In last week’s column, I spoke with Matthew Wilkening, Editor in Chief of the website Ultimate Classic Rock. He pointed out that getting attention from an audience today is harder than ever.
“You used to be able to just have a headline such as ‘30 Years Ago: This Band Puts Out This Album’ and it would do great. But now if you don’t have an angle in the story, you’re dead in the water,” says Wilkening.
While I think this is true for any format, it hits exceptionally hard for hosts on Classic Rock stations who often must find ways to tell and retell stories about artists, songs and albums that came out many years ago.
Now, maybe there is such a thing as fate. At almost the same time I was putting the finishing touches on the interview, I came across an article on the Buffer Blog under the subheading of Content Creation titled “The Anatomy of a Great Hook: How to Grab (and Keep) Attention in 2025.” Coincidence? Yes. Opportunity? Definitely.
In this piece, writer Tamilore Oladipo covers a lot of territory and talks a fair amount about the different types of hooks that work best on social media platforms. She details ways to get people to stop scrolling and pay attention.
And since many, if not all, of you are enhancing your on-air show with social content, I recommend reading her entire post. But for the sake of this article, I’m going to focus on her observations that relate to being on the air.
Defining A Hook
She starts by defining a “hook” as the opening part of a piece of content that is the ticket to gaining the first few seconds of attention. She’s clear that this is not clickbait where you are tricking the listener. The goal is to set up the value that will be delivered in the content. And while a great hook isn’t a guarantee that people will pay attention. A bad hook, or none, in nearly every case leads to failure.
According to Oladipo, a successful hook sparks something in the listener. Curiosity, recognition, tension, or any other emotion that makes them think, “I need to see where this goes.” Interestingly, this mirrors what I tell talent about the process of selecting show content.
If the stories and topics you are selecting to talk about don’t cause a reaction in you, they probably won’t in your audience either. Once you have good content, the challenge is to quickly convey that emotional reaction to the audience to help them engage with you.
Hooks vs. Teases
In our on-air world, a good hook can serve two different roles. It can be a teaser, purposely designed to try to convince a listener to come back to the station later. Or it can be the way you start a break to hold listeners in the moment. Both are valuable, and both are frequently done poorly.
When it comes to teasing, too often I hear talent say things that are worthless to the listener. Things like: “AC/DC is coming up.” Oh really? On a Classic Rock station? I’m shocked. Another is “your chance to win coming up soon.” Great. Don’t tell me when. Sure, I’m busy here with work, but I’ll just hang on your every word, waiting for my opportunity.
When it comes to content, the mistake I often hear is when hosts fall into the trap of using a standard structure to convey a story. They start at the beginning, explaining the background and giving out details while slowly proceeding to the heart of their story and then the climax.
Unfortunately, what we’ve seen in PPM data and many forms of research is that many listeners tune out before the big payoff of the story. Like Wilkening pointed out, content today needs to start with an attention-getting hook. Then, once you have them, it’s OK to start filling in background details.
What Does Work
Having an effective hook really comes down to psychology. Oladipo recounts several emotions you can tap into to try and grab the listener’s fleeting attention:
Curiosity: the most obvious option. Around their curiosity, and the listener will stay with you.
Fear of missing out (FOMO): if you have information they can’t miss, they will stick around.
Relief of missing out (ROMO): There is simply too much to do, watch, listen to or consume. Hook a listener by helping them know what they don’t need to bother with.
Identity: Appealing to a specific group that the listeners may be part of. Classic Rock fans, parents, and beer drinkers, you are likely to hold them over.
Social Proof: Everyone wants to feel like other people agree with them. Tease them with the idea that you are about to offer proof of something that matches their convictions, and they will want to hear it.
It All Comes Back to Prep
At the end of her post, Oladipo suggests that content creators looking to have a great hook for their content should ask themselves two questions, which I will paraphrase for on-air:
- Would you stay tuned to listen to this?
- Would you feel satisfied after you heard it?
She says if the answer to either question is no, rework your hook to make it more effective. Of course, that means taking the time before you hit the studio to plan out your content. Because, in all content creation, even if it’s a story about a song that’s forty-five years old, it always comes back to preparation.
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Mike Stern is a Classic Rock columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. He has been with Jacobs Media consulting stations in the Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative and AAA world for more than a decade. Prior to that he programmed stations in Chicago, Detroit, Denver Las Vegas and other markets. He also worked as News/Talk Editor for Radio and Records, wrote about Top 40 Radio for Billboard Magazine and had his own radio talent coaching business called Talent Mechanic.
