For WHAT? Go To WHERE?

Resolve to stop using "dated" radio phrases, like "for more details, go to our website."

Why?

1. "For more" = more what?
2. "Details" = my life is full of distracting details already. Why would I want more "details?"
3. "our" = how about telling me about why I should do something, make it relevant to me, rather than just telling me what you are doing?
3b. "our" = stop using the formal "editorial we." Best, use a name, avoid the general with the specific, but if you must use a pronoun, use "YOU." Engage me. Talk one to one.
3c. Rather than pronouns, BRAND. If every radio station I listen to calls itself "us" or "we," will I remember which one is which?
4. "website" = if it was 1995, I guess the thought that a radio station has a website on the internet would be cutting edge. Today, it's 2011. If you tell me to "go to urlname.com," not only is that more powerful because it's fewer words to say the same thing, you don't sound like you speak like my grandpa.

If you've been saying it the same way for a very long time, I know you can do it in your sleep.

Don't expect me to pay attention.

Talk like I talk, not like all the other radio stations do.

Stop Using These Words

"Register, qualify, drawing."

Resolve to do better than taking the lazy. easy, uncreative way to meet promotional/value-added requests by kidding yourself that anyone is going to change radio stations to "listen for a chance to qualify for a chance to win a drawing."

You can be more entertaining in everything you do in the new year.

It starts by finding new ways to do the same old things.

Tell stories. Paint word pictures. Be different.

A Lasting Lesson From An Unforgetable Influence On Me

Dave Newton is retired and living in Yakima these days. He's one of the best writers I ever worked with.

I thought of him recently as I listened to a client radio station and realized that everyone in the place seems to have forgotten about "active verbs."

Most writing - news, commercial copy, promo, liners, personality bits and all - could be improved with one simple act. Throw out "passive" verbs and replace them with more powerful "active" verbs.

A little voice came into my head as I listened, which I immediately recognized as Newton's, from more than 25 years ago:

When verbs get specific, writing comes alive. Verbs are much more important than adjectives or adverbs. In fact, master novelist Elmore Leonard calls adjectives "horrible things." So, while all writing rules must be broken, I think it's a good idea to stay away from passive verbs, like "is" or "are" or "have" or "do" ("Have your best jock do a remote at the fair."), and embrace powerful, specific verbs, like, well "embrace". ("Send your best jock out to broadcast live from the fair.")

Your active verbs don't have to be exotic or highfalutin' ("Shall we peregrinate to the store?"), just active.

Writing that harnesses the power of active verbs is always more dynamic, interesting and persuasive than...writing that has passive verbs (like the last phrase of this sentence). Notice, please, that I have used "is" and "be" in this paragraph. It's still O.K.

Use more active verbs than passive ones in everything you write or say and it will be better than "O.K."

Mini-bibliography: The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, is a slim, crisp little book that everybody who writes should reread about every six months.

(More) How To Do Traffic Reports (a rant continues...)

I continue to await a tidal wave of "smart traffic reporters" to immediately course correct and begin to stand out by using more powerful words after my two - highly-acclaimed if you believe the comments they attracted - blog posts last week (How To Do Weather Reports and How To Do Traffic Reports), so today's is probably more whistling in the wind.

However, here goes anyway. Yet another useless phrase that radio traffic reporters must expunge from their vocabulary forever if they hope to have listeners turn UP their reports rather than keeping them on "ignore."

"There are no accidents or problems; everything is running smoothly..."

You phoned all your usual sources. You checked the web cams and listened to the police scanners, so it seems perfectly logical to start your report with this phrase especially in the wee hours of the early morning when there's very little traffic on roads, let alone anything to be concerned about.

Every traffic reporter does it.

Which is exactly why YOU should NOT do it....until you hear a radio newscast start with the headline phrase "there's no news this morning and there's nothing to report."

PPM proves: when you have nothing to say, don't say nothing.

I rest my case.

A Personal Rant: "Enough Details, Already!!"

I drove through the snow this morning from Midland-Barrie-Orillia to Toronto's Pearson Airport, button-pushing across the AM and FM bands as I went.

Following the drive, one word is driving me to distraction: details.

It's the name, of course, of a fun magazine to pick up now and then and the details they print are always worth the price, but the word must mean something extra special in Canadian, because every radio station contest and promotion had more details, which I was supposed to listen for.

Websites contained even more details that I was being asked to search for. Car dealers promised more details "in store," retailers told me to ask their clerks for more details, traffic reports teased more details in just a few minutes, newscasts held out the promise of even more details a little later, weather personalities always had just a few more details coming up, air personalities seemed to have little to talk about but details on this or that.

Folks, folks, folks. Here's a quick tip: we all already have too many details to cope with in our daily lives. No one has time to wait, listen, go to a store, visit a car dealer, click on a website just for the promise of still more "details."

My favorite radio station's call letters are "WII-FM." (what's in it for me?)

I don't want details. I want you to relate to me, engage me, entertain me, inform me. At the very least, before using that word one more time, radio, please grab a Rogets and vary the words you use next time you're tempted to promise me "details" on anything.

Even better, condense those details into a few seconds, make it painless and fun and tell me what it is you think I'd be interested in. If you're hiding behind the word "details" because you know that I won't be interested, why waste my time? Or yours?