David Letterman tells a story about when he was a comedian appearing as a guest on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Letterman didn’t have his own show yet. Both of them grew up in the Midwest, and developed their comedic skills in similar ways (read more - Tip # 87)

In baseball, you have to touch the base to be able to advance to the next one. So let that image frame what you do on the air. Your “base” is the Listener’s lifestyle and interests (read more - Tip #88)

To help maximize your station’s Time Spent Listening, you really need to cross-promote the other dayparts during your show--every day. But do it in some compelling way. (Just knowing that someone’s going to show up for his shift is NOT a reason for me to listen.) (read more - Tip #89)

Here’s a tip for everyone, but especially News Talents. Avoid “news-speak.” Reading wire copy, with its abundance of official-sounding plastic words, is BORING and pushes the Listener away. (All “print language” is like this.) I recently heard a story about an attempted plane hijacking, in which the Newsperson said that the crew “managed to subdue the culprit” so that the plane could be landed safely (read more - Tip #90)

As a Listener, I want a TRAFFIC report, not an ACCIDENT report. Telling me that “there’s an accident at the Butler exit off I-12” is just an Accident Report. A real Traffic Report, however, is telling me that if I’m headed that direction, I’m looking at an extra twenty minutes to get to work (read more - Tip #91)

The great movie director John Ford (the idol of, among others, Steven Speilberg and Martin Scorcese) once asked John Wayne to do a picture with him. The Duke said, “Well, what’s it about?” (read more - Tip #92)

Think about how many times you’ve seen a really cool commercial on TV (like during the Super Bowl).  Then, when you’re telling someone about it, you say, “I can’t remember who the ad was for, but it was great.” If you don’t remember who the spot was for, then IT DIDN’T WORK (read more - Tip #93)

Here’s a sure-fire way to create a winning morning team: Find two totally different people with a lot in common. That sounds contradictory, but it’s not. (read more - Tip #94)

I recently spent hours with an entire station’s staff Think about how often you see an artist on TV or in concert, alone on a stage, singing the lead vocal live over a prerecorded CD (which contains the glossy studio mix of perfectly blended background harmonies and expert studio musicians). Today’s audience is used to hearing great sound (read more - Tip #95)

At the end of the session, we had all collaborated to create a very clear picture of the Target Listener (in this case, a 37-year old married woman named Susan, with a stepson from her husband’s first marriage, and two daughters of theirs since then). We knew her name, where she lived, what her family’s income was, her kids’ names, the stores where she shops, what her favorite soft drink is, the movies she likes…everything we could think of (read more - Tip #96)

Many times after an actor has received a bad review, I’ve seen the Director of the play or film fault himself for not explaining the role thoroughly to the actor. This kind of accountability is a good thing. (Funny that only the best Directors do it.) This happens way too often in radio. A PD doesn’t fully explain the role to the Talent, and the Talent “colors outside the lines,” and misses the target (read more - Tip #97)

Here’s a thought that will guarantee your Content being more interesting. Think of the shape of a cylinder—by definition, it’s the same size at one end as it is at the other. Now picture the shape of a cone—one small end, one great big wide end (read more - Tip #98)

Here’s the best coaching tip you’ll ever receive. If you buy into it, devote yourself to it, and continually refine it, you’ll be a truly great Air Talent, guaranteed.  And I give it to you freely, knowing in advance that most of the people reading it will reject it (read more - Tip #99)

Here’s one that should be obvious, but apparently isn’t. Work from the Listener back, not from the Control Room forward. Example: Once, a morning team that I work with in Houston wanted to plug the fact that “American Idol” auditions started the next day (read more - Tip # 100)

Here are a few questions to ask yourself: How is today’s show different from yesterday’s (or tomorrow’s)? Is what you do so generic that it could be a show from any day of the week? Now take it one step further: Is what you do so generic that it could be on any station, or only on your station?  (read more - Tip # 101)

Every Air Talent loves to see the phone lines lit up. It seems to validate that the Listener is interested in what you’re doing on the air. (Actually, this can be a false impression. A very tiny fraction of the audience makes up the pool of phone callers. Most people NEVER call a radio station FOR ANY REASON during their lifetimes. But we’ll go into that another time.) (read more - Tip # 102)

Barney Fife, the classic Don Knotts character on the old Andy Griffith Show, probably never thought he’d become a role model--at least not for radio. But that’s exactly what happened (read more - - Tip #103)

Here’s the real key to everything you do on the air. EMOTIONAL content. No matter how factual something may be, you have to remember that the Listener doesn’t bond with the radio through the left side of the brain (the logical, mathematical side). The Listener bonds through the right side, the emotional, artistic, more abstract side of the brain (read more - Tip # 104)

Does this sound familiar? “Dallas firefighters were summoned to a three-alarm blaze last night at 1224 Mockingbird Lane. There were no injuries to the occupants, but investigators estimated the damage to the house at eighty thousand dollars.” That’s not the way real people talk. It WAS the way news people talked…about thirty years ago. But now, listeners don’t care for that oratorical, “left brain” approach nearly as much as they used to (read more - Tip #105)

In the world of radio, we turn the volume down during the music and the stopsets, and turn it UP when the deejay or host talks. But in the real world, it’s not like that at all (read more - Tip #106)

In coaching Talent to become more than just “deejays,” I draw on WHY legendary personalities become legends. In the past, it was Robert W. Morgan in L. A. or Fred Winston in Chicago. In Dallas, where I live, it’s been Ron Chapman, then Kidd Kraddick, and in the Christian arena, Jon Rivers. How about Dr. James Dobson? Absolutely. And Paul Harvey (read more - Tip #107)

One of the reasons that deejays are often perceived as egotistical fools is the overused pronoun “I.”
This is sort of a basic junior year of High School exercise, but try to see how often you can avoid saying “I” when you talk. Try to replace it with “you” instead, to see if you can get the focus more on the Listener (read more - Tip #108)

NFL coach Bill Parcels, known for a disciplinary and extremely successful approach to coaching, has a phrase that should really hit home with radio. “Potential is nothing. Performance is everything.” 
In this first of a 3-part series of tips on how this applies to what we do, I want to take a good look at what momentum is, and how it’s created. For reasons of brevity, we’ll just examine music formats. Listeners usually have the station on at about half the volume we listen at, because the station is most often used as a background to their lives, a mood service (read more - Tip #109)

The concept of Time Spent Listening is widely misunderstood. TIMES spent listening are far more important and easier to get than Time Spent Listening. Horizontal promos, telling me why I should listen again tomorrow, will work far better than trying to get me to listen at 2pm today when I’m in a meeting. Which would you rather have, another hour of listening today, or another time that I choose you, instead of another station, EVERY day? (read more - Tip #110)

NFL coach Bill Parcels says, “Potential is nothing. Performance is everything.” I’ve already outlined how this applies to radio in terms of momentum and Time Spent Listening. Now let’s examine the all-important value of FUN. Many Programmers still believe the old adage, “If YOURE having fun, THEY’RE having fun.” This is TOTALLY WRONG (read more - Tip #111)

I hear from so many air talents, “How do I get more phone calls?” The first thing I ask them is “Why?”  Yes, phone calls can add a dimension to any show, but only good calls. Unfortunately, most of them are not good. Most phone callers you hear on the air either just kiss up to the deejay, try to be a co-host, or prattle on too long, so the momentum sags. So here are the seven basic rules for phone calls (in music formats), and the real secrets of how to solicit and use them on the air (read more - Tip #112)

I get asked a lot about exactly how to do show prep. It all starts with the Listener Profile for your station. Obviously, if your target demo is 18-34 males (like on a Hot Talk or Rock station), your prep is going to be different than if you’re a 35-54 female-targeted Soft AC station. So that’s the first step—know who you’re talking to. You have to know what SUBJECTS your listener cares about (read more - Tip # 113)

Think about how you treat contest winners and guests on your show. Mistreating them totally alienates the recipient, and just makes you look smaller to the listener. I know that in some formats, like Rock or Talk, it’s fashionable to be “cool” to the point that you make fun of people. Here’s a tip: never make fun of anyone who hasn’t already laughed with you, and kind of “given you permission” to rib them. That’ll take out the “cruelty” factor (read more - Tip # 114)

The reason I got into radio was to give stuff away. I won a contest the only time I ever called a radio station (when I was about 12), and thought it was the coolest thing that had ever happened to me. About 15 years later, I was working for a radio station, and gave away $25,000 to an eight-year old girl on the day before Christmas. It just doesn’t get much better than that. However, there are certain techniques that can make contest winners shine (read more - Tip # 115)

After my seminars, I get a lot of comments from people saying, “You talk a lot about what NOT to do, but how about what TO do? Well, first of all, if you read my articles, get my weekly coaching tips, or work with me regularly, you know that it’s far more “glass half full” than “glass half empty” with me. But okay, here’s ‘how to be great’ in five easy steps: (read more - Tip # 116)

For several years, I was on the periphery of radio, working as a voiceover Talent and running a Production studio in Louisiana. This was a golden time for me, as I had a reasonable amount of control over my schedule, made a decent amount of money doing something I enjoyed, and had a chance to hear radio purely as a listener (with the one exception of checking out commercials I had voiced for flaws. And here’s what I discovered (read more - Tip # 117)

There are a lot of jocks out of work these days. One company boasts that it has over 1200 stations and 55,000 employees, but it seems like only about 40 of them are on the air. I got an aircheck from a girl who recently was released from a rock station in a major market, and she wanted me to give it a listen, and see if what she was sending out gave her a good chance to “click” as she searched for the next job. It didn’t (read more - Tip # 118)

Life is busy. You have a million things to do, and are on the run constantly. When you’re not galloping like some race horse through the day, you find yourself sitting like a lump in front of the TV set, or idly thrumming your fingers at your desk as you stare off into space. Then an idea comes to you. But rather than try to find some paper and a pen to write the idea down and keep it handy until you can refine it and develop it, you just think, “I’ll remember it” and move on to the next phone call, or conversation with someone who needs you to do something that should have been finished an hour ago (read more - Tip # 119)

The best thing I ever came up with was the “taking the First Exit” thought. After using it for years on the air, I started teaching it when I became a Talent Coach, and two hundred radio stations later, I’m convinced that it’s the single quickest way to improve your on air performance. Getting out at the first good opportunity, instead of “missing the stop sign” and having breaks lengthen and lose forward momentum, is any easy-sounding concept, but it takes a commitment  (read more - Tip # 120)

There’s an old joke about a visitor to New York, in the “big apple” for the first time, asking directions from a person on the street. He stops a typical New Yorker and asks, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” And the brusque New Yawk guy just glances at him and says, “Practice, practice, practice.” And that’s how your ambitions will become reality. But WHAT to practice is the key (read more - Tip #121)

There’s a simple rule for show content. Project in your head doing whatever it is you’re considering. Now think about getting a phone call about it, or adding another “take” on it in the next break. If it takes more than one sentence to “reset the stage” of what you’re talking about, IT DOESN’T BELONG ON THE AIR. Or you need to work on this (read more - Tip #122)

Hank Haney is known in golf circles as one of the top instructors in the game. One of his students is Tiger Woods; another is a guy named Mark O’Meara, who, in 1998, won both the British Open and the Masters tournament. One of Haney’s tenets is about performance under pressure, “You always revert to your old swing…until you learn.” It’s the same in radio (read more - Tip #123)

There’s a fine line between giving your best effort and trying too hard. You owe it to the Listener, your boss, your co-workers and yourself to make an attempt to be the best you can be every time the mic opens. But sounding strident is not comfortable to listen to. Oddly enough, I find that many Talents have a lot of trouble doing things on the air that they feel strongly about (read more - Tip #124)

You see it in research, you hear it in listener panels, you get calls about it. “Why don’t you say the artist and the song title every time?”  And some PD’s pay so much attention to this stuff that they have the jocks backsell multiple songs, or do the ugly, outdated “that was x….this is x” mechanic (read more - Tip # 125)

Working with Talk radio, SportsTalk stations, and various syndicated and brokered shows over the last eight or ten years, it amazes me how so many hosts are frozen like deer in the headlights by phone calls, and how poor a job phone screeners do. I think it comes from the misused phrase, “caller driven,” as in “It’s a caller-driven show.” Let’s be clear. NO show is caller driven. ALL talk radio is HOST driven (read more - Tip #126)

I’ve worked intensely with around 200 morning shows, most of them team or ensemble shows, and it’s startling to see how few have developed reliable hand signals to communicate with. Some did early on, but then abandoned them as they got used to each other, thinking that a certain look, a raised eyebrow, or a nod of the head is a good thing. But these go flying out the window the minute your partner’s head is turned, or his or her eyes are fixed on a computer screen. However, demonstrative hand signals never fail, and give you rock solid consistency (read more - Tip #127)
 

Here's a thought about developing team shows. Picture the Olympic rings, made of partially overlapping circles. They overlap to form a common area, but all the rest of the circles’ areas are separate from each other. And that's what makes good team shows--people who are “partially overlapping circles.” Parts of them aren't alike, but they do share areas of interest that they have in common (read more - Tip #128)

One of the exercises I do in my seminars--borrowed from my friend John Frost--is “the mirror.” I simply hand someone a mirror, and ask them what they see. The answer is always the same. “I see me.” 
And my answer to that is always the same. “But you can MOVE that mirror, right?” Then I have him move the mirror until he can see himself AND me in it. That’s what you want on the air—to see both yourself AND the Listener in everything you do (read more - Tip #129)

Most Air Talents do not lay out where content will fall in the show before they get on the air. Even if they do know what they’re going to do that day, the actual break-by-break plan is not the norm. Which is why 95% of them are not nearly as good as they could be. Like the old cliché, if you fail to plan, your plan is to fail. So you’ll have no excuse, I’m going to lead you through this, step by step (read more - Tip #130)

If you’re pretty clear on the beginning and the end, the middle--the telling of the story--will pretty much take care of itself. (And if it doesn’t, I have a technique for that which we’ll go over in another Coaching Tip.) Radio is a combination of “left brain” and “right brain” activity, a blend of Science and Art. Getting the “left brain” organization part done frees up the right side of the brain to paint the picture for the Listener. Trust me. This process WORKS (read more - Tip #131)

Many years ago, I was fortunate to meet and work with Lee Abrams. Lee has carried many titles and been defined in many ways over the years. Depending on the length of your experience in radio, you may remember Lee as either one of the first guys to realize the value of research, one of the first programmers to make FM radio monetarily powerful, or the maverick who led XM Radio in its quest to get into cars and eclipse traditional radio. Each of those steps had one thing in common (read more - Tip #132)

I spend a lot of time coaching Air Talent in storytelling. As Paul Harvey best illustrated, most good radio is about STORIES, no matter how short. And thinking of Content in terms of how stories are constructed (a beginning, a middle, an end) is essential to sounding interesting on the air. But that’s just the “left brain” description of the assembly process. The more emotional “right brain” has to be engaged, too (read more - Tip #133)

In a seminar with a couple of stations recently, we did a group aircheck session, and were listening to a morning show host. He wasn’t without talent, but he sounded less compelling than he could have because he’d fallen into an all too-typical-pattern that can easily keep you from sounding better. We broke it down into two parts (read more - Tip #134)

Hundreds of years ago in the red clay of Shreveport, Louisiana, where gravy is a vegetable and the way of life is sometimes defined as “If you can hit it with a car, you can barbeque it,” I started my radio career at then 50,000 watt AM Top 40 blowtorch 710 KEEL, working for a wonderful mentor and friend named Larry Ryan.  Just a few months into my first year, fresh out of college and cluelessly struggling, Larry called me in for an aircheck session. The gist of what Larry told me was, “Do something.” (read more - Tip # 135)

It’s easy to fall into a rhythm of breaks being more or less a certain length. Some Air Talents, particularly in morning drive, develop the sense that it can’t be a meaningful break if it’s very short. But as you know, if you’re familiar with my “do ONE thing each break” and “Take the First Exit” techniques, it’s not like that for the Listener at all (read more - Tip # 136)

Here’s a tip for interviews. Steer away from telling the guest something about himself or herself that they already know. “You have two dogs” doesn’t give the guest anything to say except, “Yes.” But “Do you have any pets?” leaves the guest room to say, “Yeah, I have two dogs. One’s a poodle called “Curly,” the other’s a Golden Retriever that we named Smiley. And Smiley really DOES smile!” (read more - Tip # 137)

This is an obvious one, or at least it should be. I get asked a lot about running live phone calls or phone interviews. In a music format, ALL phone calls from listeners and interviews done over the phone should be recorded. Yes, all of them. (The only time you want to do an interview live is when you have someone in the studio with you for an interview while you’re on the air.) Why? So you can control the environment (read more - # 138)

If you’ve seen the video of one of the Eagles’ “Farewell” tours (the 97th one, I believe), you may have taken note of Glenn Frey talking about their “Circle of Fear.” Simply put, the Eagles have, for over 30 years, meant great harmonies, sometimes 4 or even 5-part group sings that soar above the heavens in smoothness, imagination, coordination, and dead-on pitch. They simply don’t hit “off notes,” and that’s because they work extremely hard at it (read more - Tip # 139)

Lately, I’ve been trying to help people understand about how to make it about both you and the Listener. For a long time, the thought I put forward was to try and see the Listener, and what his or her life involves, picture what that person is going through, and work from that vision back to the Control Room. This was an effort to get away from “the wrong end of the binoculars” perspective of starting from the Control Room and beaming out to people what you think they should hear. But there’s a different way to look at it that I discovered by accident (read more - Tip # 140)

One of the strangest things about radio is how the air talents will separate from their real lives, and start “selecting things to talk about.” Stuff from the USA Today “Life” section, articles from magazines, prep sheet material, that e-mail that’s been sent to everyone about 500 times about “what a true friend is” or “what women say, versus what they really mean”—or whatever is on page one of the newspaper “above the fold.” Some of those things are useful….IF you put them in real-life context and reveal your personal “camera angle” in looking at them. But here’s what works better (read more - Tip# 141)

I can understand how—because no matter what information you give out on the air, you immediately get the “What did you just say? What was that number? Who sang that?” types of calls—a lot of radio programmers were fooled into thinking that we have to say everything twice. But it doesn’t work. There are two reasons why people don’t seem to hear what we say (read more - Tip # 142)

There’s a strange phenomenon going around radio like a virus these days. This constant “teasing” of things that don’t matter. PROMOTING AHEAD is a fine idea, and serves a purpose (read more - Tip # 143)

Let’s be clear about Content. It’s not just essential, it’s mandatory if you want your listener to come back and “visit” you more often. And while funny “bits” are what disc jockeys tend to think about, it’s the visit-driven show, rather than the bit-driven show, that gets the biggest audience and results in the best career (read more - Tip #144) 

Here's something so simple that a lot of Air Talents ignore it. Lay out a plan for each day's show before you go on. Say your clock has your spotbreaks at :10, :20, :40, and :50. You do weather out of :20 and :50. So slot in what you'll do into and/or out of each spotbreak. Don't just slot in generic terms like "bit" or "tease." Be specific about which things go where (read more - Tip # 145)

Everything I know about music radio, I learned in 1972. I say this realizing that to some people, that might seem like the Dark Ages, but here’s what was different about what we did then compared to most disc jockeys I hear today: · We didn’t say the obvious.· We didn’t say things twice.· We didn’t waste energy trying to “Sloganeer” some stupid “Positioning Phrase” into people’s heads (read more - Tip # 146)

Normally, my coaching tips are for air talents, but this one is primarily for music radio Program Directors, simply because I don’t want Air Talents to get in trouble with their bosses over something that I said. The old “it’s easier to get forgiveness than it is permission” thing isn’t really true in this day of Corporate Programming templates and marching orders from above. Now, all too often, “This is the way we do it,” good or bad, is the way of the world. So if you’re a PD, please just take a few minutes and read this through, then take a day and let it wash over you (read more - Tip #147)

I was asked recently by the PD of a Newstalk station, who has a new traffic service, to write a short list of “do’s and don’ts” for traffic reports. Here it is for you, free of charge. 1. To begin with, most so-called traffic reports are really just accident reports. What it means to ME (the listener) is what you should be concerned with, because traffic, like news and weather, is a service element. And service elements need to actually be of service. So try letting me know how long that big traffic jam in a certain part of the city is going to take me to wade through, not just that it’s there (read more - Tip #148)

Most promos really miss the mark. They either try to do too much, try too hard to generate interest, or just come across as empty hype. Here’s a checklist of the most important factors in making them great. For purposes of discussion, let’s use morning show promos as an example. The first decisions are the overall strategy (read more - Tip #149)

Everywhere you turn today, you hear people shouting at you. In an effort to “generate excitement,” they’ve lost sight of the picture of being in my car, three feet away. Instead, their enthusiasm, combined with big, ear-cupping headphones, has made them unnaturally loud. Now don’t think for a minute that I’m saying you shouldn’t be enthusiastic, or animated, or excited. Those things are all good. I’m just talking about the decibel level (read more - Tip #150)

Trying too hard to be funny is just about to kill radio. I hear so many jocks these days that sound like they’re only bringing something up so they can do some lame punch line. You’re not Leno. You’re not Letterman. You’re not Comedy Central.  Humor that’s more situational, more grounded in reality, more based on chemistry between members of a team show, or that happens in a phone call or a contest giveaway is a thousand times better, because you’re not trying so hard (read more - Tip # 151)

Imagine a guy working in Home Depot, and you walk up to him and ask him about what kind of finish to put on the deck you just built off the house in the back yard. And he answers by telling you about every project he’s ever done, every problem he’s ever helped a customer with, and every single product that you should consider buying. That guy is like a lot of air talents I hear nowadays talking about station events (read more - Tip #152)

Seems like the first time I noticed a lot of exceptional female air talents was back in the eighties. In Houston, where I was, we had Sheila Mayhew, who “wowed” us by landing a national Budweiser spot as a voice actor. She did a fine midday show, too, and was a lot more than just a girl disc jockey. She was a vibrant, interesting, and style-conscious. There were many others, of course (read more - Tip # 153)

Often I’m amazed at how experienced air talents can divorce themselves from relevant Content because “everyone’s gonna be talking about that.” In a session recently, I asked a guy what he had said about the night before’s American Idol show, and his answer was “Nothing.” When I asked why, he said that because “everyone and his brother” was going to be talking about it, “that was covered.” My answer was simple, and short. “Your opinion wasn’t” (read more - Tip #154)

If you’ve worked with me or read any of my coaching tips, you know that pretty much anything besides saying the name of the station the first thing out of your mouth each break is open to being “broken down” and examined. Motive is the key to what poisons radio for a lot of people, and techniques that get around the “agenda” of most air talents and radio stations are what I teach a lot of the time. For instance, giving your phone number out on the air (read more - Tip #154)

Here’s the simplest, but most overlooked, factor in sounding great on the air. Picture a see-saw. On one end is “take as long as you need.” On the other end is “but be as brief as you can.” They should balance each other out (read more - Tip #156)

Here’s a quick tip from the great Jean Shepherd, a radio legend in the sixties, and the writer of “A Christmas Story” (about the kid who wants the Red Ryder B.B. rifle) and many other hilarious short stories. He once said this about radio: 'The guy out there has a watch, a newspaper, a record player and he can look out the $%^&*!# window to see if it's raining. What are YOU gonna do for him?'  (read more - Tip #157)

Here’s an all-too-typical weather forecast: 
“Cloudy with some patchy fog out there this morning. Highs today in the upper fifties. Lows tonight in the lower thirties. Tomorrow, we’ll have clear to partly cloudy skies, with highs around sixty degrees, and a twenty percent chance of precipitation.”  And you know what this means to the Listener? Practically nothing (read more - Tip #158)

Here’s a quick and easy show prep tip. 
Every day, bring in these three things: 
1. One thing you saw. (Observing real life IS show prep.)
2. One thing that somebody else told you about. (The reason for this is that other people have different “camera angles” from yours.)
3. One thing you read. (But don’t read it to me. Just tell me about it.) 
This will assure your having three solid things to talk about each day (read more - Tip #159)

Recently, I had a morning team that was fighting a lot about show prep. One person is more left-brain driven in his prep, leaning toward being very organized and planned. The other person is a very talented girl, very right-brain driven, wanting to be more spontaneous and organic in the way they approached things. It was a tug of war (read more - Tip #160)

It’s hard to believe that a whole generation of radio Production talents are apparently unaware of this fundamental rule, but I’ve heard this so often lately, I just had to comment on it. Today, for about the hundredth time this month, I heard a concert spot start with the intro of a song, then the voice talent come in and start his “read”  (read more - Tip #161)

Bet you’ve had this happen. Someone finds out you’re on the air, and turns to you and says “Really?! Say something in your ‘radio’ voice.” Rather than be insulted (or worse yet, flattered), try to understand WHY someone would say this. It’s because they’re so used to hearing people in radio sound like “Ted Baxter,” from the old “Mary Tyler Moore” Show (read more - Tip #162)

Air Talents in music formats—especially the ones who do morning shows—hear this from PD’s all the time: “I want more interaction with the audience.” Why? Or more importantly, where’s the Strategy behind this Tactic? (read more - Tip #163)

“To me, 'listening' is being able to be changed by the other person. It's not 'hearing them.' It's not, 'waiting for your cue.' It's not, 'When are they going to stop so I can talk?' It's letting them in." – Alan Alda, Inside the Actor's Studio --- I knew there was a reason I always liked Alan Alda. He “gets it” (read more - Tip #164)

Statistics and "data" can make it all go "left brain," especially when you're doing a Sports update. (Like the old George Carlin bit, where he says "Here are the baseball scores from tonight: 8 to 5, 4 to 3, 13 to 7, and 2 to 1."). But just like the News, it's not really very effective to be about data, information, and "things" (read more Tip #165)

The one phrase that should be stenciled on every talent's forehead is "Does my listener care?" We do want to be personally revealing, but you can’t just walk up to some stranger and one and show them your kid's baby pictures. So try to put that “connecting link” between you and the listener as close to the beginning as possible (read more - Tip# 166)

Thanks to my friend, Donna Cruz of WAY-FM, who inspired this tip. When you have a subject working, generating phone calls, you want to set up each call with a slightly different “camera angle” (read more - Tip # 167)

I'm not much on defining roles for people; I think it's more about revealing who you are, and being you becomes your role. But the real you, not the "disc jockey" you. The more we learn about how your mind works, what stirs you emotionally, and what your opinions are, the more you become three-dimensional to the listener (read more - Tip # 168)

Plainly put, the modern malady can be described in one line: Attitude is not a substitute for Content. The reason Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn (Dharma and Greg, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory) are so successful—and before them, Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, who wrote dozens of episodes of the Andy Griffith Show, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, etc.—is because they never thought that a character’s attitude alone was funny or entertaining. You still had to have the chops, and deliver the goods (read more - Tip #169)

In 2009, Walter Cronkite's passing brought up an interesting fact. Cronkite actually trained himself to speak at a rate of only about 120 words a minute, a little slower than most people, and way slower than a lot of newsmen of his era. (Most people speak at about 165 words a minute; fast, difficult-to-understand talkers speak close to 200 words per minute). By purposely going a little bit slower than normal, Cronkite knew that [A] it would make him stand out, and [B] people would understand everything he said (read more - Tip #170)

Oddly enough, soliciting stories from people usually has the opposite result. You don't get many, and the ones you do get are often rambling, or the exact opposite of compelling. But if you solicit input that requires some sort of illumination, that'll result in a story. That sounds kind of elusive (read more - Tip #171)

My thanks to Janine Fairchild of 91.5 WCIC in Peoria, who inspired this tip with this email…Tommy, I love how your coaching challenges me and makes me think!  I've been checking out your web site - would you give me a little direction on where to find the right / left brain info? (read more - Tip # 172)

The role of anyone in an ensemble or team environment—radio or television—is to make the OTHER person look good. That’s a pretty easy platitude to send forth, but to me it’s a bit soft and mushy. It’s also important for you to feel that your partner or co-host CARES as much about the end result as you do (read more - Tip # 173)

A couple of years ago, I began the first coaching session with a young morning show talent by asking what he’d like to become. His answer was “I’d like to be Howard Stern.” I’ve had other people say “I want to be Kidd Kraddick” (Dallas great), or “I want to be Ryan Seacrest.” Well, as I told them, those people are already there, so you’re gonna have to be somebody ELSE (read more - Tip #174)

Here are the reasons why an iPod is better than most MusicRadio stations:  It only plays songs I like - If I hit “shuffle,” I don’t know which song will play next, so it actually has some element of surprise - It doesn’t tease the next song, or the next three songs. (Again, that “surprise” thing  (read more - Tip #175)

Taking something for granted is almost always a mistake. It hit home as I was listening to a morning show the other day, and heard one person say to the other “So how was your weekend?” Then the other person launched into some story that had NOTHING TO DO WITH ME or my life. You hear it in interviews, too. One person talking to the other, but no one “pulling up a chair at the table” for the Listener (read more - Tip #176)

In an effort to show that they’re up to date, a lot of radio stations are spending way too much time constantly referencing Facebook and Twitter. There’s nothing wrong with those (or with texting, email, or the station’s website) as additional ways to connect with the listener, but remember that you’re on the air, and that these other things don’t show up in Arbitron or PPM. If you want listener feedback, the first and best way to get it is by having a person call you (read more - Tip # 177)

Radio is about People, what people feel (Emotions), and then do as a result of those feelings. To convey these in a compelling way, you have to use only the information that brings those Emotions to light, and that means having a really good vocabulary and language skills. Sadly, I hear a lot of people on the air now who are woefully undereducated  (read more - Tip # 178)

Let me make this clear: Try to NEVER put the calls right next to a commercial. "Brand Name = Commercials" is a dangerous and damaging thought to subconsciously feed the listener every few minutes. Simply open the break with the name of the station, say something compelling, then take the “First Exit” out. To "pound in those calls" has no relevance, in terms of being remembered  (read more - Tip # 179)

So much of radio today consists of people saying things that no human being would ever utter in real conversation. And then they wonder why their ratings aren’t higher. A lot of this, of course, is because of the station’s agenda to constantly promote, promote, promote—never leaving much room to actually ENTERTAIN, which is why people listen to the radio in the first place. But it’s also because of extremely poor copy writing  (read more - Tip # 180)

There’s a great line from the movie “Network” where old-line newsman Howard Beale (Academy Award winner Peter Finch) is told by new show developer Faye Dunnaway to “articulate the popular rage.” Now this movie, written by Pulitzer-prize winner Paddy Cheyevski—was made in 1977, so “rage” was at its core. You may remember Beale’s famous urging for people to shout out their windows “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!” (read more - Tip # 181)

Great stations have this buzz about them -- this vibe that everyone is pumped about working there. Not-so-great stations feel like a widget factory, populated by people waiting for their shifts to end so they can go home (read more - Tip #182)

One of the main differences between disc jockeys and voice actors is that disc jockeys don’t now how to breathe. On the air, you hear jocks rushthroughlineswithouttakingabreath, then HAVING to take a big, gasping breath because they didn’t pause where they should have. A lot of this is simply bad Program Directors and copy writers giving them too much to say over a song intro or when they stop down, and a lot of it is just bad training  (read more - Tip #183)

Seems to me that New Year’s isn’t the only day you can make a resolution. It only seems logical that if we see something going wrong, we should be free to choke the life out of it right now. So let’s stop the Phone Dependency Madness. Every show I hear is full of pointless drivel from people with nothing to say, responding to some desperate disc jockey’s “What do you think?” plea that’s really nothing more than “Won’t you do my show for me, please?”  (read more - Tip #184)

Most jocks are like bears on ice skates when they’re trying to “wing it” talking about something that has a lot of information built into it (a station promotion, a contest, details of a blood drive or other charity event). They just stumble forward, doing their best to “keep their balance” between being compelling and covering all the informational “bases”  (read more - Tip #185)

Radio’s getting too generic, and people are settling for the “well everybody can identify with this” reasoning far too much. If it can be done on any day, then it’s not really about today. That makes it NOT topical. We don’t want to be just an audio magazine, with random articles “of interest” to people  (read more - Tip #186)

In the secret chambers of how to be truly great on the air is the Holy Grail: Getting to the Complete Thought, instead of settling for the Incomplete Thought. A lot of Programming and “what to do” thoughts in radio are incomplete. They seem like a good idea, but in reality, carry a negative part that’s like a bitter aftertaste because they haven’t been completely fleshed out (read more - Tip #187)

Fairly often, something gets said in a coaching session that isn’t exactly what you’d call “Consultant Speak.” A great example happened recently with my friend Jerry Woods, a fine talent  in the Contemporary Christian format  (read more - Tip #188)

Everything matters, not just the “Content” stuff. If you throw away how you handle the “basics,” you make it seem like the radio station itself is “the poor stepchild.” Unless you can sound like you CARE about the station, its promotions and contests, what’s on the website, the song and artist information, the News, the weather, the Traffic—all those elements that aren’t strictly the “personality” elements—you’re not a fully rounded air talent yet  (read more - Tip #189)

There are two basic ways of getting into Content, the first one being to start with the Subject ("sometimes we lose things, and sometimes we find things"), the second one being to reference the listener. Often, this second one starts with "if," as in "If your kids play video games, I'm sure you've seen how violent they can be" or "If you're a paranoid person, you probably don't feel safe much of the time." And that's fine. "If" is the Magic Word that makes all things plausible  (read more - Tip #190)

Man, we sure hear a lot of music under things these days. But sometimes, it isn’t serving any purpose. Remember, if a piece of music isn't absolutely perfect to "cradle" a subject, you're going to be better off not using music underneath it at all  (read more - Tip #191)

On Friday, July 16^th, I was privileged to do a session at The Conclave in Minneapolis with my friend Mike O’Malley called “50 Ideas in 50 Minutes.”  Although we knew early on that 50 would be impossible, we were able to offer up 26 prime examples of creative things done by air talents we’ve worked with as ways to think beyond just “being funny” or taking stuff off some prep sheet  (read more - Conclave Update)

I get asked a lot—especially by young air talents--who’s a good role model. And usually, the answers aren’t the typical radio guys. In fact, some aren’t in radio at all, even though I recommend what they do to disc jockeys. A great example is Brett Erlich  (read more - Tip #192)

Frankly, almost everything I teach to radio people - after they master the “basics” I’ve culled from the greats (Gordon McLendon, Bill Drake, etc.) - is acting stuff.  Besides radio people, I also work with a number of people in TV and quite a few voiceover actors, but that grew as an offshoot of what I’d already been teaching for years  (read more - Tip #193)

My friend Beau Weaver, an excellent voiceover actor in Los Angeles, was recently the host of a panel at the Voice 2010 seminar. I’ve worked with Beau on and off ever since we first met in 1972, and his transition from being a great disc jockey to succeeding in the voiceover universe has been inspiring. A lot of it is counter-intuitive, because you have to un-learn a lot of what you get taught as a disc jockey if you ever hope to get any sizeable amount of work  (read more - Tip #194)

Lately, I hear a lot of people doing things on the air that, frankly, they’re not very good at. It’s only natural to think that being good at one thing means that you’re automatically good at another thing. Lead guitar players think they can be great bass players. Actors think they can be great directors. Tennis players think they’ll be great at golf. Disc jockeys who cut a lot of Production think they’re gonna get hired to do movie trailers in L. A. tomorrow. Then they learn the truth, and sometimes it’s pretty ugly (read more - Tip #195)

Here’s the radio version of the Human Growth Hormone that builds athletes up—except this is about building your on-air chops up. There are three things you need as a talent. You should be (1) Encouraged to try, (2) Forgiven if you fail, but (3) Expected to improve  (read more - Tip #196)

One of the things about my job I love the most is getting to work with young talents. Hopefully, since there’s virtually no training anymore, I can head them off at the pass before they turn into faceless, shouting, liner-reading robots, and help them find ways to sound truly unique  (read more - Tip #197)

When I was Corporate Talent Coach for Paxson Radio’s then 47 stations in Florida and Tennessee, one of the things that was part of my job was to screen all the airchecks and resumes we got in from people looking for jobs. I got three boxes—color-coded red (for “Stop! Don’t hire this person!”), yellow (“Maybe…there is something here…”), and green (“The minute we have an opening, hire this jock”)  (read more - Tip #198)

There are LOTS of people looking for a job these days, so in the last tip, I went over how to make an aircheck. Let’s continue that theme with how to write a resume.  1.  Don’t use “flowery” language to “dress up” what you’ve done. If you were a phone screener for a Talk Show, don’t say that you were “Executive Producer of the Jim Blowhard Program, in which you assisted in the show prep, scheduling of guests, and creating, editing, and updating website Content.” Being a really good screener is a valuable skill  (read more - Tip #199)

In the last couple of tips, we’ve gone over how to make an aircheck, and how to write a resume. If you’re one of the hundreds of people looking for a job in radio, here’s the final installment, How To Follow Up on a Job. First, don’t be too eager. An email works better than a phone call. A simple “Please let me know if you didn’t receive my aircheck, or if you have any trouble listening to it” is great. It doesn’t demand anything from me, and it doesn’t make you sound desperate (read more - Tip #200) 

In a coaching session not long ago, this thought came up: The more the show takes on a "surprise me" factor, the better. Breathing life into things that you're going to talk about multiple times could actually be a good definition of what the core challenge of radio is  (read more - Tip #201)

Recently, a Program Director of a station that I just began working with a short time ago (who wishes to remain anonymous) sent me a note that was somewhat puzzling. Not because I didn’t know what the answer was, but more because it made me wonder who we’re listening to  (read more - Tip #202)

Here’s why you simply have to have Personality on the radio. Just being a music source isn’t good enough anymore (if it ever was), because the way it’s set up on iTunes or Amazon, they make recommendations based on what I’ve already listened to or bought. So their sense of what I might enjoy is actually far more accurate than your little playlist, which contains at least a hundred songs that I could never stand in the first place, or I’m sick of now and never want to hear again—no matter what your format is  (read more - Tip #203)  

Here’s the real deal about your voice: First of all, you can have a big voice, or you can have a light voice. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that people find you interesting; that you pull them in toward you to hear what you have to say next  (read more - Tip #204)

Okay, if you’re an Apple hater—you don’t like Mac computers, don’t like the iPhone, and would never buy an iPad—this may not be your favorite coaching tip that I’ve written. Of course, if you’re using a PC, you’re probably not reading this anyway, because you’re sitting through a Norton Security scan, Windows Updates that’ll take 20 minutes, or an Error Message  (read more - Tip #205)

The father of the modern “method acting” school, Constantin Stanislavski, taught many things that apply to radio, because radio in its most basic form is Voice Acting. You may be playing the part of a person with your name, your lifestyle, and your appearance, but no one wants to hear you fold your socks, so it’s always acting to some degree if you’re going to seem interesting at all  (read more - Tip #206)

It’s insane how many air talents think of mere habits as “benchmarks” that people listen for. Anything done once too often becomes old hat  (read more - Tip #207)

In the last tip, we talked about habits, and how they’re double-edged swords, because today’s new “benchmark” is tomorrow’s old tired bit. Another facet of this thinking is recycling material within a show. Almost everybody seems to think it’s okay, but it’s not. Here’s why you SHOULDN’T do it  (read more - Tip #208)

By now, anyone familiar with my coaching knows that I use several basic Stanislavski method acting techniques as essential building blocks in moving up to a level above that of simple Disc Jockey. One of his main principles is “The Magic IF”—which is a huge key to having more than one dimension on the air, too. And it’s easy  (read more - Tip #209)

Most talents don’t want to dwell very much on technique. They’re afraid that somehow their creative spark will disappear if they think too much about the mechanical aspects of how to do things. This, of course, is ridiculous  (read more - Tip #210)

Seems like one of the main themes of life in the 21^st century is dodging accountability. I see this all the time, where a talent has to hear something in order to improve, but if it’s not sugar-coated or paired with pleasant compliments first, they reject it simply because it wasn’t delivered gift-wrapped like they wanted  (read more - Tip #211)

Here’s something I heard the other day. A station played a Cash Call Contest winner promo, and the jock giving the money away did a good job with it. The winner was excited, and the promo really clicked—until the end, when the jock on the air came in with a live tag that told me that another Cash Call was coming up this morning, and I should “Know it, remember it, and win it.”  (read more - Tip #212)

Make a bold statement. I don’t mean you have to be offensive or outlandish, just say something that actually makes a dent in the listener’s mind  (read more - Tip #213)

For years, it was thought that print was the perfect companion to audio. Sending the listener to your website to read something, get more information, download recipes, etc. was absolutely beaten into the ground. And because 98% of station websites look alike, with all their banner ads and flashing displays, the head shots of the talent, their boring blogs, and the made up “profiles” that no one cares about (“Gee, he likes peanut butter! Amazing!”), this didn’t really add much to the package  (read more - Tip #214)

I get asked a lot about how long interviews should last. The quick answer is “It should end before I want to kill the guest—or you, for having him on so long.” In practical terms, plan on one segment. Depending on your format, this may be a quarter hour in Talk, or about as long as it takes to play a song in a music format  (read more - Tip #215)

In football coach Bill Parcells’ 1995 book “Finding a Way to Win,” he says “What many people in football—and in business—fail to understand is that there’s a major difference between skill and talent. Skills are basic tools, and we all know they’re important. But skills alone can’t carry you if you lack the talent to apply them in performance  (read more - Tip #216)

In many cases, my first coaching session with someone is all about seeing if they’re flexible, or so set in their ways that they no longer have the capacity to change and learn. It’s a different world in radio (and in TV, and in the Voice Acting arena) than it was 10 or 15 years ago  (read more- Tip #217)

NFL coaching legend Bill Parcells says “The more you prepare beforehand, the more relaxed and creative and effective you’ll be when it counts.” Amen (read more - Tip #218)

The great musician Stephen Stills once joked that he was going to name one of his albums “Music from Big Ego.” Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were surely one of the top 3 groups of all time (read more - Tip #219)

To paraphrase the late, great voice actor Don LaFontaine, “In a world…” where competition is keen, never underestimate the power of stupidity. Most radio stations today have built-in MAJOR flaws that hold them back and make them vulnerable to attack. They tease 100 times too much, so nothing stands out. They have Imaging pieces running between songs half the time, so you don’t even know who the deejay is (read more - Tip #220)

This tip is primarily aimed at music radio stations, but there are thoughts here that apply to Talk formats, too. I'm pro-Subject, but anti-"Topic"—because "topic" indicates that you have no confidence in what you have to say being enough, you think some sort of discussion is required to make an impact, and it denotes that you have an agenda to put listener calls on the air, instead of having each call EARN its way onto the air by contributing something new and unique to the conversation (rather than just giving another example of the same thing) (read more - Tip #221)

Think of a butterfly. First, it was a caterpillar. Then it went into the chrysalis stage. And finally, it became a butterfly. The evolution of a great air talent is very similar  (read more - Tip #222)

I hear a lot of people lately who still think that “News of the Weird” or “Stupid Criminals” stories or “funny facts”—little oddities outside the mainstream of “regular” Content—are valid. They aren’t (read more - Tip #223)

The NFL’s all-time leading rusher, Dallas Cowboys great Emmitt Smith, tells the story about doing a showy celebration in the end zone after a touchdown when he was young, and then being scolded by his dad, who said “Act like you’ve been there before” (read more - Tip #224) 

As with everything in radio, we try to come up with Rules, but then we think of the exceptions. Let me try to sum up the whole name thing. If you have a truly unique name (Mancow, for instance), one name will do. This is one name out of a hundred, maybe one in a thousand (read more - Tip #225)

Some of the people I coach are hesitant at first to take advice from anyone unless they know that person has (or had) some “chops” on-air himself. By way of illustration, I went through some old airchecks recently of a couple of the morning team shows I was fortunate enough to be part of in my career (read more - Tip #226)

It’s hard to understand why so many air talents struggle with how to give a meaningful Time Line. I heard this one the other day: a morning show teased a contest—their major contest—as “coming up after 8:30.” So when is that? 8:35? 9 o’clock? 10 o’clock? Those are all “after 8:30”  (read more - Tip #227)

The other day, I heard someone doing a thing on the air that was really compelling. It drew phone call response that was sweet, touching, and relevant. The jock was really connecting with the audience. But it went on for two hours. Look, I like ice cream, but I don’t want to eat a gallon of it in one sitting (read more - Tip #228)

The quickest way to sound boring is to tell me the whole gist of what I’m going to hear next. If you missed the story, (insert guest’s name here) will share it with us in just a few minutes” tells me exactly what he’s going to talk about. You just sucked any illusion of spontaneity out of it. So why should I listen? (read more - Tip #229)

A lot of air talents struggle with how to sound spontaneous, but still be prepared enough to do a good show. If you’re just “winging it” all the time, someone who’s as talented as you are but better organized is going to kill you in the ratings. But if everything you do sounds planned, you’re dead in the water (read more - Tip #230)

Often, I get told that an air talent is GREAT, but only about 3 out of 100 really are. That’s because to a lot of people in radio, being “great” equates to simply being funny or energetic or having off-the-wall ideas. Now those are fine qualities, but if you’re in a music format, ask yourself these questions before you label yourself as great (read more - Tip #231)

It’s hard to believe how many air talents struggle with being better edited. They do things that are simply too long, or they do things that aren’t that long measured by a stopwatch, but they SEEM long (read more - Tip #232)

For quite a while now, everything has been leaning toward Shock. Not just radio. Advertising, movies, music, the fashion industry, Politics, tabloid journalism, News coverage, image-making. But SURPRISE is much stronger. Shock gets old after a while. What was shocking a few years ago is pretty much no big deal today (read more - Tip #233)

In the last tip, I discussed the element of Surprise, and how crucial it is to being great. And also how Surprise is better than mere Shock. There’s a companion piece to this: Discovery (read more - Tip #234)

I actually heard a talk show host I work with say this on the air recently: “"I have to admit, I thought the minute I brought this on this morning the phones would erupt...evidently you think this is a big yawn…" Obviously, the reason he said this was because he wasn’t getting the reaction he expected. After that, he did get a couple of calls—but they were BORING (read more - Tip #235)

It would be hard to think of anyone who had a more successful career in broadcasting than Paul Harvey. For years, if you had him on in the morning, the 12noon news block, and “The Rest of the Story” that afternoon, you could run dog whistle noises the rest of the time and still have pretty good ratings (read more - Tip #236)

Think about how many times you’ve heard someone on a radio station say something like “We have some tickets to give away…” So? Big deal. But if they said “You can win some tickets…” you’d be more apt to listen (read more - Tip #237)

Okay, let’s set some goals. The way radio’s going nowadays, there are a lot of pretty talented people who are about to give up on it—not to mention that this vibe is coming across to listeners, who have their own reasons for not wanting to listen to it as much as they used to (read more - Tip #238)

Here’s something to think about. If you want your station to get better, try LISTENING to it. You’ll hear things the other jocks say (and talk about them as a result), and that’ll make the station sound like you actually know each other and have conversations with each other (read more - Tip #239)

This is mainly geared to team shows, but it applies to everyone, really. You have to make your partner look good—even if you don’t LIKE your partner. You have to TRY, because Management IS looking at you (read more - Tip #240)

Recently, a Consultant friend told me about a PD who actually cut and pasted a portion of a complaint from a listener and e-mailed it to the morning show—while they were on the air! Predictably, this led to my friend having to spend all afternoon cleaning up the mess. And of course, the morning show talents feel like they’ve been the victims of a drive-by. Plus, as is often the case, the complaint was based on something that never actually happened the way it was described  (read more - Tip #241)

Language is what draws people in--or pushes them away. The right ideas done with the wrong language become "blah, blah, blah" on the air. And of course, those same ideas, framed with the right vocabulary can be a magnet for getting the listener's attention  (read more - Tip #242)

At least half a dozen talents have told me in the past year that they believe they’d be better if they were part of a team show. “If I just had a partner, I could sound so much better, because I could see the reaction” (read more - Tip #243)

If you don’t already do this, listen to your air work, if not every day, at least a couple of times a week. If you don't yet hear yourself as you really sound, you'll go 150 beats per minute over a song that's only 90 beats per minute  (read more - Tip #244)

This may seem obvious, but from some of the stuff I’m hearing lately, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Especially when it comes to putting callers or guests on (read more - Tip #245)

When you choose a path in talking about something that doesn’t do that, you’re limiting the impact your Content could have. It’s like opening a restaurant that only serves toast—and I have to make it myself, using a candle  (read more - Tip #246)

Any radio station needs a solid foundation of “left-brain” elements: the mathematics of where exactly in the hour the commercials and promos play, the music rotation, etc. If a station is formatically weak, inconsistent, or just poorly designed, it won’t succeed  (read more - Tip #247)

John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, has a wonderful little book called “Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success Playbook.” It’s an easy and fascinating read; one I highly recommend  (read more Tip #248) 

Here’s a thought from NFL coaching great Bill Parcells that applies directly to radio, television, and voice acting: “If the competition has laptop computers and you’re still using yellow legal pads, it won’t matter how long and hard you work—they’re going to pass you by”  (read more Tip #249)

If you want to stay on top of your game, here’s one thing you may not have thought of—but need to. Breath life into the basic stuff—the name of the station, a song and artist backsell, the weather forecast, promoting something coming up  (read more - Tip #250)

Excitable isn't the same as purposeful. Sounding like you just sat down on a Popsicle doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re connecting with me as a listener  (read more - Tip #251)

For some reason, a lot of people in radio seem to think that more Information is the key to making the listener care. This is rarely the case (read more - Tip #252)

Here’s the latest illness in radio—one that’s hemorrhaging blood from it every day. Much of the time, lately, it seems like the part of what’s being said that matters the LEAST to the air talent is the name of the station!  (read more - Tip #253)