Your connection with the audience and the station is essential.
Connect With the Audience. Air personalities know their audience and customize their on-air approach around the lifestyle of their listeners. Visit the audience on their “turf” and observe their activities in your show prep.
+ Provide Discretionary Time Information. People live for their leisure time. Help listeners plan it with DTI and local relatables. Make each show unique, e.g., Monday is the start of the week, Friday begins the weekend, March is the end of winter, morning means getting up and off to work, midday is work time, afternoon is go-home time, etc. Reflect the time of day, day of the week (beyond using the crutch, “it’s a Tuesday!”), and time of the year on the air.
+ Reflect “Listener Usage” Activities. How does the audience “use” the
station? Provide new ways to “use” it as a complement to commuting, working, relaxing and leisure time activities.
- “Taking the kids to soccer practice Saturday morning? Take us along on your car radio!”
- “Driving around the mall parking lot on Sunday looking for an open space? Keep us on for good luck!”
+ Be Topical. What is the big event of the day? Gas prices, very windy, heavy rain, daylight savings time, opening day in baseball, etc. Everybody goes to work in the morning and meets a friend around the coffee machine or water cooler. After weather, what is discussed?
+ Everyone locally is talking about the Big Event. Give listeners fuel for discussions by reading the daily papers and browsing Internet information sites. Whether it’s a Big Event news story or a morning show stunt, people will depend on the radio so they can talk about it at work.
+ Sound Local…so local that an AI jock won’t replace you! Localization requires reflecting the attitude and emotion of the community. Work in delivery elements of local interest beyond the crutch of city names.
Connect with the Station. This final “connection” may be the most important for ratings.
+ Cross promote other dayparts and help listeners sample the station for greater TSL. In morning drive, promote at-work listening middays; in midday, promote drive-home listening.
+ Passionately sell station attributes with enthusiasm and by addressing the listeners’ needs first. Liners must start with the benefit, not the feature name, as this selling technique catches the audience best. Lead with “what’s in it for them”, the real benefit.
+ Use the concept of forward momentum. Television is constantly billboarding what’s ahead, and so should radio. Dateline promotes their next show, as well as NBC Nightly News, and the Today Show. You are seeing more “split screens” with one half showing the credits and the other half promoting the next show. Radio needs to take a tip from TV.
Pic AI generated by Envato Elements.
John Lund is President of the Lund Media Group, a radio programming consulting firm with specialists in all mainstream radio formats. Did you find this article useful? You can leave a comment below or email John at John@Lundradio.com.