What are the secrets of becoming an entertaining personality? While virtually all stations embrace the digital technology of voice-tracking varied dayparts outside of morning drive, the voice track talent’s performance helps build Stationality. Some talents voice-track a five-hour show in less than 90 minutes so they can perform other tasks like production, music scheduling, show prep, and promotion appearances. The challenge for today’s “e-personality” is not to treat the process of voice-tracking as work on an “assembly line.”
Filter Pillars
For voice-tracking, there are three filter pillars for your VT content:
Pillar 1: Be engaging, interesting, and entertaining. What’s your angle? Have a personal story that engages the audience that they will find interesting and entertaining.
Pillar 2: Your content should be relevant to the audience and the station’s brand. What’s on the listener’s desktop? It’s easier and more compelling to address what’s already on their mind than airing content that they have to think about or may be irrelevant to them. Also, is it consistent with your station’s brand?
Pillar 3: Strive for local content. A story may not necessarily be happening locally, but can someone living in your coverage area relate to it? For example, a story from Idaho may not have appeal to someone in Wisconsin.
Listener Connection
Consider these seven tips on creating an entertaining show – whether voice-tracked or live – to make an excellent listener connection.
- Know your target audience. Who are the listeners and what’s their lifestyle, age, and where do they live? Create a listener and speak one to one with them when recording your tracks.
- Understand the station’s format. What do listeners expect from your station, its benefits, and how’s it different from the competition?
- Practice Nielsen Basics. Voice-tracking should sound like live shifts. Getting cume and maintaining quarter-hour shares depend on these two rules of the ratings game: sell the station name and frequency and constantly tease ahead.
- Connect With the Music. This essential connection may be difficult when voice-tracking, but it’s not impossible. Music may be the reason listeners come to the station, so personally connect with the music.
- 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.
- Connect with the station. Cross promote other dayparts and promote ahead benchmarks, features, and contests. Know every aspect of the station and help listeners know it too.
- Morning Focus. Winning audience requires outperforming the competition on every level. And it starts with mornings, the talents who have the intuition and discipline to keep the station smart, fun and moving forward. Great stations have a morning momentum that extends through the day. Each program possesses its distinct trademark and sound with features that play into the listener’s imagination.
Beyond morning show benchmarks, the personality is a big local attraction. The show is so user-friendly and fun that everyone wants to listen to it every day. What a concept!
These general guidelines help focus the personality and create the Stationality a winning station needs. Listeners respond positively to a station with bigger-than-life Stationality – even if some shows are voice-tracked. Today’s successful air talent becomes an “emotion personality” by creating a connection with the listeners. This is the crucial bond that differentiates a compelling radio station from an “automated” sounding one.
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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.