The attention span of people in modern society is less than nine seconds. You read that right—nine seconds. For anyone in news/talk radio, this fact should drive home the point that every second counts.
If you are not grabbing your listener’s attention immediately, you’re going to be ignored. There is no greater fear for a host than to be irrelevant.
Everything on your show should be carefully planned. There should be a strong structure for every moment. Many — and perhaps most — talk show hosts love it when a topic seems to be working. The temptation is to keep running with it if the topic is generating a strong reaction.
I used to work with the legendary Don Vogel. I was Don’s fill-in producer at AM 1500 KSTP. Don had an amazing topic one day that lit up the phones more than most segments. He teased the next segment with something completely different.
I asked during the break, “Why are you moving on? That topic was going great.” Don told me, “You need to always leave the audience wanting more.”
He then picked up the phone during the break and spoke with each caller. Don Vogel gave me a masterclass that day. Show prep should drive your show’s schedule. Don knew exactly what was planned for each segment. For the uninitiated, Don was a host who worked in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Twin Cities radio. He was blind, and the construction of his show was impeccable every single day.
I’ve often thought about how Don would prep. He would hold court with his producer and another staffer or two, breaking down how to approach each subject. Don’s show wasn’t political. He rarely touched on big news stories unless they were massive or he could create an entertaining angle. The point is, Don’s show was carefully planned, and outside of something catastrophic, he never strayed from that plan.
So, is your show’s plan loose and unfocused, or is it set in stone? Is your show prep so detailed that you can move on even if a topic is red-hot?
If you’ve done detailed prep, you know what’s next. Unless something major happens, this discipline is essential. You have nine seconds. Data tells us that people tune into your radio show every minute. If the listener hasn’t been audibly grabbed, they’ll find something that does.
What about the listeners who’ve stayed with you for a full segment? Data shows most people change the station during commercial breaks. So, how do you keep the audience in place? You make an appointment. A strong tease with a specific time.
For example: “So the city is doubling your garbage fees. It’s ridiculous — I’ll explain what you need to know at 7:36 on The Jim Jones Show on 105.9 The Talker.”
Making an appointment is important for hosts being measured by PPM or the diary. With PPM, a strong appointment tease can help create another listening occasion. This creates urgency, much more than just “coming up next.” Someone stuck in traffic may click away to another audio source. If your tease was impactful, it could train the listener to come back. That’s a huge win for hosts and stations using the PPM methodology.
If you’re in a diary market, creating a subliminal appointment might also help a listener recall the exact time they were tuned in, which could lead to higher time-spent-listening when they fill out their Nielsen diary.
Strong teasing with an appointment time should be part of your station’s strategy. Program directors, we’re always telling our hosts to tease ahead. That’s good advice — but if the tease is weak, it means nothing. If there’s no firm time in the tease, it’s a missed opportunity. Creating more listening occasions is essential.
Sometimes I hear PPM stations not pushing the tease hard enough. Maybe that’s part of the “managing the meters” strategy that many are prioritizing. I’m not criticizing the effort to maximize TSL for each occasion, but if the audience disappears during every commercial break, shouldn’t maximizing listening occasions be the main goal?
Hey, diary folks—strong teasing with an emphasis on your show’s name and station branding is a must for recall on Thursday morning, when the diary keeper remembers it’s time to send the book back to Nielsen.
Making a specific appointment for the next segment creates the right environment to maximize your show’s impact. With the average human attention span down to nine seconds, you cannot take your listeners for granted, especially in the connected car. Your audience can switch to a podcast, another radio station, satellite radio, a personal playlist, or an audiobook.
If they’ve chosen you, why wouldn’t you do everything in your power to keep them? More than just managing the meters, it’s about growing listening occasions. Isn’t that what it’s really about? Building listener-focused experiences that connect more than any audiobook or song.
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Peter Thiele is a weekly news/talk radio columnist for Barrett Media, and an experienced news/talk radio programmer. He currently serves as News/Talk Format Captain for Zimmer Communications. Prior to joining Zimmer, Peter held programming positions in New York City, San Francisco, Des Moines, 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.
