Every Voice On Your Radio Show Must Agree On

• Who’s the leader?  You can't be Letterman, Colbert or Katie Couric.  Be who you are, but if you are the lead character, set the tone for the entire program, control the content, production values and momentum.  You can’t win if two players of your soccer team acts like they both are the goalie.
• Who’s the sidekick?  This is an extremely important role that might even get as much or more mic time as the lead character, but Fred Armisen doesn't try to be Seth Meyers.  Roots takes their part very seriously but never forgets that it's Jimmy Fallon's show.  This may be a more difficult role that playing the lead, requiring quick wits and restraint.
• Who plays the foils?  This person may not even be a full time employee.  News? weather? traffic? sports?  The more people involved in your performance, the more important that the leader understand the role of ringmaster isn’t to take too much time, but to seamlessly glue the pieces together.
• Individual vocal character for everyone.  Who listens to be sure it's always clear who's talking and people aren't talking over one another?
• Humor, especially jokes:  don’t do them unless it feels comfortable and natural.  One person needs to make that call, directing relevance to the target, locale, pacing, production value, theater of mind, in’s and out’s -- to be sure a fistfight doesn’t break out with the mic open.  A bar fight may be fun once in awhile, but not as a way to bring the average person back to "your place" day after day, hour after hour.

If You Don’t Have A Producer, You Do Have One: YOU

If you have a producer, ask yourself if she helps you do better shows or is just a go-fer.  If it’s the latter, you might actually be more effective without one.

A great producer adds value to everything by..

• Understanding the roles and character of every member of the team.
• Maintains and actively programs your monthly, weekly and daily planners
• Is a constant content hunter, looking for stories that fit the values of the team and the listener
• Reads voraciously
• Keeps a large “rolodex” address book with contact info for anyone who might suddenly be good to place on air immediately and maintains good relationships so that when something happens right now they line up the best ‘gets’
• Uses streaming recorder to monitor and edit down the radio stations and personalities who create content that might be adaptable to your situation
• Writes well, producing bits and promos that are so good they make it to the air
• “Gets” PR and knows who in local media can get you publicity, creates press releases that get you in print, online and on TV whenever you do something noteworthy
• Updates the appearance schedule, maximizing every out-of-station event
• Keeps a diary of the best ideas that occur during brainstorming sessions, on air or anytime a great concept surfaces

A rookie mistake is to hire a potential producer who wants to be a morning personality and not making it clear that their job is to help the existing characters be better by directing them productively not to compete for mic time with them.  Make it clear that you'll mentor and help with their personal goal, but for now their job is to make you shine.

It’s a full time job, but if no one else is doing it and there’s no budget for this position, it’s important to bake these tasks into your personal prep and self-promotion.

Planning A Stunt? Start By Learning PR

I love perusing radio trades and seeing that an A&O&B client is doing something clever.

Communicating via the trades is very a nice thing to do, sharing your idea withe rest of us in your business (and perhaps it also serves to demoralize your competition when they see your name accomplishing something you know they wish they had thought of first).

Of course, the real folks you want to impact with your stunt - potential new cume and also your current core audience - don't read the radio trades, so it's even more important that your great idea creates word of mouth advertising among your local target.

What TV news, if any, do they watch?  What else do they read?  Which social networks are best at touching them?

Each of those things has a gatekeeper.  Do you know who that is?  More importantly, do they know who you are?

Before you start your stunt planning on the air, create a series of press releases for each stage of it.  Then, reach out to the local people who are most likely to cover things local radio stations do.  Even with these individuals, they are more likely to give you the coverage you want if they feel like they are scooping their competition, so you'll want to decide in advance which people to "leak" your story to and which ones will use it if they simply get the same press release everyone else does.

That's publicity 101, and if your stunt is something that you want maximum exposure for, you may want to hire a pro, a local press agent with a track record of getting things lots of ink and buzz.  If you don't know who that is, you're not ready to distribute your first release yet.

Talk to a ad agency your trust.  Do some homework.  Find out how other radio-oriented stories getting the kind of coverage you covet were delivered and by whom.

Once you know that and have decided whether you need to hire someone or just want to try doing it yourself, you're ready to hit the send button on that initial PR email to your list.

After the release goes out, it's time to really study who picks it up, which angle they use and how well your story did.  That way, when it's time to send out your next press release you will have the tools to kick it up a notch.

Take the people who used your story to lunch.  Sure, this will give you a chance to do some more personal PR and give them an inside view at your show and station, but  it is also time to listen to them and find out what they would do differently next time so that your story gets more prominent coverage in their medium.

Make a list of people who didn't use your story but who do sometimes cover other radio station events and stories.  Take them to lunch next.  Listen more than talk.  How do they perceive you?  What can you do to get them to cover your story next time?

This is an ongoing process, a part of daily show prep.  It's what the radio stations and people whose names you see in print have learned and do better than you do.  Get your competitive juices flowing and just as you do with every break on radio, strive to make the content you create as well as the PR you do to support it the very best.

Stunting For Fun And Profit

Horror of horrors!

• Ellen’s Oscar Selfie Was Part of a $20 Million Samsung Ad Buy With ABC!
• Clear Channel owns the outdoor company putting up those "go away Bobby Bones" posters!
• If you're going to claim you had nothing to do with the write-in campaign that elected you (!), I hope you make us proud and serve your term honorably 
• Pharrell Williams is "Happy" about his ten new tracks in iTunes, the ten million YouTube views of it and the ad Google runs before you get to watch it! (thanks Don Anthony for the links)
• Seems like even the venerable BBC is getting into the stunting for publicity game!

... and, like Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked!  Imagine that!  Broadcasters and entertainers making plans to profit from stunting!

Jaye's axiom of stunting:  the more you play with and deceive us, the more often you had better really entertain us too.

Ellen’s Oscar Selfie Was Part of a $20 Million Samsung Ad Buy With ABC

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Good Questions

Selecting the "right" job-seeker for a gig has always been important, of course.

Now that savviest managers look at every hire as an exercise in branding as well as people skills and talent, it has taken on even greater value.

As you interrogate candidates for your next on-air opening:

• Describe the type of relationship with the Brand Director that works best for your show?
• The Market Manager?
• What kind of prep system (if any) is used to prepare your content?
• How do you structure it to keep entertainment level consistent?
• How much time do you spend preparing and when/where do you do it?
• Describe one of your best ever bits, stunts or other content that really did exactly what you wanted it to do?
• What characteristics make your persona distinctive?  
• How does that work in your interactions with coworkers, other personalities and listeners?
• What are your strongest/weakest areas as a personality?
• What does "creative" mean to you?  Give an example of creativity in action for you as you work?
• How do you define our station's target listener?  What is cool/not cool with them?
• What is your theory on controversy on your show?
• What if a morning competitor attacks you on air?
• How do you integrate podcasting, social networking, blogging, the mobile web, texting, phone calls into your prep and content?
• Where do you want to be in five years?

Note to applicants:  if your potential employer doesn't address the 'right' issues in your job interview, that may be a red flag for you as well, before accepting the position.

While the employer is quizzing you, make certain that YOUR needs and concerns are honestly discussed as well.

Should You Use This Prep?

From...

NEIL HAISLOP's NASHVILLE IQ © July 25, 2012:

TODAY SHOW TAPS CARRIE UNDERWOOD FOR SUMMER CONCERTS
Carrie Underwood will perform on the Today Show Summer Concert Series this August as the morning show plans a full week of outdoor concerts following the 2012 Summer Olympics. Carrie's concert in Rockefeller Plaza is set for Wednesday, August 15.

Among her hits, Carrie's set will also include the title track and new single "Blown Away" from her fourth album. "Blown Away," the single, has sales approaching quarter of a million and was written by Josh Kear and Chris Tompkins who also co-penned her smash hit, "Before He Cheats."

They've got us, don't they?  Damned if we do, and damned if we don't.

There are at least four or five terrific morning shows competing with radio very aggressively and creatively in your local market, of course, (and they really cut into our "at home" usage because they do big things radio is very often not doing).

It's not smart to ignore it when our biggest stars show up on competing channels, and yet it's equally dumb to promote turning them on at the same time, thus reminding your listener that there's something better they can enjoy right now.

I don't blame the music community for making the most of every promotional opportunity open to them.

We need to go where the audience is and ignoring anything they care about would be fatal.

What are you doing tomorrow morning to TOP all of the competition for their time and attention?

The Perfect Morning Show

Let's face it. No one is "perfect." Occasionally, some of us attain perfection for a few seconds, a couple minutes. But, perfection that lasts the length of a typical morning show? It rarely happens.

I apologize for the fact that this is starting to sound more like an essay on Buddhist philosophy than a treatise - with examples - of the ingredients of one of those rare morning shows that DOES occasionally approach perfection.

This week, as the Spring ARB is about to begin in diary markets, I have been collecting some excellent country radio examples and bits to share with A&O client programmers - stunning examples of morning perfection - perfect phones, perfect stunts, perfect prep, perfect localization.

Yeah, right.

Truth is, even the best ones aren't "perfect," but they are very good at being themselves in consistent, bigger than life ways.

Bit #1: a clever music relate and backsell on an artist's name. Consistent basics. Station name, show name. The host transitions into a tightly-edited phone bit about a local university holiday.

Their sense of how far to go - allowing the listener to do the 'dirty' stuff and appearing shocked at what he says - is a device that permits the show to deal with more adult material than a country morning show could otherwise. Traffic and forecast, related nicely to the spring allergy relatable.

Then, a segue into their stunt guy, who going to be giving away bras for Mother's Day in May at the area's largest employer. Quite a number of different thoughts in one set, but tightly edited, well-prepped and constant momentum.

Bit #2: Great show biz in the "$1,000 an hour" contest promo. Creative production values, believable listener drops.

Bit #3: They forget the basics - no backsell, no position statement, no station name, no time or weather mentions, BUT - are relentlessly LOCAL - going to a listener on the phone in a community south of town where a big local event is going on.

Not one set without listener involvement in topical, local BIG events. Not 'perfect,' but mighty GOOD.

The set wraps up with three hooks of upcoming songs for a powerful music set into news.

Bit #4: "The news..." and "6:31 now" "that story and all the news comin' up" are hackneyed DJ crutches. A "New Generation/Millentials Country" station would be more effective either doing street talk or at least avoiding the jocktalk words.

Bit #5: "Things you need to know." That big local event going on now. Sex harassment at youth services. Coffee shop murder. FBI search for Florida shooting facts. Cell phone risk. Donut cologne. Good story count and story variety. Leads with local, ends with human news, everything sounds like it's the latest info on something happening right now, no rehash of last night's TV news.

Bit #6: Bra giveaway phone bit - stunt guy cut-in. They should have planned where he was going BEFORE asking about it on the air, but they are very tightly edited and exhibit good equal involvement of all characters and viewpoints.

There is almost nothing that happens on today's show that doesn't reflect a 'big event' in local lives (gax prices, planning for what to do getting ready for Mother's Day, Bra) and do it making use of real listener phone calls.

In fact, using two listeners to describe the ongoing local big local event this morning is no doubt due to the need for economy, but it also strengthens their impact and relatability.

This huge positive makes me 'forgive' the occasional lapses in basics and other imperfections.

Other good elements of this typical day's show: Random Poll (Gas prices), one of the hosts spoke to business English class yesterday and got the mention of the appearance in naturally as a part of the phone poll.

I love the way they appear to have a great rapport with phones, edit them tightly and incorporate them effortlessly into everything they do, without losing topical and local top of mind content.

The stunt guy has great inflections, gets lots of meaning into every phrase.

It's almost too much of a coincidence that two callers in one hour happen to be watching the ongoing big local event. Obviously, they are prearranging these calls, but they sound perfectly spontaneous.

Follow-up phone call from girl who was reunited with her father was another example of this.

Lots of heart, emotion and storytelling in every break.

Great promos: "(market) #1's Country" music menu production ID, "the station you have dialed in," "$1,000 phone calls" is handled VERY well, sounding fresh and immediate and freshly-updated daily jock cross promote to midday.

Mother's Day remote morning show broadcast at the big local Mall is already being pre-promoted. You feel like it's going to be big, fun and if you're celebrating it, THEY are celebrating it.

Things I think they could do to improve: They tend to neglect the basics - time, weather mentions, position statement, station name first thing into and out of music far too often. Doing these things improves memorability, thus ratings, and services listener needs. So, why NOT do them consistently?

They aren't consistently back announcing titles and artists of the songs. Music relate is extremely important to all country listeners, especially country fans. On one hand, maybe they are over-reacting to PPM (find ways to abbreviate these items but don't fail to do them) and yet on the other, The Random Poll gas price phone calls went on too long.

They were good, but I thought 30 minutes on the one topic was too one-dimensional, dubious the average listeners would have been able to hear the entire conversational thread in a world of 2:30 listening occasions.

Too many unrelated thoughts per set - perhaps the worst example: going from the Mother's Day brunch promo into a bit about a new artist's album. They got into advocacy on the gas price phone calls, which elicits somewhat irresponsible callers which should not have been aired.

Overall: it's definitely NOT perfect. But it's a pretty good example of a darn good day on a darn good morning show. If you didn't find a few ideas to borrow for YOUR morning show, perhaps YOU should send me an mp3.

Maybe YOU are the perfect one?

Old Habits Die Hard

PPM statistically-proved several years ago that a longtime staple of morning radio, song parodies, seem to entertain the personalities more than they do the listener.

Yet, as I travel, I still hear from morning jocks whose prep services continue to provide them, if there's ever a place where they fit and do not lose audience.

In general, I feel like they don't achieve anything affirmative for the real driver of usage and loyalty, authenticity, personal values and character-building.

However, two comedy masters used this one to deftly pay off on a six month stunt, that I have to say works for me.



However, television and even the internet isn't morning radio, and as priceless as this great story line is, I worry that it still would lose more listeners than it would keep if it had been a radio bit.

PPM duration of the totality of all listening occasions for the vast majority of listeners (a mode of two and a half minutes) means that more folks would have missed the setup or have had to leave before the ending than would have been there for the whole thing.

For anything that goes much longer than 2:30, it's likely that the only people you can be absolutely certain have heard the beginning, the middle and the ending are in the control room.

Watching "Black Swan" With Your Morning Show Partner

In the movie Natalie Portman is striving for perfection. She is so focused on getting everything exactly right, that she never FEELS the artform from within.

Mila Kunis, on the other hand is more relaxed. Her moves aren't exact, but she has fun and feels the performance (though, at some point within the movie she is quite possibly trying to sabotage Natalie's character...or maybe she's not...but that's besides the point).

I was watching the movie thinking... the best shows on the radio are the ones where instead of "doing" (like Natalie) you are "feeling" (like Mila), where you know the moves (like both girls) but you are "out of your head."

I am not telling you this because I think you didn't know...I am telling you this because at times I have been more like Natalie than I would like to be...even though when I am at my best I am like Mila.

(But WOW - SCARY MOVIE. I think one of the scariest I have ever seen. Slasher movies tend to make me giggle - but a movie where you don't know WHAT the hell is going on in people's brains...now that is frightening. If you do see it, have a drink handy. I made the mistake of not pouring any wine...eeee..)

-- Joss, of Rob and Joss, KFGY (Froggy), Santa Rosa

You Show Me Yours And I'll Show You Mine

This online database "perceptual" question was done by an A&O client in a PPM market. Now that they've identified the best marketing prospects for their morning show to email relevant listening appointments in their database, it will be fascinating to a) watch what they do that impacts daily regularity among these folks and b) if PPM is able to pick it up as well.

What percentage of the people in your loyal listener database listen to the radio every weekday morning?

If you managed to get the "lighter" radio users to use radio more regularly, would that have an impact on your cume?

They're in your database. What more can you do to impact their lives on a daily basis?

Alarming

Recently, I observed consulting vet and group exec Bill Figenshu routinely ask a number of client focus groups the standard "when your alarm goes off first thing in the morning" questions about radio usage.

But, then he asks the table how many use a clock radio and how many set their cell phone to wake them up. The younger the person, the more likely they wake up to an alarm on their cell phone and not a radio.

At least half of the folks in the groups in multple cities I witnessed reported using the cell phone as their sole wake up device.

Is there a campaign or imaging we need to think about to get people back to the habit of having their "radio" wake them up? Is it even possible? It's harder to do today because not as many people have a radio by their bed (where their PPM docking station now may reside).

The iPhone, of course, allows you to set your alarm to your streaming "radio" app, but how many times have you used your cell phone to wake you up and it didn't work?

With my Blackberry sometimes, inexplicably, the alarm is silent. The screen lights up when the alarm goes off but there's no sound.

Is a radio alarm clock more reliable? Does radio need to think about imaging itself as a more reliable wakeup solution? Painting a picture of how to wake up?

With what device?

Learning From Lee Rogers

15-year KUPL, Portland morning host and 40-year programmer-personality Rogers is bouncing back very nicely in rehab and he guested on yesterday's Albright & O'Malley's morning morning show teleconference.

Take 45 minutes to listen to what Lee imparted and inspired us with (click to hear or download).

On air Listener engagement:

1. Give Them Inspiration! Connect - emotion
2. Get To Know Your Listener & be yourself on air
3. Know what you're going to say & who you're talking to.
4. What is everyone talking about? (your community) (see 2& 3)

Thanks to call participant Thane Phelan of "The Bull" in Yakima for the bullet-point recap.

Trading Ideas (And, Some Advice)

Eric Rowe wrote: I'm looking for ideas that can be done with creativity and no budget since most stations keep pulling back marketing. If you have some sure fire ways for a show to try and get cume without the big budget in a PPM and non PPM world that would be awesome.

Thanks, Eric! I am flattered you thought of me. Try these on for size:

1. Don't make your show about Facebook and Twitter. Make Facebook and Twitter about your show. Many personalities make the mistake of talking up social networking as if mentioning the social sites made them seem cool. Just the opposite. There's no need to round up your audience and send them to the social networks. They are already there. Build tribes and stand for something they care about, using your show to magnify their voices.

2. Drop the hype. Stop selling the station. Stunts and benchmarks don't work like they used to, when people saw themselves as a mass, talked to by media. Today, they know they have control and want to create content. I love the way talent coach Tommy Kramer puts it: "think of yourself describing a parade as it passes." Be in the moment, talk about what matters to your listener today, from as many different perspectives as possible.

3. Research Director's Charlie Sislen has a recipe for all content in a PPM world: crisp, concise and compelling.

I know that these are not exactly what you were hoping-for, but the concept of everyone going to the same conventions, stealing the same ideas from one another and becoming the first one in your market to do the latest hot thing doesn't work like it once did.

Be intensely authentic. No one can steal that.

(UN-) Importance Of Parameters

How important are various elements to your morning listeners? Recently A&O asked that question of 40 morning show listeners in focus groups:

"On a one to five scale, with 5 being VERY important, how important is it to you that your favorite morning show....?"
Obviously, the answers will very according to market, targeting goals and competitive situation of your personalities and program. But, as you can see: all programming elements are not created equal in the minds of your listeners, and - thus - do NOT all deserve "equal time" on your show!

A Morning Show Mission Statement

"Balance fun and reflecting the real issues being experienced by our audience." -- Cliff Dumas, KSON, San Diego