7-10-2013
Here's the biggest secret I can share with every young and aspiring radio host. It's the fundementals you should use to form a great show for your listeners. I can tell by listening to shows around the country in which the host puts the time and the passion into the topics they present. I can tell by listening to a radio host if he or she is reading from a script or speaking from the heart. The fundementals you should follow are very basic. Getting them to work for you is the key. Start with the human emotion side of a story. Build topics around these human emotions. They are: ANGER/DISGUST/FEAR/HAPPINESS/SADNESS/SUPRISE.
Human emotions are complex. They express positive or negative reactions to external and internal stimuli. According to modern psychology, emotion, behavior, and cognition influence each other. Thus, each emotion distinctly affects human motivation, nervous function, learning, physical acts, physiological arousal, and communication with others. Sadness, for instance, is an emotion that causes a person to cry and withdraw from social circles, while surprise is an emotion that causes a person to sigh and raise their eyebrows.
Every host needs to take his or her experinces and tie them into a topic the same way a muscian ties life experiences into songs they write. You become part of the topic and that will always be reflected in how you present that topic. I hear far too many generic topics by being thrown about by hosts and all I would say to them is people are eventually going to pick up that much of the stuff you say really has no meaning. All the host really needs to do is talk more about how that topic affected him or her...you will go a long way in how you connect with your listeners when you show how much a topic affected you.
This is why I love listening to Howard Stern and how he approaches radio. He has a mic in his face all the time and he tells you every day how life affects him. As a listener, I pick up that Howard is just like me going through life no matter how much money he has. Life's topics affect all of us in many different ways and it's great to hear a radio host who can express himself in these ways. I love radio people that use today's topics to express how many of us feel about todays issues.
The Arron Hernandez story is a GREAT topic for sports radio and hosts should be working the topic tree. You can form many different topics from this story: "Is Urban Meyer to Blame?" "How could the Patriots draft him?" "What about the family of the man killed? What are they going through?" If you are a host crying about the dark days of sportstalk radio until the NFL season starts...STOP...and look at some of the stories in sports today that affect you.
Footnote: I made it a week on 640 AM SPORTS in SFLA without getting fired.
Miracles do happen in radio.
Dan Sileo, also known as "The Bonecrusher," is a sports talk show host who has worked at KGO & KNBR-WDAE and WQAM. He can be reached at Umiam93@yahoo.com and on Twitter at @dansileoshow
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