by Jay Trachman
One of the big problems with radio today is that half the jocks can’t say anything that isn’t written down in front of them by the consultant, and the other half can talk, but they don’t know when to shut up. After 10:00 a.m., it seems the choice is either continuous music, or yak, yak, yak. What happened to the middle ground?
We see surveys that ask listeners, “Do you think our (or their) DJ’s talk too much?” and the results are always dire. So we follow the easy path, and shut the jocks up. Has anyone ever asked, “Maybe the problem is that they say too little?” Could it be that the problem isn’t talk per se, but stupid DJ chatter?
Maybe there’s some benefit in teaching your personalities how to do content, without becoming long-winded. How is that achieved? Glad you asked…
Number One is, you teach your jocks a sense of momentum. The show has to keep moving forward. Your listener is doing something else, and doesn’t have more than a few seconds to pay attention to what you’re saying. Even then, he or she will only let you into the top of their minds if what you’re saying has emotional worth to them.
Personality raps should ordinarily be held to a maximum of 20- or 30-seconds. If it must run longer, the jock should be prepared to justify it. (An extended bit with multiple emotional “pay-offs” may be fine… provided it’s a reasonable bet that this will have a greater emotional impact on the listener than the song it’s delaying.) In short, time matters. Very few jocks are taught this simple fact.
Number Two: All raps — all messages — should be constructed for emotional impact and word efficiency. The DJ accomplishes both by writing the kicker, or punchline, first. That’s the whole reason for doing the rap, and it determines what needs to come before. Everything else is set-up.
After you’ve written where you’re going, then you create a brief “billboard” statement to open the rap, and as little detail as possible to get from one to the other. You’ve got thirty seconds. You want to “touch” your listener’s emotions. How few words can you use to do it?
Number Three: Most of the DJ’s raps should be “Local” and “Life” content: self-composed, talking about his or her life as a member of the community, as a fellow member of the species. Not every rap needs to be — or should be — funny. There’s nothing more pathetic than a DJ who’s taken a seminar on comedy and now he thinks he’s a comic, and everyone else knows he isn’t. Most of us aren’t capable of “stand-up” type comedy, but we can do observational humor from time to time — comments about the little ironies and absurdities we’ve lived through personally. Keeping most content on a personal level ensures the likelihood that our listener will relate to it, also.
What about “outside material,” such as we provide in our humor sections? It has its place, but very few DJ’s should be using more than a dozen such lines per week. They should be used as “back-up,” for when the jock is creatively dry. Or, when a bit strikes him or her as so funny, he can’t wait to Share it. Outside material becomes dangerous when the jock is allowed to use it in place of his or her own creativity.
Number Four: Personality DJ’s should be well prepared before they enter the studio. They should be writing their own raps daily before (or after) their show. Much time is wasted — with the mike opened — while a jock stumbles around thinking about what he or she wants to say.
When there’s nothing prepared, one’s clues tend to come from the environment around them, rather than the real world where the listeners live. You hear the results when a jock talks mostly about the music, the weather and sports. Those are fine topics, but if they’re all he’s doing, he’s only “touching” people in a narrow set of contexts.
Summing Up: I don’t think “talking too much” is the problem; saying too little is. People select their entertainment based on what they think will make the most desirable emotional impact on them. If a jock can be a part of that with reasonable consistency — and without boring people to tears along the way — then I think he or she can become a powerful tool for building ratings and listener loyalty.
In fact, in a world where several competing stations are playing more or less the same music, and where the perceived chance of winning in a contest is next to zero, authentic personalities who can say something and make a positive emotional impact may be your best tool.
Jay Trachman is publisher of “One to One,” a weekly information and humor service for broadcasters. Jay can be reached at: phone (559) 448 0700, fax (559) 448 0761, e-mail at 121@att.net, or www.121online.net. Reprinted with permission.
