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Ok, there have been a few people dislocated from their jobs and your office may have experienced a loss of a Program Director. You are hosting a show and what now? Your Program Director’s feedback is essential to allow your show to grow. Some managers are walk around types. These managers give you quick feedback in the hallway. I know some amazing Program Directors who love this style of direction.
Other Program Directors love to meet with their hosts. I prefer this because I can determine their motivation on an idea that the host is exploring on their show. I worked with a talent in my first radio job named Mike Church. Mike was a talent who was always experimenting with different approaches. Mike was smart enough to know that not every idea was a good one.
Mike is the lone host that I have worked with who did this – he sent me a segment from his show and wanted to listen to it with me. Mike was curious if the segment worked. Most of the time the ideas were pretty good and sometimes an idea needed to be refined. Mike and I talked it through and figured out how to make it work. Sometimes, Mike’s ideas were terrible. Since we had a relationship built on professionalism and friendship, I could tell him, and Mike was cool with it.
Well, a good air talent is like Mike Church. They naturally want to push the edges of the boundaries. If there is no Program Director, who is pushing you or pulling you back?
I have had the opportunity to work with three Market Managers who came from programming. They understood what it took to create three or four hours of amazing radio every day. Nearly every other Market Manager that I have worked with came from the sales department. No money, no job. I get it.
I saw a Market Manager decide that he was going to ‘fix’ a morning show on an Adult Contemporary station. In the wake of his programming ‘Genius’, he destroyed a station. His poor ideas led to a very capable Program Director being fired. The loss of market share and revenue for that station was never fully recovered from that piece of radio insanity.
Especially for News Talk or Sports Talk stations, community buzz is essential. The hosts should be creating an emotional response from their listeners. The hosts should be a lightning rod that provokes their audience to think, “I love that”, or “I hate that idea.” For our dear friends in the sales department, this creates a lot of heartburn. A client may call and complain. With no Program Director to buffer the complaint, it will go directly from the Market Manager to the talent often in an unfair and brutal manner.
I don’t know one air talent who wants to be blamed for the loss of billing just for doing their job. A radio personality is charged with building a large audience to sell ads. Ok, because News Talk or Sports Talk features opinions, there will be complaints. Market Managers, if you want to tap down the controversy, be prepared for falling ratings. If you need big ratings for agency buys and rate integrity, stay out of the way.
UFC’s Dana White has a great story about this. Dana told this story on a podcast. A big sponsor called him and demanded that Dana take down a post. Dana White told the sponsor to screw themselves and that this is America which allows for people to state their opinions. Dana said that he did not back down. Oh, UFC is insanely popular, and he doesn’t seem to be chasing away any people who enjoy that sport. Dear Market President, defend your talk show hosts. If someone complains, Market Managers, you must deflect or defend your on-air personalities.
Ok hosts, if you are receiving little to no feedback, get your on-air team together for an aircheck. Play just one segment. In my previous role as a Program Director, unless I heard something that obviously was not working, I always pulled a random segment. Listen through it as a team. Ask each person on the show to tell you what worked or didn’t work in the segment. Ask the person how they could have made the segment better.
If you are the lead, open with how your execution worked or failed. If you watch NFL coaches and quarterbacks speak with the media, these individuals always take responsibility for a loss or mistake. The great coaches and QB’s never blame their teammates in public.
Even if a person on your show screwed up the segment, try to coax them into understanding their error. Audio is like kryptonite to Superman for most of us. We hate it. The greatest hosts aircheck themselves.
I know that you want to be great. Listen to yourself. When your on-air team participates in a self-aircheck session, it is your opportunity to admit that you screwed something up. It allows for the truth. If you have a meddling Market Manager, ask them to give you an aircheck session. It gives that meddling manager an opportunity to understand your job. You will have the unique opportunity to ask him or her what they would do differently. Most of these people will not want to aircheck you. You know your Market Manager. Some managers would be empowered to mess with your show even more. But, if your manager is a meddler, put them on the defensive.
Your company’s format captain may be a great resource to arrange an aircheck by a capable Brand Manager. If you feel like your show is off center in some way, it probably is. Listening to yourself is so essential. You will hear ways to improve your craft. Were you interesting and/or funny? Was your point unpredictable? I hear so many hosts who do not have unique opinions. Whatever the issue is, having a take that no one else has is gold. Do not listen to your station or read opinion pieces. Don’t allow your opinions to be soiled or influenced by others.
Peter Thiele is a weekly news/talk radio columnist for Barrett Media, and an experienced news/talk radio programmer. He recently served as program director for WHO/KXNO in Des Moines, IA. Prior to that role he held programming positions in New York City, San Francisco, Little Rock, Greenville, Hunstville, and Joplin. Peter has also worked as a host, account executive and producer in Minneapolis, and San Antonio. He can be found on Twitter at @PeterThiele.
