Pardon

Interruptions are such an intrinsic part of normal male communication that ESPN has even turned the name of its now-legendary "PTI" into an acronym.

For females, not so much.

And, that gender difference in normal conversation is one of the primary reasons for prep on any radio station, team or personality wanting to appeal to women.

Deborah Tannen has been researching, writing about and speaking to help couples "understand" how the things each person says, the way they say it, is perceived by the opposite sex for at least thirty years.

Her reactions to the last two weeks' campaign debates (click to read her New York Times Op Ed on it), with the two candidates' in-your-face approach to one another is a great reminder of why it's important to always know who is going to set up and start delivering content, where it's going and who's going to end the bit.

"Speakers can exploit the sense that they have a right to finish their turn, but demanding that right can backfire. Members of the audience gasped when Mr. Romney told Mr. Obama, “You’ll get your chance in a moment. I’m still speaking.” A courteous “Please let me finish” might have been looked on more favorably.  How much can a listener talk and still be a listener rather than a wannabe speaker? For some the limit is a word or a phrase like “Exactly,” “Yeah, right,” or maybe even “I know what you mean.” But for others it can be much more — “I know, the same thing happened to me” — or even a short story that expands a topic another speaker raised." 

The Georgetown Prof notes that it's not just a case of needing to know your partner.  You also need to understand your listener as well.

You might think it’s obvious that an interruption is when a second person starts talking before another has stopped. But how long a pause means “I’m done” rather than “I’m catching my breath”? This, too, varies by region and culture — and the difference can lead to unintended interruptions. In 1978, I tape-recorded a Thanksgiving dinner conversation involving two Christians raised in California, three Jews of Eastern European ancestry from New York and a British woman. At times the Californians felt interrupted when their Jewish friends mistook a pause for breath as a turn-relinquishing one. At other times, exclamations like “Wow!” or “That’s impossible!” which were intended to encourage the conversation, stopped it instead.

If you're pert of a male-female team and you want both genders to like you, including prep on "your back and forth/taking turns" of normal conversation requires advance thinking before the mic opens.

"It’s well documented that women tend to be interrupted more than men, and that women who interrupt others are seen more negatively than men who do. (Some years ago John McLaughlin showed me a tape to illustrate what he’d noticed — that Eleanor Clift was cut off far more often than the men on his show.) But it’s also been found that there are more interruptions in all-women conversations, though the talking-over may be more a talking-along in a lively free-for-all." 

What do listeners expect each character to do?  How do you want your listener to respond?

Your team's conversational style may determine whether they seethe quietly, call in to voice their opinion, yell at the radio or turn you off.

I Bet You Can't Wait Until Monday To Google These

Each weekday, A&O's prep producer Dan Van emails a long list of the items that will be in our client only prep. For example, this morning, just a few he'll have full info and even audio on for Monday's prep are:

• Jake Owen Celebrated 30th Birthday Yesterday, Plans to Settle Down Soon
• Jason Aldean's "My Kinda Party" Approaching Double Platinum Status
• George Strait to Become a Grandfather this February
• Rascal Flatts Concert Slashing Incident Causes Arrest
• Back To School: Kenny Chesney Show Men Can Wear Skirts
• Carrie Underwood to Join Tony Bennett in Concert
• Keith Urban Is Thankful His Parents Let Him Drop Out of School to Play Guitar
• Lady Antebellum “Makes A Difference” For MDA

Be honest. Are you going to wait until Monday morning to listen to the radio to hear the juicy details?

Of course not.

Today, as you prep content, you have to assume that listeners already know every story you're planning to tell them, so simply copying from internet sources or even an excellent prep service like A&O's (we take pride in Dan's commitment to getting stories and sidebars first from angles no one else has), is no longer enough, if it ever was.

Tell just enough the each story to be sure every listener knows what you're talking about and then engage listeners with as many fresh and unique perspectives and reactions to it as possible.

That's the content that no one can beat YOU to.

Don't even tease to the headline of the story as you promote ahead. They already know that and will think you're only going to talk about what they already know.

Tease to your camera angle, your cohost's feelings about it and the listener reaction.

Like my buddy Michael O'Malley always says: focus on feelings, not facts.

Is The Weather Really "Next?"

What's the point of saying "The Weather's next" or "I'll check the forecast, coming up"?

Does anyone have time to wait for anything that relates to everyone pretty much all of the time? I can click on my smart phone and grab a five day forecast faster than you can play one commercial, let alone a whole cluster.

Teasing routine elements with key words anyone can put into a search engine and get immediately simply no longer makes any sense, if it ever did. It's like saying "I'll check the time in five minutes."

Stop with the constant teasing and, if you have something fresh, relevant, important and immediate, just DO it.

PPM: A Game Of Inches, But NOT Seconds

You have to admire the savvy major market PD who reports that his station is mandated to carry two more commercial minutes per hour than his direct format competition so he orders the talent to stop for commercials precisely from 11:30 to 18:30 and 41:30 to 48:30 while the other station - lucky enough to carry only ten minute loads in a pair of five minute stops - runs their breaks from 12:30 to 17:30 and 42:30 to 47:30.

Yes, it is just possible, since PPM is technically incapable of accurately measuring thirty second listening periods on a consistent basis that many times the tune-out potential picked up by PPM will be very close to the same in the majority of hours of both these stations!

So, Mr. Savvy Pants does get a point for attention to detail and electronic smarts from me. However, the personalities on both of them have to be sweating blood as two very anal programmers clock each break with their stopwatches.

Here's the danger.

PPM does a much better job of helping us all manage tune-out than it does tune-in and yet what is the easiest to manage isn’t always the most effective.

Certainly, a good format clock is built to maximize the length of time that a well-programmed radio station gives listeners what they tuned in expecting to hear, and seldom is that promos, sweepers, remote broadcasts and commercials.

However, it’s very hard to move the average number of minutes given in a typical occasion of listening much more than a minute or two (especially if it's located close to the crossover from one quarter hour to the next one).

Much larger “bang for the buck” movement in daily cume and time spent exposed is created by the number of days per week the average cume listener comes back to the station as well as the number of occasions per day.

Far better to get someone to start listening at :03 or :04, :18 or :19, :33 or :34 OR :43 or 44 when that minute or two leads into 26 or 27 minutes of great expectations met or exceeded!

Adding a minute or two to your TSE at the wrong time may not even buy you one more quarter hour of listening.

Adding a new occasion to your P-1 TSE invariably gets you another quarter hour and perhaps even two of them.

So, it’s a lot more productive to teach talent to always have something entertaining and fresh to say several times in every quarter hour and then spend the time they’re using now to watch the clock instead to create powerful, metaphorical and emotional teases to those strong content moments.

That will bring the listener who might be tempted to leave due to the interruptions - regardless of their length - right back in "seven" minutes.

That way, you’ll have a better shot at both more and longer spans of listening rather than just :30 seconds more.

Stop watching the clock so much. Prep both content and great teases to it.

Then, watch your numbers move in the right direction ... by more than just inches/seconds.

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!

Crêpe Suzette

I got a lesson in teasing content last Saturday night with a party of friends dining at West Edmonton Mall’s trendy “L2 Grill.”

While our group was in the midst of dinner we observed closely as our waiter attended to another table by creating a Caesar salad table side for them, using some surprising, unique ingredients.

So, we all took a chance and asked him to whip up Crêpe Suzette for our dessert.

He came to the table and did his culinary magic right before our eyes, culminating of course with a colorful flambé.

Then, after dessert as he refilled our coffee cups he made sure that our dinner was exceptional for everyone and also confirmed that the crepe was delicious. After doing so, he informed us that L2 is the only Edmonton restaurant to create Caesar and suzettes table-side.

We all agreed that we’ll be back again and again for more of that.

The lesson: there’s certainly nothing wrong with trying to recycle your audience into great content experiences by "selling" them in advance, but there’s no better time to do so than right after you’re absolutely certain that the reception to your "benchmark/event" is 100+% positive.

Less description and hyperbole is required; success is assured.

1. Do what listeners love.
2. Ascertain for sure that they did love it.
3. Invite them back with appointment listening when you plan to offer an equally pleasurable event.

A big menu of dishes that everyone else also serves, simply presented a lot better than the rest, won't drive as much loyalty and regularity is becoming famous for a select few delightful experiences no one else does but you.