Author Archives: tommykramer

About tommykramer

Tommy Kramer has spent over 35 years in radio as an on-air talent, Programmer, and Talent Coach, and has worked with over 300 stations in all formats, specializing in coaching morning team shows, but also working with entire staffs. In addition, he works with many premium voice actors that you hear every day on Imaging, Radio and TV commercials, and Hollywood Movie Trailers. Tommy was elected to the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2003. Call Tommy @ 214-632-3090 (iPhone), or email coachtommykramer@gmail.com

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #656: Kids

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If you accept the old saying that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” then it’s my firm belief that the way to a woman’s heart (on the air) is through her kids.

So if you target women, trust that even if she doesn’t have kids, someone else in her family does, or at least one of her closest friends does. And, everyone has a story to tell; it’s “common ground subject” #1.

In my own on-air career, I found countless ways to involve kids – like having a different kid do each phrase of “The Night Before Christmas” and then editing it together, or a montage of kids doing one line each of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (for opening day of our Triple-A team in my hometown). And now, all these years later, I’m still helping talent come up with more ideas in our coaching sessions. “Kids Only” contests, “What your kids want for Christmas,” etc. You talk to her about her kids, or even better, put them on the air, and you’ve broken through in a way that no contrived joke or aggressive approach can.

Kids. (In the words of the sixties group Jefferson Airplane, “Bless their pointed little heads.”)

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #655: Faith and Hope

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It seems appropriate as we head toward the end of 2025 to offer this tip:

The world runs on Faith and Hope.

Either one of those will do, but both of them together is what everybody wants.
So – in the coaching process, and in the learning process, you have to have faith that you’re going to get better. And you have to hope that this next step will get you up that talent staircase to where you’re really a top-level performer.

Another year of coaching passes, and I wish everyone reading this a great next year.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer CoachingTip #654: Environmental Awareness

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Radio still seems to be somewhat nomadic. Rarely, if ever, does an air talent stay at one station all of his/her career.

But hopefully, moving to a new station is an upward move. I worked at many stations over my 30+-year on-air career, and nothing illustrates this point better than an early move I made from Dallas to San Diego.

I was leaving KNUS in Dallas (the first FM station to ever be #1), and felt fairly confident that I had learned quite a lot at that point working for radio pioneer Gordon McLendon and his VP, Ken Dowe.

But KCBQ in San Diego was the hottest CHR station in the country, and I would make 50% more salary there.
However, it wasn’t quite the same. While the whole airstaff in Dallas had contributed to our formatics, the way we handled, for instance, a “cold” ending song into a song that started cold “(:00 intro); never saying the call letters into commercials (because guess what doing that signals to the listener over time), and many other minute, but important ingredients.

KCBQ was different. The PD, the brilliant Jack McCoy, had just come off probably the most famous contest ever, “The Last Contest”, which offered fantastic prizes and created “buzz” like no one had seen before. The on-air approach was more “up” and the breaks over song intros and stop-down Content breaks were quite short. And it had that southern California “cool” vibe.

I had adjustments to make. I paid attention, listened to the other dayparts, and got into the rhythm pretty quickly, but it did take a bit of tweaking.

When and if you go to a new station, take time to sense the environment. The overall vibe of the station, the timing of things, the kind of Content that works in that market – so you can fit in easily. Soon, you’ll be “part of the gang”, and bank another learning experience. Environmental Awareness always pays off.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #653: Just the Driveway

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Over the years, one technique has constantly come up – how to get into a subject quickly and concisely.

I can’t count the number of air talents I’ve worked with who are really good at almost everything, but can’t “grab” the listener well because it just takes them too long to get to the point.

Here’s a visual for you…

We don’t have time, on the other end of the radio to drive down your street, wave at the neighbors, notice the new speed limit sign, get to your house, then drive up the driveway to the door, then go in.

We DO have time to start at the entrance of your driveway, and go on from there.

So get used to that self-editing, and you can reach the goal that always makes the difference: getting the listener’s attention in 10 to 15 seconds.
Try it out loud, before you do it on the air, and you’ll be surprised at how little time it takes.

Example:
(Station’s name, your name, song back-sell), then: “Bet you’ve done this. We come up the driveway to the house the other day, go in through the kitchen door ‘cause we’re carrying grocery sacks, and blam; the bottom falls out of one of them!”

There we are, right in that kitchen together – in 13 seconds.

The longer the “intro”, the weaker the story, first of all. But more importantly, your “storyboard” is shorter. In movie terms, we see the credits, then we’re seeing ourselves in whatever scenario it is. When I was taking film classes in college, there was a professor, Ed Luck, who absolutely infused us with not wasting time getting to the plot. We watched Alfred Hitchcock movies and John Huston films as examples: we’d see (1) the city, then (2) a certain building, then (3) a window in that building, then (4) into the room inside, in a four-shot montage that only took a few seconds, and then we were hurled into a situation.

Another example: think of how quickly the first Star Wars movie jumped you into the plot. Ships, storm troopers, Darth Vader, off we go……

LEARN. I promise you, this will make you the one who doesn’t use 200 words to get into the “meat” of the Subject. And you’ll make everyone else seem like they can’t get to the point and can’t shut up.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #652: ‘Survivor’ and Connection

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Note: Since I totally forgot to post a tip last week (I plead Christmastime madness), I’m doing two this week. Here you go…

One of the reasons I still watch “Survivor” on TV is because of how it defines connecting with the audience.
Every contestant has a story. One of the ones in its current season (#49) is a guy whose father has been diagnosed with glaucoma.
He and his dad have watched the show together since he was a kid.

His father will be blind by the end of this season’s shows. So this will be the last season he’ll be ABLE to watch.

His son said, “I just want to make my dad proud.”

I immediately thought of my father, who’s gone now.
So did millions of other people. THAT’S CONNECTING.

Question for you: Is there any element of your show that connects on that level? If not, why not? Any competent air talent can just throw together a listenable show. But you need some emotional “touchstone” to be great.

As I always say, “Crack your chest open and show us what’s in there.”

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #651: The Importance of Timing

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There’s a good lesson to learn from the World Series. Or the Super Bowl. Or the NBA Playoffs.
They all have one thing in common: It’s about doing the right things.
But not just that. It’s doing the right things at the right TIME.

It’s the same, in any music format, for what you say on the air when you make a comment. First, did you cut off the very end of that last word in the song’s vocal? Is that because you’re too anxious to talk? (Would you do that if you were the emcee for that artist’s live show? Chances are, the crowd would boo you, and the artist would never want you to be the emcee again.)

Patience.
Timing.
A sense of rhythm.
These things are essential to a great air talent.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #650: The Non-Competitive Pitch

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If you’re not familiar with baseball pitcher David Cone, here’s a cool fact:

On July 18, 1999, he threw a perfect game (that’s 27 batters in a row,no hits, no walks, no runs, no errors). Pretty cool.
But even more notable was that it was “Yogi Berra Day” at Yankee Stadium, with Yogi and the pitcher of the only perfect game in World Series history, Don Larson, in attendance. (Yogi was the catcher in that 1956 game.)

David Cone is now an excellent baseball analyst. And one of his terms really stuck with me; what he calls a “non-competitive pitch” – a “waste pitch” that a pitcher will sometimes throw that’s out of the strike zone. It doesn’t make the batter do anything. No adjustments need to be made. No fielders move to field it. No baserunners try to advance on it.

As it applies to radio…it’s kind of the same when you do a break that’s just some “click bait” thing that you’ve added a punch line to.
SO predictable.

Nobody goes, “Oh wow, I’ve never heard that before.”

You have to search for what matters to your listener today. Don’t settle for anything less than that. It cheapens the whole listening experience.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #649: There’s Only One Choice

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Master Marketing gurus Al Ries and Jack Trout say that “every race becomes a two-horse race.” McDonald’s versus Burger King, for instance. Coke versus Pepsi in the Cola wars. Rawlings and Spalding instantly come to mind if you want a baseball glove. Chocolate versus Vanilla. You get the idea.

But in that “two-horse” race, only one gets chosen as your favorite.
In the NFL, with 32 teams, you really only pick one to root for.
Same in baseball teams, car brands, beer, etc.

This is why I don’t like lists: “Here are three things to remember…”
I’m only going to remember one – the one that matters most to me.

So remember this. There’s only ONE thing that’s going to grab me, as a listener. FOCUS.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #648: Two Talk Tips

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Some people say that 99% of the tips I write are for MusicRadio stations. That’s true, but I’ve worked with a LOT of Talk stations, too, and I can’t even count how many individual Talk Radio air talents. Two of my main “rules” are actually the same as in MusicRadio. Talk is just a different format, in terms of how much time you have to talk.

But…

1. You still have to edit yourself, so your points are concise and targeted.*

2. You should put things in STATEMENT form instead of asking Questions – especially avoiding those “Right?” types of rhetorical questions that sound needy and unsure of yourself. Statements get phone calls, pro or con. But Questions, because they’re insipid or typical, tend to get insipid or typical responses.

*By trying to say things in as few words as possible, you’ll end up saying more things that MATTER.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #647: What Do You Want Them to Say?

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My smart friend and associate John Frost posted a tip recently titled “What do we want them to say?” using baseball as an example.

Specifically, the opening of Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres. The question was “What do we want fans to say when they are leaving the ballpark?

The answer was – regardless of whether the Padres won or lost – “I want to come back and bring a friend.”

Now apply that to radio. What we should want people to say is “I want to come back and listen again tomorrow.”

NOTE: You should always want the listener to either stay with you some more today, or come back tomorrow to listen again. If you don’t have that, you have nothing.

NOTHING.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.