Robby Bridges
by Robby Bridges
Sensational headline? Sure it is. Does a possibility exist it may be true of some on your air staff, especially the younger crop? You bet. While I’ve always been an old soul and a student of broadcasting’s rich history, I was fortunate to start out in radio very early and now with fifteen years under my belt it amazes me the changes I’ve witnessed in how radio operates day-to-day. Most notably may be just how different the duties of the air talents shift and the studio from which they work looks. I am always surprised to meet talent who have worked in radio a half dozen years without ever doing a live overnight, running a weekend countdown, and forget knowing how to bulk a cart or what to do with a reel marked “tails out.”
Talent today are not dragged up through the ranks quite the way they were even ten years ago, so talent not only don’t pull CDs to play on air shifts, they don’t even run the segueways on the control board during their own air shifts — the automation does. Talent often aren’t even doing live shifts at all with the advent of cyber and voice tracking in house. So while I accept that the ITC cart has given way to Next Gen and the four-track to Vox Pro, today’s talent may be lacking the skills to run a tight board, execute forward moment and finesse the levels while rapping because the overnight training grounds no longer exist.
So take a second to consider the execution of elements in your format by everyone on your air staff, especially the newbies. Are they displaying the skills to best present the station to the listener? If you even answered “I think so,” consider a few ways to grease the wheel or perhaps the installation of a new one, if you will. Here are some case specific examples in board work and studio execution.
LEVELS: Generally, take time to listen to your talent when they speak cold, over intros, over beds. Are they talking right into the mic or “romancing it,” speaking directly into for best clarity? When they are talking over music or elements are they shouting to be heard over them? Are they riding the levels such that it may sound that the music is fading in and out behind talking? Or, is your talent’s mic level potted so hot that their voice is burying the song? While some of these issues are station specific preference or a case of adjusting a mic processor on the talent’s end, there is a perfect medium.
The talent should be conscious of how they are positioning themselves before a live mic. They should use appropriate vocal inflection and excitement but never fight to shout over music, nor should a mic be so hot and music potted so low that a song or element seems to just “fade in out of nowhere” when a talent is done with their rap. A great talent not only does great content, but does it while respecting the integrity of the songs they are entertaining with in a music format. I would suggest that even passive radio listeners react to subtle missteps such as a talent who shouts over the opening notes of their favorite song. Similarly, note that talent are careful to watch the levels of liners, drops and other pre recorded elements running over intros.
TRANSITIONS: This can be an addendum to levels and also transitions, which I’ll get into later in this article. I recently coached a talent who asked me how to take the execution of their phoners to another level. As with the jock mic, it is important to make sure a music bed or intro under a phoner call is audible but not overpowering. The trick of the forward motion train call is backtime, the length of a call to the intro and, when transitioning to start of the song of which a vocal post will be hit, pot it up plus five above the preceding element and then immediately back off, the millisecond after the completion of the break repeat and phone bits will pop.
This is also true of standard jock raps. Further, consider challenging talent to start song intros in this manner on the trigger of impactful words or phrases in their content. For example of the backend of a song: “X-FM has your chance to win FREE MONEY (fire song and allow split second for it to establish before continuing) in the Fantastic Plastic Payoff…”
SEGUEWAYS: A similar skill in running a tight board, while respecting the music, is recognizing when to end one element and when to segue to the next one. Keep in mind there is no reason talent can’t keep elements moving at their own discretion. Even if your stations are running automation programs, all of these programs allow for operator manual start. The rule of thumb I would suggest is to wait for the end of a phrase in a song’s lyric, or a double repetition of the hook near a song’s fade, as an indicator of a clean segue.
As with transitions, the next element should be slightly hotter than the fading element in order to subtly catch the casual listener’s attention more successfully. When segueing, keep an ear open that talent are not so tight that they are losing the jingle spread on a song or running a produced element too far over another intro; cars on the forward motion train’s caravan should be interlocked but not necessarily overlapping. Encourage talent to use natural accentuations in their speech patterns as cues before firing new elements even after talking cold. For example, using the start of a traffic sounder following the punch line or kicker in a bit or of a contest’s detail “which is why Lindsay Lohan was there anyway! (Fire sounder and then back off slightly) and now to traffic net.”
Paying attention to these finer nuances in your format presentation and asking your jocks to think about and focus on appropriate operation of the board during airshift will give your station an energy and polish and enhance your jocks’ content, making it more impactful and memorable — invaluable tools to help your station cut through the clutter of the PPM world.
Robby Bridges is host of the Ride Home Show on WEBE-FM Bridgeport, CT. He is also President of BBOR Productions, developing and marketing syndication, music and production pieces nationally. Previously Bridges has worked in various capacities at WCTK/Providence, Z100/New York, Q102/Philadelphia, WODS and Mix 98.5/Boston and elsewhere in New England. Robby can be reached at 203-333-9108 or bridges@bborproductions.com
