and gives them the same bond they used to get when there were jocks around the clock.”

Meyers is talking about a force that matters most right now if you're across the street as Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman shakes things up in the programming ranks at radio’s largest company, relevance.

IR also quoted Pittman from Facebook’s f8 Developer Conference in San Francisco last month: “We’ve got to get our program directors to rethink. We’ve got creative talent and great programmers but we have to figure out a way to unleash them so ideas come flooding in.”

Automating radio's programming is nothing new and neither is this tested and proven theorem:

• Great beats local.
• Great local beats unengaged execution, no matter where it comes from or how famous the voice.
• Fun, originality, creativity, passion, interactivity, proper targeting, position, excellent formatics dominate as long as it makes the listener feel something more than anything else on the radio right now.

May THAT force be with you, radio people, as you navigate your career in these turbulent times for us all.

Recap Everything

Most of us schedule a recap meeting after the station fronts a big NTR event or music festival.

• Did this work as planned?
• Complaints?
• Comments?
• What could we do to improve or put a spin on to make it better next year?
• What did we like?
• What didn't we like?

This is always a hassle to do, of course, as you write down notes, throw them into the file and pull 'em out the following year. Then, suddenly, you're grateful you took the time to do a recap.

It helps to really make signature events better and better, as those old notes tell you that next time you need more seating, more prizes, a different way to judge a contest.

Hassle or not, do recap meetings with everyone involved producing TV campaigns, major contests, imaging, all of the touch-points with listeners. Improving their experience of everything you do is what winning is all about.

Intelligent strategies, pulled off half-heartedly, get trumped by excellent execution every time.

The New Challenge For Personalities

Learn to stand out from the noise in everyone's life in positive and engaging ways which drive more regular usage.

Radio, on average, continues to satisfy listeners by meeting their expectations as we always have. Perceptual research proves this over and over, and the fact that above average usage isn't being driven doesn't matter to the listener, whose favorite stations have always been "seek" and "scan."

Once upon a time, a great marketing tactic was to find 'em, fool 'em and forget 'em. PPM actually makes radio better for the listener as we all pursue more usage by watching how they behave as they listen to us.

Radio Ink's Ed Ryan: What is your advice to programmers on how to maximize ratings for the PPM?

1. Look at a graph of your station's average minute audience over multiple weeks.
2. Look at the "down" time periods, which perform lower than your average.
3. Study what you and your shared cume competition do at those times.
4. Smooth out the valleys in your listening and grow the size of your down average minutes to the level of the highest ones.

"The Joy Of Cooking" For Radio Personalities"

If you will be at the NAB, here's where to go to meet the wonderful Valerie Geller, whose latest book, "BPR is over 500+ pages and will "officially" launch at the NAB bookstore on TUES APRIL 12 at 10-10:30 AM."

To be the first on your block to get a copy, click here.

Want This Shirt?

I wish I could take credit for it, but I can send you to the blog of a guy who earns the right to wear it: Dublin-based on air legendary (on two continents + the cash-strapped island that is Ireland too) whiz kid, free E-zene writer and consummate blogger, Brian McColl.

If you can't actually get your hands on one, you can at least DO what it says, content break after content break.

That way, you'll become so rich you can afford to buy one of them.

A final note: "coming up, the latest from, available in stores" et al does not hook and a list of three songs/artists you'll be playing in the next ten minutes is not a tease.

Surely you can do better than that!

Need Some Commercial-Creation Inspiration?

Sixty diverse Radio spots (listen to them here) have made it to the finals of the 2010 Radio Mercury Awards, which honors outstanding Radio created by agencies, production companies, Radio stations and students. Entries were judged on their creativity, originality and effective communication of a brand’s message. The second Annual Radio Creative Summit was once again held in conjunction with the final round judging, this year at the VCU BrandCenter in Richmond, Virginia.

“We’re continuing to see marketers leverage Radio in unique ways. This year’s high caliber of brands speak to the medium’s reach and flexibility” -- Jeff Haley, President and CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau.

Winners will be announced on Monday, September 27th at the Annual Radio Mercury Awards at the NASDAQ MarketSite. A limited amount of tickets are available for purchase. Contact mercury@rab.com or call 212-681-7207.

What Gord Did On His Summer Vacation

The staff at Jim Pattison Broadcast Group's Vancouver stations is very fortunate each Friday to receive an informative and insightful email from their Program Director Gord Eno, which he nicknames "The WJM."

This week's edition is so good (and for a change it's not about any secret strategies or tactics) I simply must share it with you:

With only the occasional slip I was able to stick to my goal of not listening to radio during my vacation. I did hear a station the first day but the the lack of focus and sloppy execution frustrated me so much that I wanted to hotline the radio station.

So I pledged to avoid radio for the next two weeks.

Difficult for me to do but, I offered myself a compromise by listening to Sirius in the rental car.

With hundreds of stations to offer we settled on four or five. I really couldn’t stay too long on the talk channels. Most of what was being offered was exaggerated opinions and over the top point of views. I found the hype to be insincere and the insulting.

Besides, I was looking for entertainment suitable for a vacation.

At first is it was the Broadway Musicals channel. When the announcers became boring and the repetition became too much I searched for something new and found three stand up comedy channels. The three channels went from safe to edgy to raunchy. Just like music scheduling the clips were rotating, some more than others. The really interesting clips were worth listening to a couple of times but the rest of the content was worth only hearing once. On the F-bomb channel it was easy to feel disconnected and a lot of switching to the other two comedy channels happened there.

Then, while scanning for something new I stopped on the Old Time Radio channel.

There it stayed for a couple of days.

Radio Mystery Theatre. Lux Radio Theatre. The Whisperer. The Jack Benny Show. The Thin Man. Our Miss Brooks. The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show.

Listening to the various shows on Old Time Radio channel reminded me of the common thread that has lasted through decades of radio programming; it is all about the listeners.

The scripts, the performances, the storytelling, the characters in these old time radio shows were all playing directly to the audience. It was engaging. The words triggered images in my mind and I became a participant. It wasn’t just random audio, I was actively listening. I was involved.

Radio is the same today. You will be better than your competitors when you create engaging content that triggers participation and involves your listeners.

2010 Ad Trends (A Radio Adaptation)

Verizon Wireless' current commercial, in which the carrier touts its 3G cellular coverage as better than rival AT&T's

Suzanne Vranica’s Wall Street Journal short list:

1. Rough-and-tumble sales pitches taking direct aim at competitors
2. Other companies will show their softer sides. In the bleak aftermath of the recession, many marketers think consumers will respond to brands they perceive as giving back to the community
3. Fewer actors and more animated characters (cheaper to produce)
4. Social-network personalities make their way to mass-media stardom
5. TV viewers see more split screens that give them a glimpse of what is going on behind the scenes of a show while a commercial runs on the other side of the split (hoping to avoid TIVO ad skipping)
6. Mobile advertising (maybe for real this year?)
7. Fewer big-name celebrities and athletes pitching for brands, thanks to Tiger Woods
8. Consumers volunteer their personal information in return for getting the ads they want to see

Radio, fortunately, has faced "ad skipping" for decades, so we "should" be the experts at maintaining audiences through our commercials, which are in the spotlight on center stage, giving listeners only three choices: listen through them, change stations or turn the radio off.

Better, more creative commercials build higher listening levels, get measurably better results and make it possible to charge higher rates.

There is a radio resolution for 2010!

Make Your Remote Broadcasts A Positive, Not A Negative

Former WYRK/Buffalo (where great programmers have historically seemed to work and play as Radio Ink's list of America's Top Programmers shows, with a tip of the A&O hat to current PD there Wendy Lynn) and KUPL/Portland (another place where JP was succeeded with the sale of the station by another programming champ, Scott Malalick) PD John Paul (his final rating books at both places should be a source of pride to him) just started blogging articles he has been writing for A&O clients.

His blog is titled "The Way I See It" and he and I see it the same way when it comes to doing commercial appearances:

I think they are a great way to billboard your station, (as long as there are tons of banners and the vehicle is parked in a highly visible place) meet listeners and welcome new ones. Most PD’s despise remotes and consider them a tune out. I don’t agree. It’s the client’s :60 commercial. If you weren’t doing the remote break (where you have total control over what goes into that break) traffic would fill the :60 with something else. Most likely something you don’t have control over. Look at remotes as another :60 seconds that you can control. With proper guidance and coaching they don’t have to be a tune out.

My personal top four of his nine tips to make remotes entertaining content:

• Try not to do the breaks via cell phone. Take a laptop and do them in Audition then FTP them back to the station.

• Edit the break down before it goes on the air. If you have to interview the client, edit them down and make sure it’s the best :60 seconds. Not only does this benefit the station, it also benefits the client.
  
  
• If you have a street team/interns with you on location, don’t talk about them being there or put them on the air. Nobody cares.

• Focus on the benefits for the listener. Keep the message focused and brief. Your job is to get people to stop by. You don’t do that with a laundry list of things going on. A long list doesn’t make it sound any more exciting. Things the listener cares about will make it more exciting. Find the biggest benefits and promote those.

Pregnant With Irony (And Laughter)

Allan G. Lie of Golden West Radio in Manitoba, in a playful moment, applied his writing skills to something he calls, Radio Babies, forwarded yesterday by Broadcast Dialogue's Howard Christensen.

Go "As West As It Gets." Be As Good As You Can Get!

I'm coming to the Canadian Country Music Association's annual Country Music Week in Vancouver September 10-13, in search of the very best three minutes (or less) in Canadian Country Radio, prepared to pay a $500 cash reward when I find it.

My Friday, September (11:30am) CCMA panel will be all about coaching to bring out the best in talent. I plan to play some great radio and talk about what makes it so successful.

You’ll learn how talent can hone and improve their personality; quickly engage their target listener right from the beginning, and use the power of narrative and emotions to add to the impact of everything they do on the air. This panel will also equip programmers with the tools to teach these techniques to their personalities when they get back to work, making your station more entertaining and compelling.

Here's the reward: it's now time to email me your very best "bit" as an mp3.

I plan to play the best ones I receive in the next few weeks during this session and explore the elements which make them work so well.

At the end of the session, all attendees will agree on criteria and then choose “the best” one and Albright & O'Malley will award a $500 cash reward to the personality or station which submitted it. You must be present to win and I will write that $500 check to you right on the spot.

This will be a fast-moving, entertaining and educational hour!

P.S. I will be in attendance throughout Country Music Weekend and will also be available for one-on-one free individual/private coaching sessions as well. Just bring a CD or snap drive to Country Music Week and either email me in advance, sign up at the Country Music Week Registration Desk or call my cell phone (206-498-6261) to get an hour, one-on-one, to talk about your performance and your goals.