Ez Street Entertainment
Presents
"Making It"
~W~
Knowledge, Wisdom, and Guidance
The Radio Edition
by
D. Hamilton
Radio
Broadcasting Today - A free E- On line book source for future broadcasters
Ez
Street Entertainment
Presents
"Making
It"
~W~
Knowledge, Wisdom, and Guidance
The Radio Edition
by
D.
Hamilton
Resume Building
_______________
If your resume package is aimed at being a part of the Programming Department
and you are asked to submit a Programming
Philosophy, this is an example as to how a philosophy is broken
down. In most cases, the Programming Department of a radio station consists of a Program
Director (PD ), an Assistant Program Director ( APD ), a Music Director ( MD ),
an Assistant Music Director ( AMD ), a Research Director, and a Production
Director ( in most markets ). Some companies like Clear Channel have RSVP's and
so on. In some markets a Production Department is
separate and operates alongside the Programming team. This philosophy should
break down what you have learned as you have grown in the industry, school, and
on the outside as well. You should break down each element that makes up the
radio station and what it means to you. A philosophy can be simple and direct or
it can be detailed depending on the experience you have gained and can
demonstrate. After you read this information I will introduce you to some of the
best Program Directors in the country who have tons of advice to give to you as
you make your way into the Business. This philosophy will be up dated later this
year, but for now, here is an example.
By
This summary of radio was the work of Tony Fields, Don Parker, Bruce St. James, and Russ Allen
Radio in the new Millennium has been affected in so many ways that a programming philosophy subjects like (voice tracking verses live radio) and (syndicating versus live shows) and even (national contesting) were not even thought of until the turn of the new millennium. As I go through subject to subject to ultimately show you that I can be an incredible asset to your team in the future. I hope to also capture you with a thoughtful array of ideas that might even change an idea or two of yours. As well, in the future I am seeking to become a part of your programming team to learn, because I am confident that I can be an integral player in the game of winning if I have the right guidance. I love music, and I also love the art of teaching talent that want to be taught, the idea of creative radio, passionate delivery, emotional impact, and most of all, the art of balance between the radio station’s music and the delivery of the message that reflects the over all purpose of the radio station itself.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR!
To me a Program Director means … Communication skills
Being a good Program Director means being able to conceptualize an audio vision for the radio station, based on the direction that has been agreed on. Then have the ability to sell, organize and motivate the programming team to execute the plan and bring the vision to actualization. If you ever need a working example, study Kid Curry, Jimmy Steal, Michael Martin, and Bruce St. James, they taught me, and they are the best. Obviously, without the vision, or wrong vision, you can have the greatest talent on earth and not have a successful product. Obviously the tools needed for support will coincide to help groom. Support literally and figuratively. You need the budget for talent, marketing, and promotion, just ask Barry Richards.. haha ! It also helps to have a sharp consultant. Having said that, you can’t win on the streets, if you’re not winning in the hallways. When you enter the building you should feel the energy, vibe, and magical feeling of being in a creative atmosphere. To get this vibe it starts with providing that listener with what they want. The listener must always be at the forefront. Advertisers go where the listeners are, not vise versa. Advertisers provide radio stations with income because…radio stations provide advertisers with potential customers (listeners) because…listeners give us their time. This all comes together as you strive to satisfy that particular listener in every way shape and form. And with that, the ratings show because of the excitement portrayed, the management is satisfied with staff and vice versa, and the impact that had been grown in the building is heard in each and every break heard on the radio. This combination makes for winning in the hallway, and then................... winning in the street, thus, a winning station……. And here is how I have learned to help deliver success with the right guidance.
Being a good Program Director also means you are aware of the forces outside of the music that can bring you down, or bring you up. I will list the various subjects that can definitely make things better or worse if not attentive to them.
-Management changes (GM, PD, etc.)
-On air-talent
-Play list changes
-Time of year when the ratings are conducted (seasonality of radio listening)
-Other stations’ advertising (TV, billboards, direct mail, telemarketing,
etc.)
-Publicity, such as a story about the morning show DJs in the local newspaper
-On-air promotions and advertising by any station in the market
-Contests on any station in the market during the ratings period
-Signal strength
-News events (last fall’s election coverage for news talk formats)
-Other events during the ratings period/football/Olympics
-TV specials that might attract huge audiences
-Affect of listeners listening habits in regard to major lay-offs (at-work
listening)
-Changes in any other station’s programming or formatics
Lastly, a great Program Director knows you can’t do it alone; you need your staff to be motivated and managed with the desire to always win. Letting an air staff know you care about them and their performance always sets the stage for a happy air staff. We need feedback. We need to know that were a part of the station and the company. It doesn’t hurt to get away from the station and have “staff dinners” where “the station’s” rules don’t apply and they can be free to tell you what is on the minds. Power 96 Staffers did an excellent job of meeting up weekly to just hang at other talents events for a drink. DJ Laz who does afternoon drive for the station makes it a point to visit other staffers on remotes..... Call him the watch dog, Power 96 is his baby in a way to, and he takes pride in showing support for all the staff that have grown up with him.... which brings a sense of pride to have such an incredible talent be at your event. Usually, you end up talking about everything BUT radio at the station events, which is good. Regular evaluations and bonuses in kind, do wonders, as well....
A good PD, APD, and MD
team will do the following together daily:
§
Think strategically
§
Execution/Follow-through
§
Music knowledge
§
Music Scheduling/ RCS / Music Master
§
Promotional planning and execution
§
Know the importance of community involvement
§
Know how and where to deploy promotional resources
§
Not being shy in soliciting advice
§
Not being shy in communicating position on issues that
may be effecting the radio station / staff / performance over all
§
Desire to continue to learn more
§
Just the right amount of confidence and competitiveness
§
As a day-to-day on air personality, being relate to the
rest of staff, which I believe, helps in the coaching area of the job
§
Working with the sales manager to optimize sales and
promotional opportunities / brain storming / being innovative with
Promotions
§
Genuine enthusiasm in every aspect of our daily
job as a Programming Team
Music
The most important aspect of this philosophy, under the impression that you are looking for a member on your team that is striving to hold a position in Music or Programming for music-orientated radio, is the music! I believe that music is EVERYTHING to the listener that turns on an FM music radio station. There has to be a presentation, a flow, an envelope pushed, etc…but someone going out of their way to turn the radio on is looking to hear they’re song. Have you ever been in a car with three or four women and a song comes on, you then here “ That’s my song!” That should be your over all goal every time a song comes on. That could mean a mixture of current titles in the format mixed with the gold of the format, and supplementing the monotony of the hits with re-currents that have top of mind awareness. I honestly believe every market is different IE.... Miami has an audio version of it's city by Kid, Tony, and Bill Tanner, and if you listen they sound it...., and every radio station has it’s own edge. I will assume that the current music director has earned his or her title by keeping some sort of flow that has been initialized by management before I was even thought of. Therefore, I have not built a keepsake music formula, because of the differences each radio station has. In Miami, Kid Curry presents an audio version of Miami. In Phoenix, Bruce St. James presents an audio version of “Tha Wild West”and Jimmy Steal at Power 106 in LA had invented it.... I guess you can even go back to Greg Mack who originally presented hip hop radio to the West Coast. Greg Mack fought to prove that hip hop music could work on the radio, and if you listen to how it has evolved on Power 106, he was right ! The difference between the two is obviously that Kid Curry has a built in perception to work off of. When you step off a plane and into your rental car in Miami, you can hear Miami when you turn on Power 96. I will say the party sound of Chicago is host to B-96 WBBM, Hot 97 New York represents what Hip Hop radio is about, and WGCI is the Urban sound of the Mid West. The flow and tempo of the musical presentation sets the vibe of the station, which is determined by the lifestyle of the city your in. This vibe is so important that it is detrimental to the Programming team being PD and MD, that you meet several times a day, not just once a week, but 2 or 3 times a day, to listen to the flow of the station make changes, especially when you hear a flow that is not suitable for the radio station’s identity. Early in my career I was interviewed by Michael Martin at the old Wild 107 in San Francisco. While I was there, the San Francisco rain had hit for the first time in several days. Michael immediately grabbed his computer and started making a new play list for the next few hours. He had supplemented some of his usual up-tempo music with slower cuts off the re-current and gold list. As people were driving over the Bay Bridge in the rain, they were listening to the music that presented for the city, a slow and emotional push to get through the rain…. I later learned the concept programming for the moment. The rain had created an atmosphere of emotional listeners. Music sets the mood, creates an emotion, stirs imagination, sets a scene, and embraces each second of the day. Since we play music to our audience on a daily basis, we must constantly be manipulating the presentation to better serve our audience, thus the programming department is a 24-7-365 style job that deserves 100% focus to detail on each and every decision made and how it will enhance our listeners. Obviously, programming with a MD, APD, and air staff will eventually require choosing music intensely. Of course every radio station is different and I am still learning how different stations adapt, but this is certainly one way to capture emotion and drive awareness to listeners that you are on the ball at all times.
Here are some key factors in finding the right music for the format and the station.
Production
I have come to find that the production of a radio station can determine ratings potential as well as music. Does the production shadow the stations overall presentation, does it sizzle, does the production make you say, “Damn!” While I was on the air at Power 96 in Miami, we had tons of production on our station that actually got requested and talked about. Station Promos Must Stand Out! right? Obviously, the sales department needs to have happy clients all around the clock, so production must be secured and harnessed to sound it’s best at all times. There are Production Directors like Kelly DOherty ( CLear Channel ) and Jason (Mini Mix) ( Power 96 - Mix Group ) that represent some of the best production in the country.... A quality traffic director and program director that work together with the production team can avoid all of the usual problems by meeting once a week to address substantial problems that tend to arise. While working in Phoenix, we had a number of car stereo dealers that always wanted the weekend times. When there are an overwhelming amount of spots that are targeting the same consumer, that is when it is important to have meetings with the talent to teach not just the “what’s,” but the “why’s.” Production separation, production quality, production management, and production meaning, all take a part of the station’s over all performance. While at V-100 in Milwaukee, we had :07 second mini sweeps every 10 minutes that explained the station. :10 after the hour, we had a sizzling, “Just into 50 minutes of music, nonstop…as V-100 Jamz.” At one point and time, during the year, we even put our positioning statement in the sweeps to help maintain the overall presentation that we were trying to engrave. Again, every station has an agenda that will determine the marketing of the station and it’s path, however, one thing remains key: The production of the radio station should always be judged by us as a listener, not as a PD/MD/GM and the production should maintain the radio station’s sound. You are presenting your station sound to a targeted group of listeners, and they should be the ones to judge the product over all. Last weekend I was on the air doing a fun phone bit with a listener in which I made the listener repeat 1,000 through the entire show, My ass is burning for Power 96, Please fly me to New York to ease my ass ! My program Director loved it, it was hilarious, it had the whole city thinking, wow that was funny, and people actually listened to see if she would stop, because if at any time through the 4 hours she was repeating the phrase, if we caught her stopping, she lost the trip…..The production of the station was a listener, not drops, not sweeps, just me, the music, and the listener… but it worked..
Lastly, artist drops, personal drops, and imaging should always be considered and maintained when the format calls for it, especially in HOT RHYTHMIC formats that are teen driven.
Promotion
Promotional driven radio wins. When your banners are up at events and every other car in town has a sticker on the back, you know that the station’s identity is not very well covered up or forgotten at the end of the day. Take a trip to San Francisco, and you will see the OLD, yes THE OLD Wild 94.9 stickers everywhere. It is important to have the talent who represents your radio station and to always be aware of the credibility that they hold when they are not on the air. I feel the same, no matter what format/market you work in or under. When you are an afternoon talent in any situation, you’re developing and pressing a household name to your listeners. It is most important that you carry the same feeling and credibility to your listeners wherever you go. I am just getting off base a little to engrave the importance of small, medium and large promotions. Whether you’re doing a van hit, sticker stop, or drawing for a Benz, you carry the listeners perception of you in their mind at all times. When a radio station is doing something every weekend to captivate attention outside of the norm, loyal listeners, P1 listeners, and P2 listeners will always remain aware of something small about your personal agenda. Even if it’s as small as a character voice used in the weekend promo, or an effect that kicks off every promo, this type of creative promotional programming is yet another way to captivate an audience. Since national contesting is a new form of “Theatre of the Mind,” I will address the issue where it best fits in the promotional aspect. As long as you are contesting locally, there is nothing wrong with contesting nationally as well. The overall purpose for a contest is to captivate a listener’s attention and hope hat the contest that is being promoted is worth the time spent on the promotion as a whole. Every few years there are novelty items that a radio station involves itself with that creates listener awareness. For instance, where were you, and what radio station were you listening to when you heard about Tickle Me Elmo? I remember WLUM Hot 102 Milwaukee having 200 Tickle Me Elmo dolls and the city went nuts trying to win them. In today’s radio promotional world, believe me, in smaller markets being run by Clear Channel, that same national promotion will work. Metaphor national contesting to your state lottery, when the stakes are high and in demand, it’s the thrill of having a chance, and people go to 7-11 and buy the ticket, so you can be sure to bet that they will listen to the radio when there is a million dollar prize. Russ Allen is a program director in a medium market, Knoxville, TN, but his promotions and the delivery he spins on them make his station stand out like a top 10 Market station. If you get a chance, study how Russ can take a basic promo idea and spin it into something that the whole industry talks about, he does it at least once a month, and that alone can separate your station from a national promoting radio station. Can a radio station compete with national contesting, of course! As long as you are always on your toes creatively, and you are thinking of a new way to compete promotionally, you will have a chance to teach your P1 loyal listeners that you are working to please them promotionally. I will leave off with this, a strong promotions department is a team of strong employees and interns that develop and maintain a direct loyalty to listeners on a daily basis. Should there be two CHRs playing the same music, song for song, and have the same promotional value on air, the separation could easily be determined by your promotions department and how well they are presented in the public’s eyes.
Voice tracking versus live radio is no contest if you are doing things to take advantage of live radio. Can your jocks deliver up to the second entertainment information? Can you teach your staff to carry top of mind awareness thought into their shifts? As long as each air talent steps up and becomes a manipulative element on the air, then the voice track stations will have to work 1000 times harder to compete. Creative promotions that air talent that can use their own dismay will stand out! Air callers from the streets talking about what is happening here and now…be as local as you possibly can. Involve listeners from local schools as well as local organizations that usually couldn’t advertise and make your shows sound local with what your local businesses are doing, for example, car washes on Saturday, a football game tailgate party, etc… Nothing beats live radio if it sounds local! Live verses voice tracking in any 911 situation is immeasurable. But, believe that Clear Channel has become the most impressive company teaching their talent how to VT for victory, and in a some major cases they have proven to win. In Miami during the 1999 hurricane season, the voice tracking from another market wouldn’t stand a chance against Power 96’s live radio staff. Power 96 would feature our air talent giving up-to-the-second information people needed to make it through a hurricane watch or hurricane warnings. I myself was on the air the night Tupac was shot in Las Vegas. Needless to say, over 1,000,000 people were informed within 30 minutes of the shooting and first heard it on V-100 Radio. Dynamics of here and now radio make localization the most important element we have against satellite and cable radio, live and local information has proven and will always prove to be more dominant than voice tracked radio and satellite radio. We have the ability to be creative, innovative, and compelling when it comes time to fight off the powers of other radio entertainment sources, but we have to continue to find new and improved ways to make listeners want to listen to terrestrial radio verses the other 101 choices they have. It is simple, If I can go on the radio and say " Congrats to Hamilton High School's Softball team for the victory against Hale " and know my local community will embrace what I am saying, then I am helping my radio station win the war and listeners too.
Voice tracking saves money, however, so does hiring un-paid interns getting college credit to help rejuvenate the business.
Marketing
This
is a very strong area for me. Having been a “prize lover” as a kid, I LOVE
PROMOTIONS!!!! I’m always looking for a way to give something special away, or
do a contest in a special way, from concerts to contests, as well as publicity
stunts. My PD sometimes would get so pissed …. When our radio station said,
“Just get caller 9,” I was always trying to come up with something 1000 times
more abrasive. Getting creative in other aspects of on and off air marketing
are as follows:
Direct mail—All of these are important. All are productive. You need to decide what your objectives are.
TV—Great for cume
Telemarketing—Great for “at work listening” and “stealth” marketing
Billboards—Great for awareness and putting “a face” to a personality or station. Sales people love it.
On-air contests—can add sizzle or sparkle between the records. Great for getting listeners on the air
Database Marketing—One of the weak areas for most radio stations. Very effective in stroking P1s through faxes, emails, birthday cards, etc.
Through marketing and putting together promotions, those promotions with the most emotion usually win over your audience, so I decided to add one of the best promotions that I was a part of. Actually it came in a pair of promotions through Power 92 with Bruce St. James.
Keeping Kids Warm—an annual clothing drive. We literally had over 100,000 pounds
in clothing donated to children in need.
Christmas Wishes—This was a promotion where we granted the wishes of listeners. The stories were heart breaking as well as heart warming, making for compelling radio.
Air
Talent
Each day part on a staff should fit their part. This is obviously determined by the format. A morning show development might not fit under the same guidelines, however, the rest of the day parts carry a certain general aspect. I am a firm believer that each individual in this business can always learn something and get better no matter their age, rank, or position that they hold. In choosing air talent for a specific day part, shift, or part time position, I feel it is just as important to see their “hunger” for being a talent, as I see the talent they possess. There is so much to learn about someone from a CD air check, a resume, and a general reference, however, you can see past and physical aspect of a person and feel their energy, ideas, as well as their drive. When you walk into a radio station you should feel the vibe of the staff as you walk down the hallway, feel the excitement as you enter the building, and feel as if you are a part of the excitement as you work towards the same goal. I can almost remember the excitement and happiness of the other on-air talent as they walked in to greet me. Nonetheless, if an environment is created and nestled as a home away from home, the talent on and off air will look forward to being back in the building less than a minute after leaving.
You are now sending your complete package to your potential new employer. Persistence pays as long as you don't turn into a persistent pain in the but. I suggest waiting (3) days from the time you send your package in, and follow up the package with a phone call, unless the job description specifically says, do not call. The chances of you talking to the Program Director are slim to none, and in some cases it is actually better you don't. The greatest aspect of voice mail is that you don't have to be put on the spot. You can leave a nice little message that shows your persistency..... " Hey. my name is Ralph, as in blahhhh, I am just following up my package with a phone call to let you know I ..... etc.......... "
Welcome to the vicious cycle of auditioning for positions and the wonderful world of Programming
<-----B-A-C-K------
------N-E-X-T----->
back to main page
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Making it book Series
"Making It"
The Radio Edition
Thank
you for taking the time to read " Making It " I hope you get as much
out of this book as I did writing it !
contact
information
www.ezstreetrecords.com/address.htm
David Hamilton aka Ez Street / along with Jason Brethorst ( web and software designer for www.wearesmart.net ) designed ( 1995 ) and established ( 1996 ) one of the very first record labels for Promotions and Marketing on the internet ( www.ezstreetrecords.com ) to help local talent promote themselves. David Hamilton now offers you this Free E- On Line Book titled " Making It" with a 7 part series of " Making It " books in planning for future free e -on line guidance. David Hamilton would like to send a sincere thank you out to all of you who took time to help write this book. As long as one person reads this material and learns something, the writing of this book has served it's purpose.
Ez Street Records
to help
support up and coming talent
in all forms of musicality
and
artistic
ability
ERE
Ez Street Records and Entertainment
contact information
ERE
Ez Street Records Copyright information
David Hamilton
also offers you a new work in progress
" Making It "
~W~
Knowledge, Wisdom, and Guidance
The
Entertainment Edition
Click above and read this book by
David D
Hamilton ©
2004-2006
Thank you to all of you who took time to share your
radio experiences, this is the start to " Making It " in Radio
Broadcasting, and here is some Knowledge, Wisdom, and Guidance.....
the hottest new tool for club DJ's , home entertainment, karaoke bars, and
DJ's