by Jerry King
I wrote this as my wife Robyn and I were taking the red eye from LA back to Cleveland over a mid-May weekend, fresh from attending my younger son’s graduation from USC with a Master Degree. Just being on campus with thousands and thousands of people graduating was a remarkably exhilarating experience. I was pumped! It was very cool to see all of those younger faces filled with excitement and expectation with their whole lives in front of them. Their passion level was very high.
Having been in Radio going on 38 years, I have been fortunate in my life to be able to know and work with so many good radio people, like the legendary Jack Armstrong, and Big Ron O’Brien. Good friend and WQAL-WDOK, Cleveland PD Dave Popovich and I worked at 13Q Pittsburgh back in the early ’70s. What a great experience and education it was in those days to be working with talent like Big Jack and all of the Buzz Bennett 13Q jocks. The stories we could tell (but won’t!). Jack was truly a one-in-a-kind personality. He made good use of everyday life and every word in a song title to make his machine gun-like delivery sound bigger than life with a clever and sometimes outrageous slant.
Dave and I used to drive out of downtown Pittsburgh across the bridges just to pick up Big Ron while he was “in the nighttime” on WCFL, Chicago. At one point, he visited Pittsburgh and we got to know him. It was a sad day recently when both Ron and Jack passed. To me, both of these guys WERE passion in radio.
Passion. Emotion. Fun… items that I just don’t hear as much on radio these days as I travel. Oh, they’re still around, here and there, but overall the Passion quotient is definitely down. Maybe it’s a Generational issue. I’m a Baby Boomer and the two younger generations, Gen X and Gen Y seem to me to be more laid back. But, instead of blaming what’s decreasing Passion, let’s just move ahead on making sure that YOU have it. Let’s look at it from the Talent and Programmer perspective.
Simply put, good air talent have the proper training and experience to do the right things at the right time. Great air talent add passion, intelligence and momentum to the equation. The difference between working in a medium and major market is the level of commitment to perfection, the networking opportunities, and the peer pressure.
How do you develop your passion as an air talent in the radio business? The way everyone who is successful did… through hard work and the right breaks. Yes, it’s tougher to get the breaks as there are a lot fewer stations. So, start the networking process as soon as possible. If you work for a group, you should know everyone in your format within that group. If you’re at a stand-alone station, know everyone in your state in a larger market situation. Talk to Program Directors and take care about what you say and how you say it. Always try to stay in each job situation for a minimum of one year if you’re early in your career.
Keep your passion high by finding others with passion and feeding off of them. Get online and subscribe to an audio aircheck service for the best clips of today and use ReelRadio for great classic tracks. Be a student of how the best air talent do their thing. Play your favorite clips again and again. Here’s a secret: Mike McVay has used a “blast off” tape with upbeat favorite songs that he would take with him and play just before meeting with clients or big events to get his attitude and passion right. And, if Mike McVay with his super high passion level used something like this, I can guarantee that you should be too!
How does passion apply to the programmers’ viewpoint? Mostly, your listeners make a conscious decision to listen to your station likely because of the music and personalities. We see in research that there are few situations in which a station dominates the ratings and revenue side in a market without a great morning show to build the ratings for the day, a focused image, on track musical product, sufficient marketing to get the word out, and promotions designed to get listeners to spend longer amounts of time on a station.
The task for a passionate, top-notch programmer is to reflect the passion of your audience, entertain, have a good time, and give listeners what they’re telling you they want. You must show passion, yet leave the ego at the door and actually listen to your audience. It is the right of a passionate programmer to ask for the best performances day in and day out from their on air talent. Let your talent know what you expect, and hold them accountable. I’m a fan of keeping air talent informed on the station strategy and why the station is moving in that direction. Don’t keep them in the dark or you will be “rewarded” by an air talent who has lost their passion, or doesn’t care about what’s on the station because it seemingly just doesn’t affect them.
If you’re in the radio business but don’t really care and are passive about it, please do us all a favor, give up your seat and move on. However, if you’re a sharp person with passion, a willingness to improve yourself and travel around, network with radio consultants like McVay Media. I’m the keeper of the McVay Talent Pool and we’re always looking for good passionate people. The future in radio belongs to people with passion and the intelligence to make it happen.
Jerry King is Vice President/Operations and Programming with McVay Media, America’s leading radio consulting firm. King consults all forms of contemporary radio, including CHR, Hot AC, Mainstream AC and Oldies. He is a 37-year broadcaster and has been with the company since 1990. A 20-year broadcaster prior to joining the consultancy, King has programmed and been on the air in major / large markets like Miami, Pittsburgh, Nashville, and Indianapolis, and was a General Manager in Wichita, Kansas of a multi-station operation.
