One of the effects of PPM ratings has been a tendency for programmers to cut back on the amount and length of talk breaks, but Mike McVay argues that PPM is not the enemy of talk. Rather, it encourages more “efficiency” in a jock’s talk breaks. McVay suggests looking to some of the great DJs of the past for ways to remain engaging and clever, yet efficient on-air.
By Mike McVay
Mike McVay
There are programmers (corporate and locally based) that continue to have confusion about the People Meter and seem to be of the belief that the elimination of personality will increase the station’s ratings. Some are even applying PPM rules to Diary Markets. While much of what we’ve learned about radio from the People Meter is applicable, this is NOT a “one size fits all” situation. Get past the superstition. GREAT RADIO IS STILL GREAT RADIO.
The elimination of personality would be a huge mistake! The value of good and strong programming has not changed. The only thing that has changed is Arbitron’s way of measuring listening. It’s highly likely that those stations that are performing well in the People Meter world also performed well in the diary world. However, we are seeing some stations that performed well in the diary world that are performing poorly in the People Meter world. The results are the difference between “reported recall” and “monitored listening” as a way of measuring one’s audience. Those air-talents that are good continue to get good ratings. The rating evidence is obvious.
There are some things that air talent should do to ensure that they continue to perform at a high level. It is arguably more important than ever that air talent be show-ready and prepared. So much so that when they turn on the microphone they snag the audience in the first ten seconds of the break. It takes about that long for a listener to make a decision as to “do I listen or do I reach over and push the button on my radio?” You cannot hide from the People Meter. You cannot do your show prep while you’re on the air. You have to be prepared … even if you’re not the morning show … because the People Meter is accurate in capturing whatever the PPM panelist is hearing.
So what do you, as an on-air personality do, and what do you as a PD do to prepare your talent? Air talent need to learn to speak with efficiency in mind. Imagine you are texting and you can use only 160 characters. That’s how you need to learn to talk. Keep your talk over music, (something we used to avoid doing in the diary world), as it alerts the audience that you are NOT stopping for commercials. Learn to entertain in short bytes versus taking a long time to set up a break or a bit. No one has the patience to wait for you to get around to the content of the break. Do it now. Instant gratification is important to our busy audiences. The personalities, who can create entertainment over song intros, and build a connection with the audience, will be successful. Personalities who can present content that is compelling and brief are the individuals that will perform best in the PPM and continue to do well in those markets using diary rating system. The diary will not punish your for getting to the point quickly.
The best PPM-performing talents today are those that can execute in the style of the talent of yesterday. During a recent lunch with my long time mentor and friend, Ed Salamon, we discussed how radio stars need to learn to be tight and entertain in two sentences. In can be done and the great talent of yesterday did it that way. I received a compliment from Ed that was not only unexpected, but surprised me in that he was paying such close attention to how I programmed in my earliest days. Salamon was the group Program Director for Storer Broadcasting in the late 70s and early 80s. He hired me to be his assistant in Los Angeles and eventually promoted me to be the Program Director of KTNQ (TENQ) in LA. I was only 24. No one today would take such a chance on a 24-year old today. There’s too much at stake. I am blessed that my mentor did take that chance.
Why do I say that “the style of Yesterday’s Talent is best for Today’s PPM?” The talent of yesterday knew how to tell a story over an 8 second song intro. During the time I programmed Top 40 in LA (1978-1979) we worked with legends like Charlie Tuna, Jack Armstrong, Machine Gun Kelly, The Real Don Steele, Nancy Plum, Dave Sebastian (Williams) and Beaver (Ken Levine) Cleaver. Ed complimented me by saying, “you were able to get a performance out those talents at a level that they probably never performed at before. Everybody had fun. You didn’t scream at them. You all “played” instead of working. They were all focused on the goal. You made the station a positive place to work.” I was taken aback by the compliment, but as Ed and I spoke through the performance of those talents I noted to him, “the style of performance they presented would work well in today’s PPM rated world.”
`The aforementioned talent knew how to present a complete joke over an eight second intro. They knew they were going to talk every three or four minutes and that the accumulated amount of talk across the show lent itself to the total entertainment experience. They also knew their program wasn’t to be about them, but rather about the radio station. It was to be about the listener’s world. They made you afraid to turn off the station for fear you would miss something. They were fast talking, slow walking, money-giving away, and entertaining artists. The radio they did was truly an art. They knew they needed to be well prepared so that they could deliver a line in two sentences versus taking two paragraphs to say what they had to say. That level of performance and that style of delivery and preparation is what are called for today on music radio stations. You have to do that if you’re to compete in the loud and busy world in which we live. No one has time for you to establish or set up your content. You need to get to the point as quickly as possible and that’s from the moment you turn on the microphone.
The morning shows that this generation of air talent grew up with are different than what we had in the 70s and into the mid-80s. Today’s shows have been allowed much more talk going in more directions than those of the past. The Q105/Tampa Morning Zoo (Scott Shannon and Cleveland Wheeler) were the first big morning show to play less music, have more talk, and involve more characters. Scott’s arrival in New York City on Z100 launched Morning Zoo’s across America at the then Malrite-owned radio stations. Scott Shannon (with Ross, Gary, Todd, etc.) created such a large footprint and garnered such huge ratings that it was determined that a station needed to have a bigger, crazier and more interactive morning show in order to be successful. That type of morning show was absolutely correct for a) the time and b) the rating methodology of a diary. Because the diary is all about “recall” … the bigger the image of the station, the easier it is for diary-keepers to remember which station they want to “write down.” Big high profile personality programs create the illusion that you listened longer than you really listened. This continues to be a valid point in diary rated markets. High profile talent perform better in diary-markets than they do in PPM-markets … unless their execution is flawlessly efficient and yet entertaining.
Those markets that are PPM rated find themselves in a position of having to have tighter talent, better focused content and a faster pace to take advantage of the short TSL that is the reality of radio usage. We need the talent of today to do research and focus on the great radio station’s designed by legendary programmers like Bill Drake, Paul Drew, Rick Sklar, Gordon McLendon, Jack McCoy, Buzz Bennett and John Rook.
Programmers like John Gehron, Kidd Kelly, Jim Ryan, Kevin Metheny, Greg Strassell, Jon Zellner, Charlie Cook, (and I’d like to include myself), are those involved in programming today who understand how to learn from yesterday … and how to apply it to today.
The art of talent coaching, (and it is an art), needs to be modified in the PPM world as well as the performance of the talent who are being coached. The content of the talent needs to be better focused. Air talent need to be taught how to deliver liners quickly. The same rules and skills that have been applied to talent are still applicable, but in a significantly more efficient fashion. Note I’ve not used the word “brevity” at any point in this article. The reason for that is brevity doesn’t necessarily get the point across. Efficiency is the word I like to use. Efficiency means using only the words needed to completely sell the thought or content in question. Use no more words than what are needed. That’s efficiency. Self editing is also extremely important in that those things that are not important to the audience should be eliminated. If it’s not informative, entertaining or necessary … get rid of it.
There will be those among you who read what I’ve written and translate it into a recommendation for less talent on the air and more music, which is not the recommendation I am making. Entertain with the same show biz and flair of the great talent of yesterday. Show me talent who can deliver a story in two sentences and I’ll show you a well prepared talent. Show me a talent who rambles and takes too long to get to the point and I’ll show you someone who is unprepared. The abbreviation PPM should be redefined away from “Personal People Meter” to “Prior Preparation’s Mandatory.” That’s what I tell the talent that I coach.
Mike McVay is President of McVay Media. He consults radio stations, coaches’ talent and works with all forms of media (Radio, Internet, Social Media and TV) to attract audiences and generate revenues. Reach him at Mike@mcvaymedia.com or at 440.933.0440
