How To Coach Sports Talk Talent

3-5-15

If you run a sports station you probably know it's a tough task dealing with talent at times. The successful ones can be very opinionated. At the Radio Ink Sports Radio Conference in Dallas, consultant Scott Masteller led a panel about coaching Sports Talk talent. Masteller was joined by Weiss Agency VP Heather Cohen, WEEI Brand Manager Kevin Graham, XTRA-San Diego PD Brian Long, and Ryan Maguire, PD of KDKA-Pittsburgh. Here's what they had to say.

Long told attendees that coaching isn't just a thing, it's everything. Great coaching is what sets talent apart. It isn't only air checking, it's about creating a link to your talent. "Talk to them about their lives. Coaching is about creating great communicators, and opening them up to tell their stories." So what did the others have to say?

Maguire noted that being a great talent coach is about being "part boss, part coach, part shrink and part pal." Maguire said that it's important to find a way to reach out to your talent as individuals. It's the most fun and most difficult part of the job. Building equity and trust (with your talent)." Cohen says mentoring is everything and it's important to manage expectations. "Part of that includes protecting your talent. Good managers protect their talent from dust-ups, and yes, even sales."

WEEI Brand Manager Kevin Graham has worked with some of the most high-profile talent in Sports/Talk. He says being able to relate to your talent, to "your guys," is an absolute necessity. "Your talent needs the support to win. You have to help your talent to understand that you are there to help them with, to help them get ratings."

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How to Coach Sports Talent to Success

1-20-2015

Sports Talk radio today is just about as competitive as the sports it covers. So what do you need to do to develop a winning lineup? Where can you go to seek tomorrow's top talent? What are the keys to building a strong bench and a super farm team?

At Radio Ink's Sports Radio Conference, coming up March 4-5 in Dallas, you'll hear from a panel of "Killer Coaches," moderated by leading Sports radio consultant Scott Masteller. These top programming and talent trainers will talk about the sometimes-unexpected ways they've spotted and developed Sports radio superstars. They know how to find the talent that will make yours a top-seeded brand, and you need to hear from them.

Moderator:

Scott Masteller is a veteran Sports radio programmer and talent coach with more than 23 years experience in the industry. He started in sports media in 1991 as a baseball play-by-play broadcaster for the minor leagues in Wichita, KS. His entry into Sports radio was with WLAP/Lexington, KY, on-air in afternoons, doing play-by-play, and as program director. He moved on to other markets, including Salt Lake City in 1996 and Portland, OR, in 1997; in both cities he was PD and afternoon personality. He became PD of ESPN-FM in Dallas in 2001, launching the station in the market. Masteller joined ESPN as senior director/content in 2006. He was later named senior director of affiliate and syndicated content, a position he held until November 2014, with a focus on affiliated and syndicated content, talent coaching, and PD development.

Heather Cohen is executive vice president of the Weiss Agency, a broadcast talent agency that represents and develops the careers of many of the industry's most successful local and syndicated personalities. Cohen joined the Weiss Agency from GreenStone Media, where she was VP of programming. She arrived at GreenStone from New York's legendary WOR, where she was APD and responsible for the station's local and national on-air content, programs, and production. She also served as executive producer for WOR's award-winning Joan Hamburg Show.

Brian Long is PD of XTRA 1360/Fox Sports & KOGO, San Diego. His career in spoken word formats began in his hometown of Kansas City, at the heritage KMBZ. In 1998, Long headed to California for stints in Palm Springs, Bakersfield, and Los Angeles. During his time at ESPN in L.A., he was part of the programming management team and also hosted a variety of on-air programs. In 2007, 2008, and 2009 L.A. Daily News recognized him as one of its Top Ten Sports Radio Personalities. In late 2010, Long became program director at ESPN in Seattle, and he was later promoted to senior director of programming for Bonneville Seattle. He took his current post in early 2014.

Ryan Maguire, program director of CBS Radio's KDKA-FM (93.7 The Fan)/Pittsburgh, is a broadcast professional, talent coach, and brand marketing manager with over two decades of experience in the Sports Talk radio format. The stations he's managed have all shown a quick improvement in both ratings and revenue, as well as improved digital metrics. Maguire has received numerous honors for his work in station management: Radio Ink magazine named him one of the Best Program Directors in America in 2011, and the station he programmed was nominated for a Marconi Award in 2014. Maguire has also gained experience in front of the microphone as well, having served as a sports reporter, anchor, talk show host, and play-by-play announcer.

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About Radio Ink
Radio Ink is a leading radio broadcast trade publication, providing news, information, and commentary to radio sales and management professionals in the United States and 43 countries worldwide. The magazine, published 20 times per year, focuses on marketing, management, and multi-platform challenges facing radio broadcasters today. Radio Ink also reaches nearly 50,0000 radio executives online with daily e-mail headlines and news at www.radioink.com. The publication has also created several annual "gold standard" lists, including the 40 Most Powerful People in Radio, the Most Influential Women in Radio, and the Radio Wayne Awards.

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(HIRING) Beat The Big Guys To Great Talent!

10-1-2014

With a marketplace where it is competitive to hire top-quality workers, it is important to have your entire hiring process updated, professional, and friendly. It starts from the time a prospect looks at your website, or LinkedIn and Facebook pages. In media, we are all about enticing listeners, viewers, or readers, but don?t put such emphasis on potential job seekers.

Ever wonder why companies such as Google, the number-one top business people want to work for in the US, don?t have a hard time hiring? They attract quality workers by the thousands. They promote what a great workplace they offer to attract the cr?me de la cr?me. They continually share with the world, via articles and interviews with key executives, about the practices they offer to attract, hire, and retain top talent in a variety of departments. They have built a solid reputation where job seekers know they will be treated well, have room for growth, that they are with a company that invests in both training and new ideas, and they encourage having fun on the job. They make it easy for their staff to put in long hours by having on-site caf?s, rest areas, exercise rooms, and nice outdoor areas to refresh minds; by offering offices where people want to come in every day, energized and ready to be productive.

I am not saying that all companies need to put in a nap room and ping-pong table, but am stressing how crucial it is for people in your markets to know what kind of employer you are and why someone should want to work there.

Here are some things you can do to get local talent to take notice of you as an employer:
1. Have a ?Career? page on your website where a job seeker can learn a lot about your company, including growth potential, training, benefits, fun stuff, etc.
2. Insert videos on your website where your management team can discuss culture and happy employees can share why they enjoy their job.
3. Research what other ?attractive? companies are doing to be listed as ideal companies to work for.
4. Do some bragging. Involved in local charity work? Special perks? Awards for excellence? Invest in your team? Training? Community involvement? Talk about it!
5. Show what growth potential you have ? share a story about a rookie who rose to the top.
6. Be a kind, considerate, interested interviewer when talking with anyone who has interest in your company. Go the extra mile to help people, as that can get around.
7. Follow up with people who have reached out. A few seconds of response time can go a long way.

We have been recruiting for almost 22 years. Trust me, when a company has a good reputation, it makes our job so much easier.

Laurie Kahn is Founder and President of Media Staffing Network and can be reached at 480-306-8930 or via e-mail at laurie@mediastaffingnetwork.com. Visit the Media Staffing Website www.mediastaffingnetwork.com

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New Kellar Radio Talent Institute Begins Today

6-2-14

24 aspiring young broadcasters will start to learn the trade today on the campus of Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. The Kellar Radio Talent Institute begins with opening comments from NCAB President Steve Hammel who is the VP/GM of WRAL-TV in Raleigh. Forty-five broadcast professionals are contributing to the ten-day Institute this year, which was started by Dan Vallie who's pictured here with a student.

The mission of the National Radio Talent System is to create the radio talent farm system (a talent incubator) by placing a Radio Talent Institute on a college campus in every region or state in America so students can attend in their home state, and so radio stations can recruit from their own region of the country, or nationally. Dan Vallie, Director of the Kellar Radio Talent Institute, and Founder of the National Radio Talent System, said, ?This all began as the answer to the question, ?where is the next generation of talent coming from? and the often stated comment that we need a radio talent farm system for our industry. We now have exactly that as we secure sponsorships from broadcasters and identify universities to create a Radio Talent Institute in each state. It?s exciting to watch and, admittedly, somewhat emotional at times to see students with the talent and passion to succeed in our business, complete the Institute and begin a career, fulfilling our need for young talent and the Radio Talent Institutes being the campus-to-career connection the students need. It?s impressive and heart-warming to see so many broadcasters committing both time and sponsorship to make this happen?.

This year the Institute includes the Radio Marketing Professional Certification course from the RAB, with those sessions being taught by Gary Weiss, Regional VP, Radio One, Raleigh and Charlotte; Mac ?Edwards? McTindal, VP/Market Manager and Pam Patton, AE ,of the Beasley Broadcast Group, Fayetteville; Dick Harlow, VP/Market Manager, Dick Broadcasting, Greensboro/Winston-Salem; Larry Weiss, Market Manager, Digity Media, Greenville/New Bern/Jacksonville, NC and Mike Hartel, VP/GM of the L&L Broadcasting stations in Columbia, SC.

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(DASH) A Plea On Behalf Of Great Talent

10-9-2013

Ed Ryan really nailed it better than I ever could in yesterday's piece featuring Pierre Robert from WMMR.

As we gear up for the Dash Conference in Detroit in a few weeks, it's important to break down the competitive terrain of the dashboard and focus on what is The Priority.

The excellence of local talent is the absolute best way for us to compete with any form of competition. And great talent of national importance can also stack up against any form of competition.

Yes we need to be completely abreast of the warp-speed pace of change with technology of all types, particularly in the car; and that includes app usage, USB ports, voice recognition, and everything in between.

But all across cities and states of all sizes we must celebrate what great talent means to our brands. Great Talent -- and great local talent -- is the driving force that brings results for local and national advertisers.

Local talent is the difference when it comes to rallying an audience to help out a community in need.

Isn't that the core tenant of our responsibility as license holders?

When we think of music discovery, the curation that local talent can facilitate is the difference maker. When a station has local talent that captures the essence of a moment of local or national significance, they serve the audience in a way that can't be duplicated.

As we all think of the possibilities and importance of our social role, it should be ALL about our great talent.

The tireless crew that comes in at any time and hour needed. Yes, this is the crew that can exhaust us at times. But it's also the best in show.

When we think of all the challenges and competition we face, let's celebrate the saving graces of our on-air talent.

In our organization, we are very fortunate to have a chairman/CEO like Peter Smyth at Greater Media who believes in developing and supporting talent.

I look forward to the panel I'm moderating with great Detroit air talent at Dash.

Hope to see you there.

Buzz Knight is the Vice President of Program Development for Greater Media and he can be reached at bknight@greatermediaboston.com. Knight was named among ?Best Programmers? by Radio Ink Magazine in 2007 and 2010. He has served on the programming subcommittee of the National Association of Broadcasters(NAB) and is currently a member of the Arbitron Radio Advisory Council and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) COLRAM Committee.

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Air Talent Experience The Connected Car

10-1-13

Any connected car event needs to have input from the people who are creating the actual content. At DASH, the connected car conference set for October 23-34 at the Westin Detroit Metropolitan Airport, leading Detroit morning radio personalities, Jay Towers (WNIC) and Dave Hunter (WRIF - Dave & Chuck The Freak) will talk with Greater Media's Buzz Knight about how the connected car might affect their approach to their craft.

Session will include candid video of their first interactions with connected audiotainment systems, followed by a roundtable discussion. "The Detroit radio market has an amazing legacy of talent," session moderator Buzz Knight said, "and some of them will be showcased at the DASH conference. Dave Hunter and Jay Towers will join me, and report on the unique vantage point of talent in the evolution of the connected car.
Our Moderator:
In his role as Greater Media?s VP of program development, Buzz Knight is responsible for overseeing programming development for all the Greater Media properties and collaborating with the individual programming teams to build winning content and brand management strategies. Knight has been with Greater Media since February 2002. Before that, he worked as program director at several stations, including: CBS Boston-based Classic Rock WZLX, Saga Communications Rock WNOR in Norfolk, and Great American?s Active Rock WLVQ in Columbus, PJ. In addition, Knight spent three years on air as part of the legendary WNEW-FM in New York City. He launched his broadcasting career at WRKI in Fairfield County, CT, after graduating from the University of Dayton. Knight was named among the Best Programmers in Radio by Radio Ink Magazine in 2007 and 2010.

Dave Hunter is a morning show personality at WRIF/Detroit, with co-hosts Chuck Urquhart and Lisa Way. Born in Ireland, Hunter has been working in radio for almost 20 years. He started at CHUM/CHUM-FM in Toronto as a news writer and in 1997 moved to Brockville, ON, to work as a morning news anchor and morning show co-host. That was the same year Hunger relocated to Windsor to take a job at Windsor based CIMX-FM (89X). After a short time in the newsroom, he became a part of the morning show with Chuck Urquhart ("Chuck the Freak"). Hunter took over as PD in early 2008, helping 89X achieve the highest ratings in the station?s 20-year history. Hunter, Chuck the Freak, and Lisa Way joined WRIF earlier this year.

Jay Towers has been a radio DJ since the age of 14. He worked in Atlantic City, Grand Rapids, and Philadelphia before making Detroit his home in 1999. Towers has hosted several radio shows in the Detroit market, including Jay & Rachael in the Morning on 93-1 DRQ for six years and the Jay & Bill show on 97.1 The Ticket. He is currently found entertaining the listeners of Fresh 100.3 as the host of Jay Towers in the Morning. He is also an anchor for Fox 2 News Weekends. He is an ardent people person and most enjoys talking with listeners on the phone during his morning show on Fresh 100 and on the weekends interviewing and interacting with the people of Detroit for his TV work on Fox 2.

DASH
October 23-24, 2013
Westin Detroit Metropolitan Airport
Detroit, MI
www.dashconference.com

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(TALENT) Content + Process = Communication

9-13-2013
Torture is not my first choice for obtaining sincere confessions from management. There is something about the cruelty of it that is unappealing. Personal integrity is partly at issue. There?s also that karma thingie. Mostly, though, I find the noise and the mess to be particularly irritating. But, if that?s what it takes?

Until recently, it was much easier for a radio manager to prop up the bottom line. Simply chop services to audiences and advertisers by knocking off a few talents in the on-air and creative departments. This became a self-destructive behavior. What was equally obnoxious was their methodology for picking on who got thrown over the rail. It was akin to throwing darts in the dark. True, those who were being (allegedly) overpaid were taken out first -- with the lights on.

Other industries may differ. However, with regards to music radio, I can continue to state without challenge, that I am still aghast at the total disregard for the principles of improvement and development that are rife in this industry. Rampant disregard up and down the line, from talent to ownership.

Meanwhile, I grow weary of waiting for the (alleged) publication and dissemination of ?Radio?s Great Big, Hairy Story.? This would be the one that is supposed to right our craft from its 40-degree list to port. Still, nobody is yet willing to tackle repairing the massive gash in our starboard hull. A fix would have been really swell, as we were watching the rest of the media-fleet passing us by some years ago.

Since I have yet to meet a radio manager, PD, or member of the talent corps who can articulate the rationale behind such a blatant rejection of any and all opportunities to improve and develop internally, I am obliged to speculate. Any references to ?fiduciary duties,? by the way, are being rejected as the weakest of irrational justifications and not worthy of serious consideration or argument. Yes, everybody gets it. Profit is required. But, when the excuse is trotted out, the automatic response of nodding like a bobble-head doll on ?Cal Ripken Day? at the ballpark, does not constitute agreement. It demonstrates a sad, bad, preconditioned habit that still serves a need for self-preservation.

Except for the owners and the very top executives of many of the top-earning broadcast corporations who are pulling down what most of the rest of us could call ?a tidy sum,? radio is not a particularly meaningful or well-paid industry -- at least not for grown-ups. Indeed, there are a number of exceptional talents here and there who can still leverage a decent income. Over time, radio has dropped off the radar as a desirable career choice.

Still, and this is more speculation, would many members of top management want to undertake any program that advertises itself as a means to significant improvement in on-air presentation and the creation of more effective advertising if doing so also included an investment with some (perceived) risk? Apparently, no. The technical, psychological term that covers this state of mind is ?in the glue.?

Yet, the plaintive wails from affiliate stations keep rolling over the meadows from the valleys beyond -- unheeded. Other managers are mumbling mantras about more local content -- as if that were a panacea for all ailments. Out of desperation, they demand greater numbers of bigger, harder, faster, more intense and compelling sales calls from reps who, if they can?t trick them, are willing to stand on advertisers? throats.

Radio -- music radio especially -- still enjoys the position of being the only passive and local, electronic medium. That "free" attribute may be the only thing that has been keeping the wheels on our wagons. That the content we do provide has been falling off in quantity and quality these last few decades goes unchallenged. Our capacity to produce effective, compelling advertising has become a cruel but easily made joke in the ad biz.

It gets worse. We (radio) have not invested dime-the-first to increase the quality of the delivery of any of the content we do provide. That is to say, we have paid forward bubkis on learning and applying the "processes" of delivering broadcast content. In fact, we haven?t even begun to consider, never mind investigate, such a strategy. Through the years, we have performed on radio traditions (dogma) and on acquired intuitions that, occasionally, have been filtered through some outstanding talents. However, these are hardly strategies that are both dependable and that can be replicated. Unless we broadcast our content (on-air and spots) in an appealing, engaging, and more effective manner by paying attention to processes, we will continue being sucked into the bog.

We seem to have completely forgotten that it is we who are privileged to address, and are given permission to attempt to influence, a radio audience. The lack of services and the crude, roughshod, and amateurish quality of our presentations are blaringly obvious and open to audience and advertiser rejection -- right there on the radio.

So long as there is ownership and management who are unwilling to strive for greater profitability through steady improvement in providing extraordinary programming and advertising services and products, we are just more examples of how certain forms of capitalism and free enterprise are corrupting. One could successfully argue how these approaches also support complacency and an acceptance of toxic, destructive values.

Now, I am willing to accept an explanation from any manager who sincerely describes their position as one of being intellectually unaware or ?tapped out? -- not knowing what to do next. Managers, though, who have read these articles? No pass for them. If we are, as almost everybody insists, in the ?communications? business, we are required to address both content and process. Anything less heaves us back in the glue. Besides, torture is such a nasty business.

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(TALENT) Indifference At The Choke Point

8-28-2013
Through the years of slaving over a hot microphone or toiling at typing the hype, most of the intelligent, clever, thoughtful, and outrageously funny people I have met have been in radio. Many of those were in management! (ba-dup-bum!) So, what is it that stops these folks from clearly recognizing the state of our business -- and stepping up to bust down walls and fix it?

What follows is not an exclusive belief of mine. Radio Ink publisher Eric Rhoads also identified it in an earlier editorial. I can, however, muse on how pervasive this particular position really is in radio. My experience suggests that it is dangerously so. This state is hardly ever considered, as a position that can and still does have a crippling, long-term effect. That being indifference/complacency.

Most of us have learned some knee-jerk responses when we are presented with affection or derision. It?s when we run up against indifference that we scramble about for behaviors that are appropriate and useful. It?s safe to project that where complacency resides, innovation is the first element that gets kicked over the side. Music radio is especially rife with this scenario, where the (alleged) innovators suddenly find themselves treading water where there be unsympathetic and indifferent sharks.

I face an irony, depending on which hat I am wearing. If it?s my H/R hat, I get to challenge -- with impunity -- any position a client presents. My clients may not enjoy the experience, but we have already negotiated a deal where they have agreed to participate fully.

With radio management, it?s a different story. They have no qualms about delivering, subtly or straight out, the following messages, whether challenged or not:

1. ?You?re here to sell me something and I don?t care what it is -- I?m not buying!?
2. ?There is nothing about this business you know that I don?t already know.?
3. ?I?ve got mine and you?re not going to mess with it. Notice my boat in the photograph facing you on my desk. I?m getting a bigger one.?
4. ?I have all the influence here and I am unwilling to give any of it up, particularly to somebody I don?t know and over whom I don?t have absolute control.?
5. ?I am, already, a busy person. Whatever it is you are pushing at me, I would have to put even more time, effort, and resources toward it. That ain?t happening.?

Those are not examples of statements that reveal an individual who is so ensconced in indifference and complacency that any consideration of development, improvement, or innovation is perceived as counterproductive. They are statements from a person whose personal position is being challenged. Indifference and complacency are still, however, the baseline positions. The personal position, however, does impact on the corporate results. One need not read the tealeaves or consult the stars to predict an eventual, if not imminent, demise in the enterprises these individuals are leading. Like large, crippled ships, many of them with already-blown boilers, they only seem to be underway -- because of accumulated momentum. (see: Isaac Newton.)

Barbed criticisms notwithstanding, I remind myself that we all -- in some contexts -- are as guilty of indifference and complacency. An admission, however, still doesn?t grant a free pass. To the contrary, these attitudes have been slowly wrecking our business for decades. It may not be long before we talk about radio having passed from a death of a thousand cuts, mostly self-administered. Blood trails are everywhere.

Meanwhile, as I write this, it?s a chilly evening for baseball in Oakland. The TV coverage flickers on low volume behind me. The ?A?s? are playing the ?Blue Jays? who are all hustling for a chance at securing a spot on the roster for next year. Still, all the regular support-staff are there: the coaches, trainers, medical staff, and the bus driver. He hunches over slightly beside his coach, cupping his hands in practiced fashion after flipping up the collar of his jacket to break the wind, and fires up a filtered Camel -- grateful for honest work with a trustworthy organization. If radio?s general managers were running ball clubs, none of that support staff would be employed, and the athletes would be responsible for arranging their own rides home. ?But, we don?t have their budgets!? say station managers. That regrettable circumstance is because we?re not so good at what we do!

What is also unfortunate is that a radio manager under the influence of indifference and/or complacency may not even notice the distinctions being drawn here. Anybody who prefers the status quo over, say, a poke in the eye from a pointy stick can be forgiven for wanting to avoid the latter. That many are applying their own tools to sharpening such a stick may not even occur.

Even as radio?s talent-base continues to be among those who have yet to realize there is so much more to learn about communicating through an electronic medium, I believe. In the meantime, I can identify the ?choke point?. It is not, especially in corporate radio, with the local PDs or GMs or the on-air and creative talent. The most restrictive choke point is in the executive suites -- the executive PDs and top management. Are they not somewhat insulated by their relatively high levels of income? Are they not complacent and indifferent about considering the needs of the audiences and the advertisers in order to maintain their own positions? Are they not equally, and most importantly, indifferent to the wails for support, assistance, or some freedom-to-innovate from below?

Indeed, indifference and complacency are the invisible, tasteless, odorless gasses that may choke out an otherwise undeserving, but still extremely vulnerable, sub-species -- those of us in radio!

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

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(TALENT) Rational Radio

8-9-2013

The title of this piece is a roaring oxymoron -- on many levels. I ask readers to consider but one of these, that being the assumption that radio is an ideal medium to present pure information and rational argument to influence audiences. Those who do accept the premise as accurate have entered the race. Just prior to the heat, they have borrowed the starter?s gun and shot themselves in the foot. Fans erupt. Betters scramble.

During recent weeks, a number of radio?s leadership -- large chargers, iconic personalities, corporate heads -- have consistently insisted that all radio really needs is to, somehow, get a neat-o, nifty ?story? making the rounds. That would close the wounds and, so to speak, get everybody back in the competition.

A hole blasted in the foot -- whether as a result of an accident, self-applied, or otherwise-inflicted -- takes more than a metaphor, an analogy, an outright fairytale or a blissed-out mantra to correct. Indeed, some members of radio?s leadership have been falling all over themselves to promote the (possibly) imminent unleashing of some version or other of ?Radio?s Great Story.? Included are the assumptions that somebody must certainly a.) have the knowledge of what that story might be; and, b.) have available a magnificent strategy for delivering this (alleged) mighty and redemptive yarn.

Unfortunately, what they have been engaging in is similar to blowing enough smoke over the landscape to cover a third army flanking of all of Europe. This tactic neither wins nor loses battles, but it does delay a reckoning until another day -- another can kicked down the road.

Radio isn?t available as a particularly useful, never mind compelling, medium through which to deliver factual, rational, or reasoned material. The presentation of facts and figures, and the introduction of cogent argument, are but wasted efforts that are usually lost on a radio audience. (A more detailed explanation follows shortly.) However, the following examples might begin to demonstrate the point more clearly.

Most in radio know the so-called ?right wing, conservative, Republican, religious, patriotic? factions of American radio presenters OWN talk-radio. All of this is going on as the so-called ?liberal, leftie, Democratic, socialist, semi-secularist, smarty-pants weenies? are busy looking for hosts, stations on which to run, advertisers, and audiences.

The known cadre of syndicated, conservative blowhards and their local acolytes are continuously tickling themselves pink while fanning embers into emotional flames and feeding the fears of so many paranoid bumpkins -- including those already mangled by any number of ideological bear-traps. This is compared to the other syndicated purveyors of (?lefty?) audio slush -- the hosts who, by piling up facts and figures, could put a somnambulist back to bed for a really good night?s sleep!

While radio-folk know that one faction, pretty much, controls the vast majority of the talk-radio airwaves, few can explain how. Since a few clues were provided earlier (above), the explanation begins now.

Radio has a completely different neurological impact on listeners when compared to a bus or billboard, a printed page or a personal, live, organic, real-life, one-to-one conversation. Listeners -- through no choice of their own -- are processing a broadcast through their sub-dominant hemispheres. (This hemisphere is occasionally referred to as ?the right brain,? as opposed to the dominant hemisphere, or ?left brain?.) As any Internet gaming-junkie will confirm, there is very little processing of pure information going on here, but a whole slew of pattern-completions and emotional experiences.

This is the case for every electronic signal we process. It?s not so bizarre either as there was no such thing as an electronic signal during the days of our great grandparents -- no phone, no TV, and nobody on the radio talkin? dirty, playin? the hits or attempting to scare the bejezuz out of us with paranoid fantasies and spectacular conspiracies. All that came later. Humans haven?t had even the beginning of a chance to evolve coping strategies for the electronic signals bombarding us at all times. (Some argue the signals are make us progressively crazy.)

The ?really smart people? have been plying and tempting us with facts, figures, reason, and argument -- on the radio! Weird choice. The righter-wing, meanwhile, have been haranguing us with nonsense, filtered facts, and unsubstantiated innuendoes -- for years. They have been doing it with powerful, emotional presentations, sometimes to the point of hysteria, and have been generating amazing results! The so-called ?big brains on the left? sniff condescendingly and then question where their support went. One wonders: Who here are the actual dummies??

Another unique example: Religious broadcasters get a radio-congruent, cheap ride on an audience as their presentations are so emotionally charged. Even Martin Luther is quoted as saying, ?Reason? is the Devil?s harlot.? Marty didn?t have a clue about radio.

With an understanding and appreciation of this principle, radio can also re-consider everything else we do: spots, promos and jock presentations. Play me a spot loaded with facts and figures and I?m listening to a waste of money. Only, I submit, when radio wises up and gets with this primary, emotionally-based program (and other, even more subtle elements) will we have an actual ?story? to tell. The solution is to begin learning how to work this medium congruently. The weakest alternative consists of making up more outlandish fairy tales which, to have any affect at all, must be delivered on the radio with outrageous emotion and strenuous enthusiasm. I also offer one more limitation, at my own expense. These words are delivered on an electronic page. Now, that?s irony!

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

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(TALENT) A Radio Swing Doctor

7-22-2013

There are a number of analogies radio station managers have presented to their new hires. Two in particular made my skin crawl. The first of these was introduced with a claim about operating as a team. The more fatuous assertion was: ?We think of ourselves as a family here at Bluster Broadcasting.? Following the latter, I enquired: ?Who gets to be Dad??

Although my query did little to endear myself to management, it did establish an understanding: I wouldn?t be compelled to slurp the Kool-Aid. A threshold had been radically adjusted. From then on, they tolerated me. And we all prospered.

I address the ?team? approach, though, with more interest, as the ?family? concept arrives as an already, seriously flawed example. Besides, families tend to avoid outside observation, input or influences, particularly when uproar and chaos so often make up the status quo. Teams, on the other hand, are organizations that are systematically built from the ground up. Individual executives, athletes, and support staff are considered and chosen carefully ? all with one, intentional outcome: winning championships.

Professional athletes ? already verified as elite participants ? are still afforded the services of other professionals. That is, the coaches, trainers, therapists, and psychological support personnel are continuously being employed for their expertise. These individuals are brought into the organizations because their services are understood to be essential to the process of attaining the original, motivating outcome.

Of course, these dynamics apply to other fields, as well. Singers have access to vocal coaches, physical therapists, and psychological professionals. Top business leaders have their mentors -- as do the physicians and scientists with their teachers and esteemed colleagues. And the exceptionally proficient and highly successful practitioners of the most difficult game in the world have their ?swing doctors.? Nobody questions ?Tiger? or any other golfer ? pro or duffer -- on a decision to engage more than one of these experts over time. Golfers understand that continuous improvements also come about through the efforts of regular practice and the application of strategies and techniques that would be difficult for them to recognize or execute only by themselves.

I invite radio managers to consider how they, too, are using these same principles in their own organizations. Having done so, a reasonable manager would be excused for realizing how none of the above is applicable to their ?team? and vacate the room.

Radio, is closer to the ?family? model. Whether referring to a single, stand-alone stick, a group of small-medium market stations, or a mega-glut broadcast powerhouse, radio, like many dysfunctional families, commonly operates as a ?closed system? ? vigorously avoiding and rejecting those outside influences or expert practitioners who can provide the appropriate and required skills to drastically improve a situation. Even when radio managers do consider some alternatives, it is with the most severe of suspicions. With that as a starter-state, it would be easy for anyone to discount and discard the opportunities that engaging such expert individuals would expose and exploit.

Some years ago, I was hired by an already proficient athlete who had been attempting to put three rounds of golf together in-a-row in order to earn his PGA tour card. His issue was one in which only when the pressure was on him to perform expertly for those three rounds, did his putting game collapse. He described it as ?getting the yips.? When I asked him to grab his putter and demonstrate what it was like when he was experiencing these ?yips,? he did appear like an amateur gardener clutching a hoe for the very first time. Anyway, since I had been trained to reproduce and deliver a cure for the yips, we went to work and got him straightened away. (Now, I wouldn?t be telling this story if he didn?t get back out there, earn his card and successfully hit the tour.) The point is: Techniques and strategies are available to those who appreciate the need for, and the benefits of, striving for significant, game-changing improvements that can?t be self-induced.

Circumstances, however, are far worse for our radio associates. There is an immediate, glaring need for a ?Doctor of Swing and Other Things? to be engaged. Those who would benefit immediately are the on-air and creative staffs. Next are the managers and sales reps. Radio, compared to other major media, on a good day, is on crutches. Other days, life support. Rx is required ? stat! A band-aid and a belt of cheap scotch will not suffice. The services of a proficient professional with the necessary education, radio experience, expertise, and demonstrated abilities to deliver results are required. And so, eagerly, I make myself available as such an individual.

Here in Toronto, North America?s fourth-largest radio market, a successful, radio-using, weight-loss clinic for men has been consistently offering the same message. The owner, in a gruff and studly voice, challenges listeners with: ?Show some guts. If you could do it for yourself, you would have done it already!? Yes, I would have adjusted and improved the script, but I won?t argue with the intent of the message.

For decades, radio has had every opportunity to get its act together, and has either neglected to take action or failed miserably at whatever anemic attempts it might have made in improving its status, impact, and prosperity. Obviously, this is no self-help scenario. As the weight-loss clinic owner suggests, ?It?s time to man up and sign up!? That is, if anyone is tired of being perennial bottom-dwellers, and wants their team to win championships.

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

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Now That's Talent

7-15-13

Radio One's News 92 (KROI-FM/Houston) afternoon anchor Mike Barajas had an interesting evening last weekend. Barajas was ?conducting? the Houston Symphony and the accompanying musicians in a rendition of "Jumpin? Jack Flash" (with assistance from Symphony conductor Brent Havens). It was during a salute the Houston Symphony performed for the music of the Rolling Stones at the Jesse H. Jones Hall in Houston, Texas.

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(TALENT) Radio Pow-Pow-Power?

7-15-2013

While suppressing one of those sighs Charlie Brown issues after another of his failed attempts at anything, I respond here to a recent article in Radio Ink. Once again, that aged, bitter chestnut was dragged out ? the one about radio not being able to tell its own story. The headline to which I am referring is the following: ?Top 40 Power Quote: Consumers Do Not Know About the Power of Radio.?

Elsewhere in the piece, somebody said, "I sincerely wish that we could take the brightest radio creative people, lock them in a room and not let them out ?till there was a list of credible ideas on how to market radio.? Keen-a-roni! The only results of that exercise, I submit, would be that the cloistered, bright radio-people would have gone ape-snake crazy and starved to death, and radio would be no better off. All that wasted effort expended on unrealized expectations because radio still doesn?t have a compelling story to market! Yes, there are some glittering flukes, a few advertising jewels that occasionally pop up, and some titillating anecdotes getting passed around. That?s about it.

Before addressing the most important element, let me respond to the first conclusion. The headline reads: ?Consumers Do Not Know About the Power of Radio.? What consumers, I wonder, are we talking about? Listeners? Advertisers? Both? It doesn?t matter, anyway. Listeners can be excused as people who have absolutely no need to know about the power of radio. Advertisers don?t have to be intellectually aware of, or schooled in, this suspiciously alleged ?power? either. All they want are demonstrated results. The rest is sales-speak. And that pretty much wipes out the list of people who need to know about this so-called ?power.? All right, not quite the entire list.

The people who do need to know about this vaguely referenced and wholly unexplained ?power of radio? are the broadcasters themselves ? the owners, managers, sales staffs and talent-base. They do not know.
- They can?t offer a written description.
- They can?t articulate it.
- They can?t demonstrate it.
- They can?t exploit or market it.
- They can?t teach it. And,
- They refuse to acknowledge they not only don?t know; they are also unwilling to learn what they need to know.

Those who do make the attempt at an explanation find themselves flailing around with non-specific, patronizing platitudes because?that?s all they have. Some wisely avoid the discussion altogether.

Meanwhile, it is easy to tell when an organization is operating under some form of negative stresses or opposition ? internal and/or external. Being unable to provide viable alternatives to enhance their own position or that of their clients they are supposedly serving, they are obliged to trot out a litany of ?good works?. In radio?s case, these will consist of the efforts a station makes for the betterment of the community in which it does business. Laudable, to be sure. Necessary? Perhaps. Mostly, however, these activities serve as a weak smokescreen, partially concealing the fact the station is under-performing for its advertisers. Some might argue that the same applies to its audience. Now, I?m not suggesting this is either a cynical or intentional strategy. But, it does crop up often enough as to generate some curiosity.

These, by now, severely stultifying topics of ?improving radio? and ?telling radio?s story? still rear up regularly. Pundits, cheerleaders, and the desperate line up to ring out the same tired and frail Rx suggestions including expanded playlists, more local content, more ?live? on-air presenters, less dog-piling of spots, etc. All worthy, but still providing minimal impact. Managers weakly stifle obvious yawns. This, because ? one can reasonably assume ? they already know everything they need to know. All will be solved, they insist, by kicking a few more sales reps? butts. Effortlessly overwhelming the lowly, more pious radio-monks, they holler: ?It?s a ?numbers game, stupid! Go!?

Those of us who are lifelong broadcasters were, except for the last 20 years or so, operating in large bodies of fresh, calm waters. We could paddle our canoes with no concern for weather or waves. We had healthy fish to fry and clean water to drink. We could swim and frolic anywhere. However, the waters have since become polluted; the fish stocks depleted, and weather patterns become erratic, generating more powerful storms. Bull (Zambezi) sharks have encroached in numbers from the oceans. Plus, now thar be crazed, scurvy pirates preparing to board. The message: ?We need a bigger boat!?

Even the most creative of radio-types will be hard-pressed to supply a strategy for marketing ?Radio?s Story.? This, again, because radio does not yet have a story. We won?t be getting one, either, until and unless the leadership have an explicit understanding of ?the power of radio.? Until then, any attempts to communicate this desirable but, so far, nebulous tale will be feeble, and also be rendered ineffectual.

Gloriously lucky for us, then, that radio does have power! Unlimited power! But, it is an innate power ? a power that is embedded within the medium because of its electronic process-of-delivery. Until we fully understand the particulars and nuances of those dynamics, we will never be in a position to exploit this implicit and extraordinary opportunity. Either way, the implications are serious. (Operators are standing by.)

Over 20 years have passed since the corporate occupations and subsequent surrenders ? plenty of time for all involved to have this thing figured out. Instead, what radio has acquired over these years is the ability to fire blanks ? noisy sometimes, but generally harmless. As I mentioned in an earlier article, this is what comes from cult-like principles being applied. Strict adherence to radio dogma is mandatory. No evolutionary evidence and principles are yet allowed for consideration. Meanwhile, Charlie Brown?s shoulders droop in resignation as he sighs and mutters, ?Aw, rats.?

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

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(TALENT) A Case For Boomer Radio

7-8-2013 

Music radio managers have been so locked in to their own traditions and dogma they continuously make programming decisions based on nothing more than already-accepted assumptions. That, and what those "other guys" are doing. For example: When I mention the concept of ?Boomer Radio,? almost everybody jumps to the conclusion that the discussion will be exclusively about programming ?oldies.?
If owner/management?s desired outcome does not include a long, hard, and unsatisfactory slog, restricting a boomer-targeted station by rolling out 350 or so of ?The Greatest Classic Hits Of All Time? would be exceptionally counterproductive. Such a tactic is so patronizing and superficial as to guarantee a major fail. On a personal note: I find being fed such an extraordinarily limited selection of tunes to be boring at best -- insulting at worst. Boring any audience, by the way. is enough of a result to cripple any attempt at reaching someone, but especially in my demographic.
Still, I agree with programming ?oldies? (of some kind) as a first priority. Anyone who qualifies as a ?boomer? has been exposed to any number of musical genres with Pop, Rock ?n? Roll, R&B, Folk, and Country being the five most pervasive. What follows as a free, no-extra-charge, bonus service is the musical format for such a station: There are at least 5,000 records available in those genres from the ?60s, ?70s, and ?80s that would qualify. Play them!
However -- and this is where so many programmers err on the side of weirdness -- they stop there! Boomers didn?t move to the Congo in 1990 in order to shut themselves off from contemporary media. Nor did they stop being exposed to contemporary music -- in all the genres. What we did do is get tired of the same rotations that might have been acceptable for a couple of decades. But, after a while, we just got burned out. Part of that was the music and part was about the presentations. (More on that shortly.)
For a station aimed at boomers, more than the ?olden, golden goodies? will be required. We (boomers) won?t die if we are also offered tunes from every decade since then -- including contemporary music. Honest. None of my friends, relative, neighbors, or associates have expired by hearing Coldplay. Or, for that matter, Nickleback!
So, there it is: The Boomer Music Format. It took two minutes to read it and will take about 20 minutes to implement it. Ah, but only if it were all so simple. To paraphrase a 1985 Northern Lights song, ?Tunes Are Not Enough.? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJN3u1wAWIk

Boomers, I would argue, are the most experienced, knowledgeable, and sophisticated of all potential target audiences. Trifling with them is not healthy for a station?s future success. And remember, in the U.S., boomers are the ones with most of the dough. The partial mystery (to me) is why station owners aren?t crawling all over each other to carve off a nice chunk of that action.
Other than that, there really is no mystery. The reasons there are so few stations successfully serving this extraordinary market are, essentially, based on two factors. The first and most touted is about that particular audience having a shorter, expected lifespan ? literally! (?Why even bother??) The other, and most important, element is that programmers have no idea how to go about being attractive and appealing to, as well as gaining credibility with, this audience.
The first element can be addressed very easily. As the most senior members of the audience weigh anchor, slip out of this temporal cove, and pass on to their cushy reward of fair winds and free grog, a station can simply adjust the format up by a few years. Ten years from now, the station will be basing the tunes around the ?70s, ?80s and ?90s. And so on. So far, so good.
The greatest detriment, however, to audience acceptance and support comes as a result of stations that cannot communicate to this audience. I regularly hear stations making a half-hearted, attempt by providing the audience with the same ?robo-jock? formatics -- copies of past Top 40 outfits that are, today, as limited in their scope as they are irritating in their approach and lack of appeal. This, I remind you, was a jock format that was based on acquiring ?kiddie cumes? and was a methodology for keeping jock content under programming control -- while still driving through the hits.
Such a station, to be successful, must staff the joint with intelligent, prepared, well-educated on-air staff. And when I say ?well educated,? I mean that as more than an general awareness of contemporary and social issues. I mean as broadcast communicators -- those on-air folks who have access to and skills in the strategies, techniques, and nuances of effectively maintaining a significant radio audience.
The old ?tried and true? methods are no good. This is because no matter how long we try them or how hard we apply them, they just aren?t working. And that's because they are not functional. Not true.
While there are no audiences of any demographic or psychographic category who want to be patronized, duped, insulted, or maligned with irritants and gross superficialities, a ?boomer? audience might be ticked off enough and vocal enough to make a station?s management and staff think more than twice about treating them like so much disposable fodder. Or, they may become indifferent and simply stop listening.
The generation of spots is also included here. Failure to pay attention to this issue -- perhaps as the first priority -- is likely to render any other attempts to reach this audience as a futile exercise with minimal returns for the advertisers. Again, intensive, precise training is required and that?s something with which I can get fully engaged.

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

(7/8/2013 8:51:33 AM)
Thanks, Tony. As to your invitation to communicate what I think: First, let me ask you, "Are you sure?"

Perhaps my email would be a place to start as I have no difficulties in being candid.
As a cautionary opening, I will allow that a station that brands itself as "Hippie" and that is playing the standard (Top-40) "oldies" that everybody else is playing is doing itself no service, and is failing to reach its (alleged) target-audience which, by the way and in my opinion, is not much of a valuable audience.

Seems to me, somebody bought into a cliched stereotype about which they have little knowledge or interest.
I mean, no Zappa? No Fugs? No Grateful Dead? No Tim Buckley? No album cuts?
To paraphrase the paranoid and parodied hippie of Cheech & Chong-fame: "Sumthin's not happening, man."

(7/8/2013 7:28:21 AM)
Great Article Ron! We're trying to do exactly what you're describing in Nashville. Would love your opinion!
www.hippieradio945.com

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(TALENT) Get The Chair And Grow From There

7-3-2013

By Lisa Miller

Radio has always been a business of 12 chairs and 15 people. Qualified, tenured, earned, deserved, recognized, appropriate or not ? getting the chair in radio has never followed the protocol you might expect in more standard business practices. So when you get the opportunity to take the best job, with the best opportunity for success, don?t blow it because the market isn?t your favorite or the compensation package doesn?t live up to your expectations.

There are only a handful of stations that will reach number one in rank or revenue, and having the opportunity to hitch your wagon to one of those stations happens only if you?re lucky. Tom Murphy (now heard on KISN/Portland, OR) once told me, ?Always go to the best station. Don?t worry about the size of the market or how much it pays.? He was right. When a prospective employer in a major market is looking to hire on-air or off-air personnel, they look at the ratings and revenue of stations in smaller markets, and they?re often more comfortable hiring personnel from a top-ranked station. The general rule is that you?re a better bet coming from a top-ranked station in a smaller market than from the 10th- or 15th-ranked station in a larger market. Why? Because it?s presumed that you were instrumental in creating or maintaining the success of your station.

Recognizing a good situation is easier than you may think. Don?t be seduced by a set of call letters or the ?cool factor? of a particular city, and absolutely do not be lured by market rank. Almost every television anchor or reporter who currently works in market 30 or smaller has a ?top 10 market out? as part of their contract. I?m not sure where the misconception that being in a top 10 market is nirvana came from, but I know many professionals in the biggest markets who would love to go back to the medium or small market where they had the most success. Why? Because they were often happier there.

Select a station where there is potential for your professional growth. If market size matters to you (and as I?ve said, it shouldn?t) and you feel you?re on track to move up, remember that being at the number one station in Columbus will put you in a better position to jump to Chicago than being at the 15th-ranked station in Cleveland.

I have seen mediocre people hired merely because they came from a successful station and, conversely, some very talented people overlooked simply because they worked at an underachieving station. Management can justify hiring someone from a successful station because if it doesn?t work out, it?s not the manager?s fault ? the employee had the pedigree to make it reasonable to presume they?d be successful.

If you get that chair, make it work for you. Create new sources of revenue, become entrenched in the community, get involved with a charity that needs your talents, and make the most of yourself to help the station grow.

You have the opportunity, so don?t blow your chance. Don?t get involved with the politics (every station has them). Be an overachiever: Get the client everyone has failed to get, go to appearances when you?re not required to be there, create revenue-driven promotions, do whatever it takes to stand out and make a difference.

If management changes and they?re not the best, hang in there. Bad management usually won?t be around long, and you can?t let a minor and temporary change cause you to give up on your paradise. Don?t let a pesky coworker get under your skin, and don?t, for any reason, throw in the towel because you don?t get promoted in your time frame ? don?t be misled by some arbitrary idea that you should be a salesperson by the age of 25, or a sales manager by 30, or a general manager by 40, or promoted to morning host after doing afternoons for three years. Don?t start dwelling on the minutiae that take your focus off the prize. Forget the myths about radio, and focus on the strengths.

Set your goals, make them realistic, be patient, and when you arrive, make it your goal to keep the chair and grow ? or to move on, on your own timetable, to the next great opportunity you created by choosing the right stations.

Lisa Miller is president of Miller Broadcast Management in Chicago and can be reached at lisa@millerbroadcast.com or 312.454.1111.

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Valle Creates National Radio Talent System

7-2-13

The veteran consultant says, "For decades, the radio industry has talked of the long-standing need for a farm system that would identify and bring new talent into the industry. Now, the National Radio Talent System is designed to be the ?go to? place to find new, young, passionate, well-educated, entry level talent qualified to excel in radio stations across America." The National Radio Talent System will be a ten-day program held on college campuses, with the goal being that one is held in every region or state in America so students can attend in their home state, and so radio stations can recruit from their own region of the country, or nationally.

Valle says, "Due to the advent of voice-tracking, automation, syndication, and labor laws that minimize or prevent the opportunity for young people to just ?hang around? the radio station, the radio industry has lost much of its training ground." The working model for the National Radio Talent System is the Kellar Radio Talent Institute at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, also created by Vallie.

Vallie says, "It?s the broadcasters who have vision, passion and love for the business that recognize this long-standing need and the importance of finding young, entry level talent, and the National Radio Talent System is the solution to that need. Most know that, while it?s imperative that we continue to have advances in technology and insure that radio is ubiquitous, success in our industry and the future will always depend on people. We have to attract the best and the brightest who have the talent and desire to get into radio to insure we not only hire great young talent today, but also to insure we have great leadership well into this 21st century?and that is not only possible, it has already begun. This is a noble effort.?

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(TALENT) Faith-Based Radio

7-1-2013
For more than 30 years, music radio has steadfastly refused to upgrade its talent base in both the on-air and creative departments. No concern. No remorse. I am befuddled. One could speculate that a penguin-style, group psychology may be in play here. Given all the suspiciously dogmatic limitations imposed on it?music radio might be a cult!
There are few positions, if any, more powerful than a faith-based one that arbitrarily, and under threat of severe penalties, forbids any contradictory considerations, assertions, or evidence. ?This is true and that?s the way it is!? is a cult-like statement that is neither slightly amusing nor mildly convincing to non-believers. The position, though, is hermetically sealed against all challenges from the membership.
Similar to a cult, music radio has been in lockdown with its own dogma for generations. Radio hasn?t made any, and I mean zero, improvements in broadcast communications during the course of my entire career. Only the technologies have advanced the medium ? provided at moderate expense by outside suppliers. Further, an evolution of any kind is rendered impossible because, again, ?That?s the way music radio is.?
There have been occasions ? while sporting my H/R beanie ? that I have been engaged to de-program actual cult members. While an arduous task, I did have a significant advantage in that the individuals with whom I was working had already come to a conscious, intellectual conclusion that they just might be dealing with a less-than-satisfying or useful set of beliefs and values. My task was to assist them in diffusing the pervasive, emotional baggage that came with membership, and to enable them to resist and/or eliminate the old responses that resulted from stimuli (triggers) still in their environment. Tough go, but successful.
However, music radio owners, management, and, yes, performers as well, have yet to arrive at even the primary, intellectual positions. Those being: Radio is something other than a ?direct? one-to-one medium or a ?demand? medium where members of the audience (?The personal listener?) can be ordered around. It would take a cult-like obedience for any broadcaster to accept those traditional mythologies as true. This is particularly so when no supporting evidence can be presented that cannot, easily and rationally, be discounted, dismembered, and discarded in mere minutes.
I do get frothing, outraged denials along the lines of: ?I sure as hell am not part of any cult!? Been there. Got that. My response remains: ?Evidence. Got any??
In recent comments, Radio Ink publisher, Eric Rhoads, speculates on the future of the spoken word in radio. He suggests there may be a possible, maybe necessary, strategy for music radio to survive and prosper by going the route of more talk-oriented formats. The inference I gathered from Eric was that music radio was skating on ever-thinning ice. A reasonable outcome, however, of music radio making changes to some kind of ?talk? format would be the proliferation of even more ?yappin? & crappin?.? (Albany with three sports stations!?) Plus, obtaining a credible talent base to staff these new enterprises will unlikely be a simple ?shazam-poof!? event.
Music radio, does have a more useful and easier alternative ? one that allows for greater or new prosperity. But ? and this has always been the rub ? the alternative entails resigning from the cult. Also included is the acceptance that presenters in both on-air and creative departments will have to be upgraded and retrained in the skills of working in an indirect and implicative medium. While I prefer ?training and coaching,? another appropriate word is ?reprogramming.?
A slight digression: Although I represent myself as an interloper from the Great White North, I am beholden, specifically, to four Americans. Two of them were L.A.-based radiomen who mentored and supported me as I was learning more advanced levels of the radio trade-craft. The other two were professorial PhD-types who trained me in the linguistic, neurological, and experiential distinctions that I have been demonstrating, discussing, and promoting over the years. These distinctions were intended to be applicable to H/R, coaching environments. That they also married up to radio presentations spectacularly was as exciting as getting my Chevy from Santa. The first two men taught me radio chops. The latter pair rocketed my coaching and on-air effectiveness. They also directed me out to where buses don?t run ? miles from the ?Laz Chanz Gaz? station. Even so, I am mightily beholden, and grateful to all of them.
Still, a pervasive, irritating question remains: What can music radio do next? So long as the non-evidentiary, habitual, and faith-based adherence to irrational radio dogma that includes the presuppositions and assumptions we all know, continues to be accepted, we can expect only more of what we are experiencing now. An irony here is that music radio diligently dug in and seized up at around the same time as the Internet was just kicking in. Music radio has yet to respond to that formidable threat. Warning signs were, and are, everywhere. Yet, R&D isn?t even on radio?s ?to do? list. Je suis bamboozled.
Meanwhile, another important element in which I was trained is about adjusting, removing, or replacing deeply held beliefs and/or values. A person?s or organization?s ecology requires there must be better, more useful and acceptable beliefs and values conveniently available to replace the old ones. Failure to attend to this dynamic creates a vacuum-of-sorts that will be filled with something else. Unless chosen wisely, the ?something else? could be as equally damaging. Enter a different, sinister cult.

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

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McConnell Partners With ACM In New Talent Venture

6-18-13
Veteran talent agents Marc Guss and Phil Sutfin, co-founders of talent management company ACM, have partnered with John McConnell to launch ACM Broadcast. The goal of the new company is to create a business environment where talent strategize on using radio and other audio broadcast platforms as the foundation to build their brand. 

McConnell said, ?I?ve always believed in the power of radio and am a proponent of making that a priority in a performer?s career. I look forward to working with talented individuals and helping them to realize their full potential as they soar to new heights.?

McConnell is president of Entertainment Radio Network and founder of McConnell Media, LLC, a traditional and new media consultancy with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Until November, 2008, McConnell served as SVP of Programming at ABC Radio Networks where he managed programming for ABC Music Radio, ABC News Radio, ABC Talk Radio, and the ESPN Radio Network, all of which were heard on 4,400 ABC radio affiliates and websites.

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(TALENT) Assumptions, Arts & Crafts

5-28-2013

Over the years, radio has been making three main assumptions.

The first of these I have covered and am sure I will be doing so again ? and again. That being the assumption that radio is a one-to-one medium. Nonsense. Never was. Isn?t now. Won?t ever be. I?ll remind again: It?s about being personable, not personal.

The second is that radio is a demand medium. That is to say, a medium through which we can tell people what to do ? without consequences to ourselves. Even those (listeners) who might be more responsive to ?authority? than others can often figure out situations where there is no authority. Radio disc jockeys and radio pitchmen are definitely in this category. Those presenters who do make the attempt, run the risk of having me reach out and throttling them ? if only I were there in the same environment.

The third assumption is that we can motivate or influence an audience with the most crude and basic linguistic and presentation applications. We so ?dumb down? our on-air and commercial presentations ? often without even being aware of our own transgressions ? until even the station?s cat can only fake an inkling of interest.

The first two assumptions, to change to more useful strategies, require a decision and some training. The third assumption requires some new understandings and a fairly substantial amount of training to execute the alternatives properly. The assumptions that follow and that I have not articulated do, however, fall neatly into place.

Radio addressing these issues is no longer an option for casual consideration. Our current state is one which demands immediate attention! Our position of dead last in the plethora of major media requires we get educated and get active ? as if the building was on fire! We must power up.

We are in such a sorry condition that the other major media don?t even bother to launch campaigns against us. As in rating books of other days, we show up as ?other.? We are not a threat to their business. We are unworthy of any particular wariness. (The 5 percent of advertising revenue that radio does enjoy(?) is, to other media, an inconsequential matter of spilled beer.)

Meanwhile, I am obliged to confirm that the vast majority of broadcasters accept the above situation as, if not acceptable, then one which is not subject to change. This should not come as much of a surprise to some as we humans have a marvelous, but still spooky, propensity to justify anything ? so long as it matches our already-existing beliefs and values. And self-propelled challenges to our own beliefs and values are extremely rare phenomena, indeed.

Of the hundreds of people with whom I have worked in radio, there have been few who I would elevate to the highest levels as performers. I have worked with many bright, witty, and clever folks who, when it came time to flash those chops on-the-air, the best they could do was to demonstrate the mechanics ? the basic skills that every presenter picks up, as much through a process of osmosis as through any formal training.

Extremely talented and effective folks, meanwhile, are still cleared as targets to marauding management ? desperate to cut costs. That audiences and advertisers are being scammed in the process seems not to be a matter for any serious contemplation. The easily expected results ? loss of ratings, loss of revenue, loss of advertiser credibility through an inability to produce effective advertising at the local level, and dropping rates ? all come with a cacophony of wails and whining that are claimed to be viable and justified.

In the years that radio was one of the top three advertising media ? print/outdoor, television, radio ? we could (and did) get away with just about anything. Reach and frequency seemed to be more than enough. This just in: It?s not 1985 any more.

Years ago, one of the owners of a chain of stations blew into town to stroke the plebes and count the profits. At the time, I was enjoying unprecedented 19 percent shares in afternoon drive ? with bigger quarters than the morning show. (By then, I had been applying the techniques and strategies to which I have been alluding for a few years. But, at this station, I did so covertly, in order to stay under the radar.)

Anyway, I was called into the PD?s office for my personal McHappy chat and re-introduced to the owner. In the well-rehearsed, patronizing, and arrogant manner that only uninvolved, uninformed, senior management can muster, he asked me, ?What do you have to do, Ron, to be the best afternoon guy in the market?? Without puking on his shoes, I brought up some righteous indignation of my own and answered, ?Show up.?

Radio did well for a time based on the talents? abilities to reach and maintain an audience. It had to be that way because we were subjecting our audiences to, and providing our advertisers with, highly questionable products otherwise. Our advantage was in that there were no other sources of tunes or talk than the local radio stations.

Audiences and advertisers have, since then, broken out of the chains in which we held them. They are now free to take their attention and their resources elsewhere. And they won?t be enticed back with fewer crumbs of bread or smaller crumbles of cheese. Audiences and advertisers have morphed into bigger, hairier, smarter, more cynical, ravenous rats. We are going to have to provide real meat ? and lots of it ? with a choice of condiments. And that?s going to take some serious training.

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

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(TALENT) Radio's (Cracked) Mirror

5-6-2013
In a recent editorial, the esteemed publisher of Radio Ink, Eric Rhoads, made reference to the concept of, and the value in, a local radio station being reflective of the community. On the surface, that seems like a useful, and perhaps even noble, proposition. However, I am obliged to state that ?mirroring? is an incomplete strategy and, as such, flawed.

It?s not that I?m unsympathetic to Eric?s premise. ?Local,? I believe, is an important part of any station that still supports live and real-time talent. Including local references in on-air presentations, however, and contrary to the insistence by many managers, does not offer any salvation to those outlets that suffer from obvious, but still unidentified, malaises.

Even now, managers who are long on desperation and short on solutions are trying to figure out ways to drop local references into their maudlin, syndicated, or V/T?ed programming, as well as those elements that can still be presented ?live.? I do wonder. Are some cobbled-together comments on the Dog Groin, Montana, chapter of The Ladies? Freedom Militia Tea, Bake Sale and Sharp Shooting Extravaganza at the local Moose Hall going to spur audience members and advertisers into supporting the station? No.

Meanwhile, back to ?mirroring?. The concept of mirroring has snuck its way into the lexicon under a few other assumed names including, matching, pacing, and gaining rapport. The premise is based on the abilities of a knowledgeable, skilled, single communicator to gain an unconsciously produced credibility with a listener ? occasionally, from a group. The whole point of the exercise ? and this is key ? is in after having accomplished this so-called rapport, it is immediately incumbent on the communicator to carry on and LEAD. So, the strategy would be represented as: Match, mirror, pace, establish rapport?LEAD.

In my H/R environments, this is a fabulous approach for moving other strategies and processes along with fewer episodes of ?resistance.? But ? and here?s the kicker ? a live, real-time, one-to-one communication with an individual in the same environment, and experiencing a radio signal, have no commonalities. I mean, none.

With all sincerity, and perhaps a confidence that one might expect to go unchallenged, Eric reinforces a somewhat vague concept of ?mirroring? a city, town, community etc.
This might be a fine premise ? if only it was practically possible!

Local radio in Boston, I understand, outdid itself in the professional coverage of the criminal outrage perpetrated on innocents at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. One could understandably make an immediate claim that those stations were, indeed, ?mirroring? the city. But this article is about important distinctions ? distinctions that have to be made clear before managers start making programming commitments with overblown expectations.

Any claim that the coverage of the tragedy was a ?mirroring of Boston? is a dangerous generalization. ?Boston? is not a single thing. It is not a singular attitude or style. For the purposes of this discussion, and as it applies to radio, ?Boston? is a geographical location where millions of unique individuals are living their lives, and where radio station signals are available. No more.

Those residents, for convenience and targeting purposes, can be considered as larger groups with factors in common. Those groups can be subdivided into even smaller components. Those can be sub-grouped again until only one, older, confused person is left on the sidewalk, sporting a green, bowler hat and wearing a sandwich board that reads, ?In my head, I still hear W-Beatle-Z!? Irish bars with petitions demanding former Boston Bruins? star Terry O?Reilly be made a saint would qualify as an extremely intense sub, sub-group. One doesn?t trifle with Bruins fans.

Yes, the bombing was the event that was brought to the particular awareness of Boston?s population for the week following, but even that wasn?t every individual citizen?s biggest story. Covering the story was a matter of choice for most broadcasters and media outlets.

In the week following the carnage on Boylston Street, however, thousands of other Bostonians lost or found a job, lost a loved one, were injured in accidents, were assaulted or murdered, or were the victims of another crime, were charged or convicted of a crime, were caught cheating on their spouses, lost, bought or sold a house, had a pet die, were diagnosed with an illness, were cured of an illness, and on and on. For these people, those personal events were more important to them than what was being covered by the media. And no radio station is ever going to be able to ?mirror? all or any of that!

My point: Covering the tragedy was not about ?mirroring.? It was about a foreground awareness that elicited ongoing interest in large portions of the population through a decision for extraordinary media participation.

And now for the good news! Radio can still do a great deal of pacing, matching, and gaining rapport in order to better influence or LEAD an audience. But, it is going to take the skillful application of new knowledge. This won?t come about by stuffing an arbitrary piece of content into a programming mix. It will come as a result of education, training, and practice on the part of the presenters. It was worth it for me ? in spades ? particularly in terms of ratings generation and spot efficacy. A significant increase in revenues also ensued.

With a respectful tip of the hat to Eric Rhoads for generating the thought-starter, I remind radio?s elite and influential: The only thing a mirror will do is reflect a reversed and distorted representation of ourselves ? a momentary event ? that is also filtered through our own beliefs and values.

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

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(TALENT) Talent -- The Friend Beside Us

4-22-2013

There has been an element in vocal deliveries in both radio and television that has been secure for at least the last 10 years. Today, as often as not, on-air and commercial content is being delivered by those in the talent corps who have much higher and lighter voices than has been traditionally heard. The decisions to use these voices have been made, however, only for compensatory reasons.

Popularly phrased as the voice of ?the guy next door,? these much higher, talent-tonalities have been injected into the broadcasting mix with specific, identified intentions: to suggest that a ?real? person rather than a ?fake? (radio announcer) person is doing the talking. This approach is supposed to increase the speaker?s credibility in the experience of a listener.

What is not discussed is what I believe to be the most important aspect of making these choices. Namely, the proposition of the bigger (?thunder-nut/puker?) voices coming off as antagonistic, authoritarian, and intimidating has not been examined or, in many cases, even acknowledged as a factor. This, I believe, is because such decisions to use lighter voices are based on intuitions and/or gut reactions on the part of writers and producers.

Before continuing, it is significant for me to state ? categorically ? that, at no time, do I urge these voices not to be accessed and exploited. I have friends and colleagues who have just such voices and who are earning fabulous livings both in on-air and V/O applications. These guys have serious skills and extraordinary control over their deliveries. Professionals they are ? in every sense.

My beef is with the abovementioned intuitions. Talent with baritone or basso profundo voices are being shunted off to some degree not because of their tonalities but because of the copy!

It doesn?t take long to figure out that the majority of commercial scripts written for radio are antagonistic and authoritarian in nature. The copy itself contains numerous challenges to the audience and demands-for-behavior from the audience. This is already embedded in the script before any talent walks into the production studios.

I am satisfied that the combination of antagonistic copy and a bigger voice doing the read is, in many cases, perceived as being overwhelmingly pushy or abusive. There is a threshold in play here where the person making the determination comes to a conclusion of ?That seems to be just too much.? Most of these considerations, I repeat, are made at an intuitive, unconscious level. None of this should come as a shock, by the way, as language is accessed, processed, and responded to at an unconscious level. (If we had to process our own language consciously, word by word, it would take us five minutes to order up fries and gravy with extra fries and gravy ? and a Coke.)

Contrary to popular radio-wisdom, audiences are supremely sophisticated when it comes to accessing language. Indeed, I accept the position that ?language? is the most complex and sophisticated technology that has ever been developed by humans. People (listeners) also have an innate ability to calibrate what they are hearing as they are hearing it.

By that, I mean our neurology is wired in such a way that we listen to individual speakers and make internal, unconscious adjustments relative to that speaker?s tonality, speeds, tempos, timbre, volume, and other factors. Listeners also determine the significance of what is being said based on that information. Now, here is the kicker: Listeners make allowances for the relative tonality and range of the speaker?s voice whether the voice is of a high, medium, or lower tonality! While ?content? is important, it is not as singularly important as some might suspect or believe.

While I do appreciate how the concept of ?the guy next door? came to be a significant factor in broadcast presentations, I am still obliged to also point out the obvious: Of all the guys next door I have met over the years, not one of them ever said anything remotely close to what radio?s guys next door are being compelled to say. Nor have they ever said anything in the style, speed, inflection, emphasis, or consistent warbling tonality that professional, radio ?guys next door? say it.

Here is a simple exercise to demonstrate the concept: I invite the reader (man or woman with a naturally higher, medium, or lower tonality to say the following in exactly the way the directions I offer require.

The line is: ?I feel very strongly about this.?
1. A reader can, first, rehearse that line ? out loud ? saying it relatively quickly and in their own higher tonality.
2. Now the individual can repeat the same line ? a little slower this time and in their medium tonality.
3. Lastly, it is time to say the line again, but this time much slower and with the lowest tonality.
The question now is: Which of those deliveries has the most congruency and is the most believable?

Most normally aspirated speakers will intuitively choose #3. This is because the content deals with ?feelings? and people access ?feelings? when listening to or generating language that is lower and slower. This exercise is also a treat when demonstrated with the participation of others. The results are extraordinarily consistent. Plus, the information provided in the exercise transfers easily through all vocal ranges.

A next, logical discussion to be held concerns the inane admonition still foisted by too many PDs on unsuspecting talent to ?speak naturally.? Suffice to say there are few experiences more unnatural than a disembodied voice being delivered through an electronic medium. But, that?s fodder for another cannon to be shot at another time.

While these elements are delivered somewhat deeper into my training, I suspect this article will be worthy of some serious consideration. Mostly, though, I want to bring attention to the first priority of presenting radio messaging: It all starts with the copy!

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

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