Have you ever stopped to think about the last wave of Disney animated movies? Doesn’t it kind of feel like we are just doing the same thing over and over again? As a #GirlDad, I am glad we have made progress from the days of every animated movie with a female lead character being about a girl that cannot do for herself and needs a prince to save her. But it feels like we progressed and then just stopped.
Now, every Disney animated movie has the same plot. A kid doesn’t want to follow in their family’s footsteps, so they defy their parents, there is some kind of magic, and then everyone realizes it is okay to be different. Slap a different kind of magic on there and set each story in a different part of the world and you’ve got a new movie. Seriously, think about it.
- Frozen: ice magic in Scandanavia
- Moana: water magic in Oceana
- Coco: undead magic in Mexico
- Luca: shapeshifting magic in Italy
- Encanto: lack of magic in Columbia
- Turning Red: panda magic in Canada
Progress is great, but progress is supposed to be a continuing thing. The idea is not to get to a new place and just stop forever. This is something that not only Disney needs to remember. it is something anyone in the media has to make the center of the way they think about content creation.
I truly do applaud all of the talent and programmers that have embraced the fact that radio is not just radio anymore. Our industry is just one spoke on the wheel of content options. If you aren’t building your own wheel, you’re not going to get very far. That is why some of the biggest shows do TV simulcasts. It is why so many stations have embraced Twitch, TikTok, and of course podcasting.
But again, that is a single progression. It is great to get to the point where you are everywhere. Now, what is the next step for you on those platforms?
What is the next step for you on your over-the-air show? Would you benefit from bringing in more guests? Maybe it would be better to pair down your guestlist, so that your listeners are hearing from fewer people but they are the people that truly have established an identity.
Could the show move faster? Do you need to take those interviews the entire length of your twelve-minute talk segment? If you don’t have a guest, can you look at those twelve minutes and figure out two topics worth devoting six minutes to?
What is your plan for audience interaction? There are so many options that it helps to have a plan. It is so much easier to text or tweet at a show than it is to wait on hold, but reading texts and tweets can be kind of boring. How do you change the way that kind of interaction is presented so it sounds different than just you talking?
It’s not just the content either. Think about live broadcasts. Are you still giving away station shirts and koozies? Are those really the kinds of things that are going to get people to pull into a car dealership on a Saturday to see you if they aren’t in the market to buy a car?
What about live events? Are you thinking inside of the box all the time? Does a major station event have to revolve around fantasy football? Does it half to revolve around sports at all? Our listeners want to be entertained. They think our hosts are entertaining. Why couldn’t a sports station take the type of concert festivals that music stations put on annually and do that with comedians? Find the men and women that listeners know and have the material they can relate to and it seems like a no-brainer.
Everything we do should be under a microscope all the time. Don’t get me wrong, there is still plenty of value in some of your station’s traditions. I am asking you to examine the traditions that became traditions just because it is easy to follow the same playbook you’ve already drawn up.
Media has never evolved faster than it is evolving right now. Even your mother is consuming content on her smartphone at this point. It isn’t just Gen Z that is changing the way they consume our product. Everyone is. So why should we keep offering the same product?
Demetri Ravanos is a former columnist and editor for Barrett Media. He is the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host of the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
