Get More Remotes/Appearances

Talent fees can be a nice “extra” bonus, and it seems like certain air personalities have a few secrets that make them the one that clients request more than everyone else.

1. Ask for a tour of the business in advance.  You’ll be better able to talk about ‘behind the scenes’ stories you pick up.
2. Find out direct from the boss/manager what main points they want to make during your broadcast.
3. Never ask “how’s it going?”  Seldom will a client tell talent that things are going terrifically and they are making tons of money.  They’re afraid you’ll ask for a higher rate next time.  Asking for “strokes” during the live appearance is just setting yourself up for a negative.
4. Become expert at “small talk.”  Be positive.
5. Schmooze the employees of the business.  If they like you and feel you did a good job, the boss will probably hear about it.
6. If you’re having fun with their customers, the employees at the business will notice.  Your gig is to create an atmosphere where folks are enjoying themselves.  When they are, they’re more apt to spend some money.
7. Don’t hoard the key chains, coloring  books, refrigerator magnets, six packs of soda, etc.  Offer them to the people who came out because you asked them to.  You want them to perceive you as generous and giving.  The freebees should be handed out by the air personality and no one else.  Make them the last thing you put away after the broadcast ends.

Commercial appearances are not the time to do stunts.  It’s simply an opportunity to do informative and entertaining live spots from a remote location.  Use the built-in ambience to enhance your cut-in’s.  Create some excitement.  Show your personality in the confines of something that’s usually a tune-out.

Achieve that, and you'll make them more effective.  That's how to get invited back many, many times.

Who’s Going To Do The Next Remote/Appearance?

This is one of the toughest jobs a programmer has.

Choose a “sales favorite” too often and the rest of the talent will accuse you of favoritism, fail to give each personality an equal share of the work and you risk someone worrying that you don’t “like” them or their work.

Criteria I recommend:

• Quality of remote work in the past (if you don’t pick someone, be prepared to explain WHY).
• Number of appearances that personality has done compared to everyone else (the rest of the staff may start to resent a talent that gets too much love from you compared to the average)
• Exceptional volunteer or unpaid work (give paid gigs as a reward)
• Compatibility with the client (again, you’ll need to be sure the remainder of the team understands this factor)
• Knowing WHERE the appearance will be.  If the business has multiple locations, do they know exactly where this one is?

A pop quiz you can use as you name someone to perform outside the radio station:  “Is your job to a) do nine cut-in’s in three hours?  or b) create three hours of fun and excitement at the location?”

The savvy talent will pick “b.”

Dressing The Part

The attraction of a radio job for many of us was the fact that how we look doesn’t matter.  It’s all about how you sound.

Unless you’re doing a live appearance or event. 

It constantly surprises me how many personalities as they go outside the radio station to meet listeners need to be reminded that suddenly it’s even more important how you look.

Remember:  you’re a STAR.

Dress like one. 

It goes without saying, I hope, that you should always look neat when you get in front of the audience whether you’re broadcasting “live” from a farm show, a car dealer showroom or a high end fashion retailer.

DO match your attire to what would appear “natural yet high-end” for the place you are appearing AND always find a way to get your station logo and a name badge on your body somewhere.

You’ll probably be the only person who is being “paid” to be there.

Look like you're worth it.

How Not To Do A Live Broadcast

1. Set up your equipment on a card table.
2. Wrap a banner around the table.
3. Make sure you have a card table chair for the personality to sit on.
4. Require that the talent stay behind the table and as far away from listeners as possible.
5. Have the single person you or the client pays to do the broadcast both set up the equipment and handle the clients, saving sales department and engineering department lots of time and energy.  You can also save everyone money by requiring the talent to do them for free.  She'll enjoy the exposure.
6. Don't write any copy for the event.  Ad libs are fine.
7. Never brainstorm anything additional that might cost any money or bring people to the location.
8. No need to arrive early.  Just show up at the time the broadcast is scheduled to begin.
9. Even better, if your first break isn't scheduled until :20 after the hour.  There's no need to be there on the hour in spite of what the pre-event promotion promises.
10. What pre-event promotion?  No need for that!

Doing it this way will ensure that your station can charge the least for live broadcasts and events compared to anyone else in town.

That way, you'll get lots more of them to do.

Listeners will love that.

Radio At Its Best Has Been Making The Invisible More Physical For Decades

A co-founder of Ofoto (now the Kodak Gallery), and GM of Eastman Kodak’s Digital Imaging Lisa Gansky has written about a fundamental building block of modern business, sharing:

"The Mesh is the new way of doing business. Mesh businesses leverage data and social networks to enable people to share goods and services efficiently and conveniently-to gain superior access to what they need without the burdens or expense of ownership. There are already thousands of these businesses-in transportation, fashion, food, real estate, travel, finance, entertainment and many other categories-with more starting every day.The Mesh has emerged as the best new creative engine for getting more of what we want, exactly when we want it, at less cost to ourselves and the planet."

Want something to ponder?

Watch this video and ask yourself what makes it different than a radio remote broadcast.

If this is a totally new business model, as she asserts, it seems to me that we've been doing business just like that for 50 years, quite successfully and now we have more new competition from small entrepreneurs.

Will social networks make "our" approach - mass marketing something that is of interest to less than a couple hundred folks at this minute - obsolete?

Or, even more powerful and effective than ever?

That depends on what radio does when a station or personality "pops up."

What unique, compelling experiences, driven by content, can you provide, compared to emerging "free" media?

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.

"Remotes Don't Work" - Mike Cortese

Mike Kinosian's timing in spotlighting the Emmis’ Indianapolis GM's decision to stop doing remotes may make him the defacto campaign manager if Cortese wins an R&R Industry Achievement Award at the NAB-R&R Convention in Charlotte.

“They actually did something detrimental to – or undermining - our strategy.”

Not many GM's at this time of radio revenue challenges have the courage to stop doing anything that is an easy sell.

I don't think you have to completely pull the plug on all remote broadcasts IF you simply have the self-discipline to cut back on mundate, boring ones only, so that the ones you do generate big revenue, create sizzle for both the station and the client.