Thursday, January 27, 2011

Stop morning shows from phoning it in...

You would be surprised at the amount of CMR morning shows who are "phoning it in". Meaning, they come in, ride the crest of a few things to talk about, mainly personal interactions with team members that serve no purpose, stretching liners for promotions into content, anchoring in music information and styles and generally no real direction. The big problem here, managers and even some program directors don't see and hear this. Manager's love morning shows who might not be audience anchored, but clients love. Programmers don't want to rock the boat. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 


Not everyone is a Fitz in The Morning! Making connections with the audience break after break. It takes some work and a management by objective plan to fix a Wizard of Oz morning show. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain phoning it in. If you feel you have a problem, you need to confront the personality with your consultant, group programmer and market manager. Every radio station I programmed where I came in to a morning show. Most of them wanted to quickly befriend me, so they wouldn't have to change. They thought through a friendship or personal relationship, I would let them use the phone. This only changed where I hired my own morning show that understood the mechanics of audience connection and had the driven abilities to make it happen on the box.

Believe me, it's easier to let them phone it in then fix it. The trials and tribulations you go through are exhausting. Once they get it and change, they usually tell you later, they are glad they decided to hang up the phone. 

No comments:

Post a Comment