Dave Ramsey
Malzberg
Sean Hannity
Category: Advice
Station Management: Three for your Netflix List
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Forget those boring management training videos! The acting is bad, and the situations are contrived.
Instead? Rent these three Hollywood hits and share with your team.
Sexual Harassment:
See “Disclosure,” in which Demi Moore’s buff, ruthless executive hits on male subordinate Michael Douglas. Author Michael Crichton (“Jurassic Park”) turned the tables by making a woman the unwanted aggressor. And in doing so, he shows us one of industry’s more volatile issues from a different angle, one sure to sensitize your employees to nuances they might miss by examining the problem from the usual man-hassles-woman perspective.
Your Aircheck Notes
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND — Tell me THIS doesn’t validate the consultant caricature! I’m in a rental car, driving the pattern… or camped-out in a hotel, waiting for room service to deliver the BLT and Diet Coke, and more packets of that in-room coffee. I’m… listening. Stealthy, almost gumshoe, eh?
Relax. Notes which follow aren’t necessarily about you, personally.
On second thought, DON’T relax. Be psyched. Be stoked. Bring your “A” game, every day. Because the dang consultant gets paid to listen. Your concern is people-who-don’t, “real people,” listeners, each a potential PPM panelist or diarykeeper…and prospect for your retail advertisers.
So here are some generic Do’s-N-Don’ts, based on many miles along the winding radio road:
Have You Hugged a Lawyer Today?
An Exterminator?
By Holland Cooke
Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND — If you work on air, you get to keep working because you’re real valuable to sales. Heck, you should be in sales, if only handling a handful of accounts that you yourself prospected. Commission-only! The station has zero to lose, and another set of feet on the street; and you COULD double your income. Yes you could.
To get you started, here’s a sure shot, including killer copy points, from a radio great.
When I moderated the very first session at the very first Talkers New Media Seminar — as Talkers New York was called in the 1990s – venerable Bruce Williams was among the panelists. And he ad-libbed a paragraph my clients have been making money with ever since.
Although Bruce’s recognizable voice and trust-me delivery slam-dunked the copy, this spot could also be effective voiced by the client, unless the attorney can’t affect the sympathetic delivery necessary.
The Secret of Managing Controversy
By Walter Sabo
Sabo Media
Chairman
NEW YORK — Bob McAllan is the CEO of Press Broadcasting. He put on the two most successful FM Talk stations in the world: New Jersey 101.5 — going into its 22 year — and WTKS-FM Real Radio 104.1 Orlando, launched 1994. Bob and GM John Dziuba made a strategic decision that enabled the station’s hosts to present the most controversial, often outrageous opinions with minimal fallout.
Their single decision gave management the freedom to sell advertising on the stations, defend the hosts and manage the talent in an environment void of fear. Bob and John decided that their STATIONS must never present an opinion or point of view. Simultaneously they realized that to have winning stations, the hosts must have well prepared, very strong points of view on every single topic.
After consulting and operating the largest talk stations in the world, I believe the paragraph you just read sums up the programming infrastructure for success.
Your Station Promos: “Blah, blah, blah?”
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Nothing we say about the station on-air adds listeners, because the only people who hear promos are already listening.
The goal of on-air promotion is to add Time Spent Listening (TSL) by existing cume — specifically adding additional occasions of listening — with messages which suggest why-and-when to come-back-for what-promos-promise.
Five Critical Steps to Success with
Online Video for Radio Websites
By Walter Sabo
Sabo Media
Chairman
NEW YORK — Since 2007 a company our team founded, HITVIEWS, has pioneered the monetization of online video. While giants such as Budweiser wasted $28M on little watched BudTV, we discovered an extremely efficient way to reach audiences with online video. The internet has inspired a new breed of stars: Online Video “webstars” and HITVIEWS was the first to identify them and link them with advertisers.
Very smart brands know they need to be in the online video space but ALL of their initiatives failed to garner a significant viewership. But “webstars” like Jenna Marbles, TheHIll88, Nalts, Whatthebuck, Sxephil, Tobuscus, Community Channel and a select group of other elite online performers are able to pull MILLIONS of viewers to each of their videos.
Boston Bombing: How Radio Can Help…
Or Hurt.
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BOSTON — Prediction: The Boston perpetrator(s)’ capture will be crowdsourced.
Today, you will be photographed, possibly hundreds of times. Cameras are everywhere now. They’re in banks and stores. They’re robo-toll-takers, and toll-evader witnesses; and red-light cameras and automated radar traps have become a controversial new municipal revenue stream. Riding mass transit? Smile. Since 9/11, that’s been The New Normal…on a normal day.
Comrex Access: Why Every Show
Needs One
By Charles Karel Bouley
Host
The Karel Show
SAN FRANCISCO — Technology has changed every part of our lives and that is especially true for those in the arts, particularly broadcasting. What it used to take a truck to do, now takes less than a briefcase and cost 1/100th the original price.
Radio today is changing; no longer is it just terrestrial. It’s the stream, it’s the podcast, the Twitter, the YouTube — it’s moving at the speed of sound. But many hosts are not. They are stuck in their studios doing the same type of radio that worked 20 or more years ago.
So You Want to be Syndicated?
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — I can help you. But first, can I talk you out of it?
Why: In olden times, each radio station had four departments:
1. Programming, whose favor you’ll need to curry, since you’re offering a program;
- 2. Sales, especially if you’re planning a weekend show, since the sales department programs weekends at talk stations;
3. General & Administrative (“Corporate is reviewing your contract”);
4. Engineering (“Which receiver is it on?”).
RU @Speed-of-Life?
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Listeners are busy and radio talent is spooked.
• Listeners? “OMG,” they’re texting, too often while driving. Most of their other media activity is also interactive, on-demand, hit-and-run. Notice how you yourself use your smartphone.
• Radio talent? Doubly-spooked!
1. It’s official: “Job security” is now an oxymoron. No names, but a real talented guy who works for a great big company’s major station in a top 10 market tells me: “Every Friday that I’m not fired is the beginning of a good weekend.” Survivors are playing it safe, sometimes too safe.
2. Many still working are, with best intentions, over-reacting to PPM. Often, their doing so highlights a disconnect with listeners’ speed-of-life.
Five Impact Trends to Help You Reach the Future Safely
By Walter Sabo
Sabo Media
Chairman
NEW YORK – The challenge of working at most radio stations or broadcast companies is the staff is pre-occupied with job security. As a result, trends that should be noted and discussed are dismissed in order to prepare the weekend schedule and worry about corporate. As the CEO of an executive-on-demand company, Sabo Media, we are presented daily with new products, talent and ideas. Here are five that are interesting and may be helpful in growing your business:
Have You Hugged Twitter Today?
By Holland Cooke RadioConsultant 
BLOCK ISLAND – Remember Seinfeld-in-reverse? It was a special episode that was entirely backwards. It began with closing credits and ended with the opening theme. The plot started-at-the-end…then ended at-the-very-beginning. We saw Jerry and Kramer meet for the first time. In the final scene — the earliest chronological moment, a flashback, to a time before the Internet — Jerry’s date was telling him about the advent of Email. “Email,” Jerry asked, puzzled, “Why would I want to send someone an Email?” Read More
Do You Sound “CompuServe”
to Smartphone Users?
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — To avoid a common mistake I hear in my radio travels, promos for your station’s website should END – not BEGIN – by plugging the site.
Instead, begin by telling ‘em ONE REASON they want to go there.
Fundamentally, a promo is a commercial, right? So, as with copy you’d write for an advertiser, you should:
Read More
Radio: “House of Cards?”
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Ruthless and cunning, Congressman Francis Underwood (Oscar® winner Kevin Spacey) and his wife Claire (Robin Wright) stop at nothing to conquer everything. This wicked political drama penetrates the shadowy world of greed, sex, and corruption in modern D.C.
But you won’t see it at the multiplex. Or on HBO, or Showtime. Or on TNT, FX, or other basic cable channels which are now so aggressively producing top-shelf original programming. “House of Cards” is an original Netflix series.
Managers: Forget “Time Management.”
Don’t Even Try!
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — News flash: Time cannot be managed. But tasks can.
Whenever we install a new PD at a client station, I share four techniques I myself have found darn helpful over many years of dancing-as-fast-as-I-can in several over-tasked management positions.
1. “Mapping” your week. Use a spreadsheet, to create a schedule that doesn’t change week-to-week. Slot-in items like:
How-To Two: More Tips for Talk Radio’s Weekend Warriors
By Holland Cooke
Talk Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Yesterday here, I outlined techniques for pumping-up call count to weekend specialty shows. If you missed it: How to Pump Up Your Weekend ‘How-To’ Show.
And here are four more tips for ask-the-experts hosts:
Stay (relentlessly) on-topic
Don’t, for instance, talk about a movie you recently saw, unless it relates directly to your topic of expertise. Why?
Your Radio Station is Vulnerable to Identity Theft
By Steven J.J. Weisman
TALKERS
Legal Editor
BOSTON — We all are aware of the dangers of identity theft and many of us do our best to protect ourselves individually from the dire consequences of having your identity stolen. But what about your radio station? Does it even know that there is a problem?
Recently we have learned that both The New York Times and the Washington Post had their computers hacked into by Chinese hackers and this was not the first time. The hacking into The New York Times and the Washington Post do not appear to be financially motivated, but that is of little solace.
A Talk Show Host Nerd’s Adventure in Expedient Remote Broadcasting
By Ethan Bearman
Talk Show Host
Genesis Communications Network
KSCO, Santa Cruz
SANTA CRUZ — What happens when you mix a nerd and talk radio broadcaster who loves politics and current events?
During the presidential election last fall I saw many posts on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs all over the web sharing international opinions regarding our vote. And I thought, “How do I tap into that information in a manner that is different from everybody else?”
Go to where those opinions are originating.
I have always been drawn to the United Kingdom, that stiff upper lip country that gave birth to our great nation. I had spent some time there in the late 1990s with a global software company and loved it. From the pubs and pints to the fish and chips, peacockish hats on Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot, and the all-around affable Brits…what’s not to love?
How to Pump Up Your Weekend ‘How-To’ Show
By Holland Cooke
Talk Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI – Few marketing opportunities can generate more new business than local talk radio…if you use it properly. Thus all the buff stuff we hear on weekends, specialty programming that becomes appointment listening, and moves product and services for hosts who do fundamentally good radio, principally inviting callers’ questions.
Listeners use these shows for two things:
- Information: Consumers rely on experts for specific advice about products and services they’re shopping for. That’s you, if your show includes news about your area of expertise, new product reviews, and interviews with guests who can explain and simplify what might otherwise seem complicated, even scary, to listeners. In every city in the USA, Saturday/Sunday radio fare includes shows about auto repair, food and wine, health and fitness, home improvement, gardening, the law, pets, consumer electronics, and other specialties.
- Interaction: At its best, talk radio is two-way radio. So THE MOST valuable use of your airtime is answering callers’ questions. “The lawyer is in, the meter is off” is a very inviting proposition…and attorneys who host radio shows get lots of new clients by offering “free samples” in this fashion. It’s remarkable how callers themselves will ask the law show host, “May I call you Monday at your office?” Demonstrating your expertise on air is more powerful than a mere advertising pitch, and makes you seem more approachable than a Yellow Pages ad for your competitors. So, generally, the more callers the better. Each caller’s situation will be relatable to lots of listeners who don’t call…all of whom could become your customers.
Radio’s Biggest Star: Baseball
By Holland Cooke
News/Talk/Sports Radio Consultant
St. LOUIS — Do the math. For six months when habitual listening dips as listeners vacation and otherwise alter their lives, baseball brings:
• Long-TSL tune-in (“vertical maintenance” in Arbitron-speak), to…
• 162 three+ hour shows (“horizontal maintenance”), by…
Your NEWS Year’s Resolutions
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — If you’re among radio’s remaining local news people, you can improve your chances of remaining even longer by story-telling as impactfully as possible.
Your work – relevant, plainspoken newscasts – can make the station more habit-forming. Promos that assure “WE’VE GOTCHA COVERED” only talk-the-talk. Walk-the-walk by reckoning what matters to your target listener, and sounding-newer every time they hear you. If you do, you’ll prompt what the lab coat crowd at Arbitron calls “additional occasions of listening,” the quickest way to grow Share.
