Cleaning Up Your Act

Blah - Blah - Blah

With federal grant money in danger of being pulled, what we do now matters more than ever. What you air and what you say matters...all of it. Building audience and loyalty will increase funding. To do that takes a shift in thinking. Change from inward focus to audience focus.

I worked at a couple of music stations in public radio system where the stop sets would often run in excess of five minutes. That ain't nothin' compared to commercial stations that may run 12 minutes of back-to-back to-back-spots. The local ESPN outlet has been known to run 33 minutes of spots and promos in an hour. And yet...the public radio stations mentioned could do a whole lot more to build audience if the announcers would just stop rambling. Nobody cares...except maybe your grandmother. It doesn't take much to cause tune-out.

I used to go to listen to folk singers in clubs. They all seemed to feel they had to spend five or ten minutes setting up the next tune. Not really. It was all so tedious. Then on one occasion, from the back of the room, "Shut-up and play the music!" Laughter rippled through the room, and for that night we heard a lot more music and a lot less talk. He didn't stop telling stories about the music. He just did a better job of editing. What he had to say gave context without drowning us in words.

Fred Jacobs has a blog about improving the commercials in the commercial experience, and at the beginning of the blog he writes about "the era of the PPM ratings methodology has taught programmers about the value of minute-by-minute programming. Meters can migrate on a dime, reacting to everything from a rambling DJ to poor encoding to a weak-testing song."

Public radio should have such an advantage for building audience. No commercials. Yet the numbers often lag. The numbers are important when it comes to listener and underwriting support.

So what are you doing to eliminate the tune out? It could start with "Shut up and play the music." Or...you could focus your breaks. Make them more appealing. Instead of stopping,..move forward. Inform and move on. Advance the story and give context without overwhelming us.

Why Do Commercials Have to Suck?