Sunday, August 2, 2009

PPM OR PROPER PRESENTATION FOR MORNINGS

During the MORNING SHOW BOOTCAMP, discussions reigned concerning the programming induced brevity of morning show content in the PPM world. We read this week about Ryan Seacrest and Kevin and Bean commiserating on the air together. They complained that both of their program directors told them “shut up and play more music” in a nutshell. Jaye Albright‘s blog was eye opening on this subject and injected this: Make sure you deliver all the important elements such as weather, time checks, news, traffic, topical information, etc. in each of those "mini-shows." Understand what your listeners expect from you and over-deliver on that, eliminating things which take away from that usage driver. It will also sound less redundant if you relate information such as the weather in the way it will affect the listener I.E.: "take your umbrella today...more rain in the forecast." However, it's also traditional wisdom to benchmark each important service/information element with your station name and a unique identity, such as "traffic and weather together," or "the official FM weather station," but why do that if five other stations also use those phrases and every station also does them? Read more at: http://aoprep.blogspot.com/ PPM will most likely introduce more new “radioisms”, like cold segues, shorter production elements and more music in morning shows. The Burns study was scary enough, too much promotional and platform information and with the meter, edited patter. I look at this way, great radio is great radio, is it entertaining and fun. If you substitute fun and creativity for shortened elements under the pretense of PPM, you are pissin’ in the wind.

2 comments:

  1. If a jock is doing something on the air for an extended time, it should be as good or better than the Tim McGraw song its replacing. That requires prep and proper execution.

    It's structured ramble with a point. Loose enough that it sounds natural, but contrived enough that there's perceived value in the break. The listener isn't left wondering, "What was that self-indulgent junk all about?"

    That may take 15 seonds, or it may take 15 minutes. I've never believed, "If it was good at 30 seconds, it's better at 10. And really, can't you say it with a grunt?"

    Value is the key. EVERY break (and parts of breaks) provides info, entertainment, and vibe.

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  2. I remember when I first got into radio I would practice the intro over & over until the record had such bad cue burns that we had to keep replaceing the records with new ones. Today we have Scott Studios & our morning show practices the break a few times just to make sure before we go into it live that we don't ramble & all the players know their part in the break. Try it. Keeps breaks on trac....

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