2-12-2014
A couple years have passed since I introduced a fictional letter to an afternoon drive guy at an unspecified major market radio station. I include it again as evidence that none of the issues brought to reader-awareness has been addressed. Further, and stranger still, there has been no opposition to the tenets from the same, experienced readership ? a deafening silence, actually. Wild, contradictory assertions hardly qualify. The letter:
Dear PM Drive Guy,
We have never met. Given that, I invite you to consider the following report of my experience as just ?information.?
I cannot tolerate listening to you anymore. I will list my reasons.
1.) You keep speaking as if you and I had established a close, warm, and personal connection and that I agree I am, exclusively, the one to whom you are communicating. We have not, I do not, and I am not.
2.) You are continuously instructing me and telling me what to do ? as if we had some understanding that you have authority over me. We do not. You do not.
3.) You claim to have an inside track and special information as to what my immediate, real-time experiences are. You presume I'm in my car when I'm not, or dragging my butt through a "work day" when I'm doing no such thing. When someone attempts to describe my external and even internal/thinking/feeling experience and gets it so wrong, so often, they tend to lose credibility with me ? as you have.
4.) The Fast and Furious series are exciting, adrenaline-fed, car-crash movies. The title, however, is not a description for a useful, exclusive, on-air presentation style. Although it is too late for me, it might be worthwhile to request of your PD that she adjust the zapper under the control room cushion to the ?off? position ? even from time to time. This would be for the benefit of your next listener. Nobody is so consistently fired up and so ?light, tight and bright? who is not in a trance-state, on powerful meds, squatting on a cattle prod, or operating from a distorted portion of company dogma. Effective communicators have more than one, hard-charging modality.
5.) Based only on what little I have been hearing from you, I am likely older, smarter, and better educated than you and have had more life experiences. As such, I respond poorly to being spoken to as if I were a drooling idiot with the interests and language skills of a 7-year-old.
6.) Getting me to your station?s tawdry little website, or to participate on your Facebook or Twitter options, is your problem. For what possible, useful benefit to me have you insisted on trying to make it mine? I do have other, more invigorating interests. Really. I do.
7.) After all this time, I still have no idea who you are, what your life-experiences might be, if you have any positions worth consideration, or if I can learn something by investing time with you. So far?bupkis.
8.) You do keep insisting that what you and your colleagues are providing consists of only The Best, The Greatest, and The Most. I am obliged to wonder: According to whom? Compared to what? When? In what context? Perhaps I wonder too much.
9.) Given the statistical possibility you might have something of interest to say, I am compelled to wait around until some other biological form makes its next, great evolutionary step before I get to hear you even make the attempt. I can get the tunes anywhere and at all times. Plus, those you play aren't, necessarily, the ones I'd be choosing for myself at any given time, anyway. To put it more succinctly: I have never had a trouser-accident from being told I'm getting "10 commercial-free songs in a row."
Yes, it was you ? the ?personality? I wanted to hear ? on the off chance you might have had something clever or interesting to say. You see: I did enjoy a sense of ?companionship? from the radio from time-to-time. Even when it wasn?t even close to being organic or real, it could still be a pleasant, satisfactory experience.
10.) On the rare occasions you do make a half-hearted stab at communicating an idea, it sounds like you are still formulating the words ? never mind, phrases ? as you are speaking them. Your next listener might be a little more appreciative if you acquired some serious and important tool-usage skills. I?m thinking: pencil. The concept of ?rehearsal? might be worth considering, as well.
Now, I appreciate all of this is not your fault. No. Actually, it is all your fault! You are responsible ? ultimately ? for your own behaviors. You do choose to allow yourself to be limited, exploited, and bullied about by your employers. You do know that the environment in which you work is Draconian. You do know you are under-serving your audience. Still, I do also comprehend the vagaries of corporate-radio policy, protocol, and dogma, and I wouldn?t want to come off as being overly unkind.
Although, and as I must say goodbye ? truly with no ill wishes ? if I ever happen think of you again, it will be with indifference. I'm sure that was never an explicit intention of yours when you got into this business to perform.
(end of fictional letter)
Some of the ?fixes? for these few of the many pervasive maladies now injuring and stifling radio?s development are obvious, and a few are openly implied.
My single request, meanwhile, of astute readers is the following: to print this piece as ?hard copy? and to re-read the content. The exercise allows for the distinctions to be experienced between reading electronically delivered material, and the reading/processing of printed material. That exercise, by the way, is a key component for beginning to achieve an understanding of how, specifically, radio impacts an audience. Anything else is dogma ? useless, out of date, and still damaging.
Ronald T. Robinson has been involved in Canadian Radio since the '60s as a performer, writer and coach and has trained and certified as a personal counsellor. Ron makes the assertion that the most important communicative aspects of broadcasting, as they relate to Talent and Creative, have yet to be addressed. Check out his website www.voicetalentguy.com
(2/12/2014 3:48:23 PM)
Do I have to explain everything? Haven't you got it, yet?
After one of my ripping, ridiculing crtiques - you guys serve as the comic relief - for a little while.
(2/12/2014 3:11:40 PM)
"I can't deny it, either - I do love tormenting this tragic trio of squirrels...even though it's just wayyy too easy. Want a nut? Here's a nut. There's a nut. Come get the nut."
You're so clever! It's interesting that Eric has left only your garbage column open to comments - perhaps he'd like to get rid of you too, fuckhead?!
"...I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" - Sally Fields.
I can't deny it, either - I do love tormenting this tragic trio of squirrels...even though it's just wayyy too easy.
Want a nut? Here's a nut. There's a nut. Come get the nut. :)
Eric,
This man is now having conversations with a non-existent person, offering advice.
I think he has watched "Beautiful Mind" once too often. Please find help for him.
"Even your mother can't understand you."
I think it should be, "Even your mother can't stand you."
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