Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #446 — Momentum: What it Really Means

Momentum is defined in the dictionary as “force or speed of movement; impetus,” with these examples:

The car gained momentum going downhill.
Her career lost momentum after two unsuccessful films.

I wonder whether most radio stations understand this. I hear “pace” often – but not necessarily any momentum. Pace is just going faster or slower. That’s not momentum.

Technically, it’s when one thing seamlessly flows into another. But Content-wise, it’s also about your listeners feeling that something is going on – something that compels them to hear more of your show (or your station). THAT’S when you have momentum.

I’ve learned a lot of ways to inject momentum into formatics, and the mechanics of how to construct and run the various elements so “the big wheel keeps on turning,” and those definitely do help turn stations around. But momentum as a Personality, and within a show, is a deeper dive.

That’s why concentrating on pace is an incomplete thought, and focusing on ratings is always the wrong focus. You have to create an entity that defines momentum – an inexorable forward flow – first. Then the ratings will come.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2021 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #344 – Why “Crunch and Roll” is Essential

It’s a Top 40 “basic” mechanic: “Crunch & Roll,” which means that in a song-to-song music sweep, you want to hit the NEXT song, THEN talk, not “start early” over the end of the first song, and then continue blabbing over the intro of the next song.

It matters because when that next song begins, then you start, it “turns the page” – meaning that the listener can FEEL the Forward Movement. (Momentum.)

When you start early, we don’t feel that page turn. No momentum. And a station without good forward flow will get beat by a station that HAS it almost every time. There are some exceptions, but very few.

This concentration on Momentum (not pace; that’s a different thing) is most evident in the movie world, where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg ushered in a totally new era in the seventies with movies that ALWAYS churned relentlessly forward. (Think Star Wars, or Raiders of the Lost Ark.)

Never get so “comfortable” that you forget about Momentum. The world moves ahead faster all the time. (Remember your first cell phone; your first computer? Ick.)

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2020 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #305 – The Modified Q Format

This is what I hear a lot of the time nowadays: A jock stops down in the middle of two songs for no apparent reason. Then he or she reads some idiotic story from the internet that most people saw five days ago, adding a C-minus punch line. (Or the jock does some piece of trivia, or some “cheerful thought for the day”.) Then they lurch forward into another song.

But back in the day, when radio had tons of forward momentum and much bigger ratings, there was this thing called the “Q” format. It was somewhat the same as the Drake format, in that jocks talked over song intros (and at the end of a music sweep, the jock talked at the end of the last song, of course, and did some Content into a commercial break).
But the Q format was often thought of as screaming, hundred-mile-an-hour jocks cramming as much as they could into an intro before the vocal hit.

So over the next few years, it morphed into a modified Q format, where we were more conversational and real-sounding. A song ended, the next song started, and we did a thought over the intro. Easy-peasy.

And it MOVED. “The big wheel kept on turning” (the music didn’t stop until we were going to a commercial break), and “Imaging” was more sparse than it is now, better produced, and brief – so it stood out more.

Guess what. It still works. And if you’re the “stop down and kill the momentum” station, you’d better hope that the modified Q format isn’t your competitor.

This is what can save radio today. Podcasts aren’t the answer; they’re used in a different way. (And with hundreds of thousands of podcasts available, the podcast ADDICT still only downloads about seven.) Spotify can’t compete, because when you have Momentum plus Content, you have something they don’t. And streaming (iTunes, Amazon music, Pandora, etc.) doesn’t comment on anything local, or tell me it’s going to hail tonight at 2am.

I would say “Let’s Make Radio Great Again,” but I don’t have orange hair and don’t want to build a wall around Spotify. So let’s just try Momentum + Personality.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2019 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #291 – Why it may be better to NOT intro Traffic

(Larry) “And now let’s check that drive into work again. Here’s Don Googleheimer….”

(Don, the Traffic guy) “Thanks, Teresa. Good morning, everybody…”

I actually heard this the other day. The male half of a morning team intros the Traffic, then the Traffic guy thanks his female partner.

This shows the listener that it’s prerecorded. Or that the Traffic guy isn’t listening.

(And he needs to stop saying “everyone” or “everybody,” too; stay Singular. Talk to ME. And it also told me that if the morning team people DID listen to how the recorded Traffic report started, they forgot that “Teresa” needed to intro it. So many things to coach; so little time.)

So I recommended what I’ve done since about 25 years ago, simply getting to the end of your Content, then hitting a “Vroooom!” sound effect over the start of the Traffic music bed, and cutting right into the update with no intro or phony-sounding chit-chat. That makes the information actually be of service to the listener, and gives you more Momentum.

Oh, and make sure the Traffic person gives his or her name at the end. That covers all the bases.

Some stations that make a big deal out of “Traffic on the 8’s” or whatever may not want to do it this way. That’s fine, if you’ve built up that image. But most music stations should do the “Vroom” thing instead. (You could use a “beep-beep” sound instead. Or screeching brakes, if you want to add a little abrupt humor.)

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2019 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #249 – Board Work: The Lost Art

Being a truly great talent also means being (or at least, having) a truly great board op. Many (maybe I should say “most”) people on the air today don’t even realize it.

It’s somewhat of a lost art now, but my generation of air talents were groomed to run the board PERFECTLY. We prided ourselves on precise segues, excellent and consistent levels, and hitting the next song or sound bite within a Content break at exactly the right time, after a brief, concisely focused intro. At stations where I worked, it was mandatory. If you couldn’t run a tight, flawless board, you couldn’t work there.

The proliferation of voice trackers today hasn’t helped. Whether they can hear the music themselves, or someone at the station is inserting the voice tracks, there’s very little (if any) thought given to quality control. You hear a song end (or the jock start talking too soon), then, somewhere after that, another song begins as they lurch forward. No momentum. None. Stop, start, stop, start – the OPPOSITE of seamless forward flow. Total lack of any sense of timing.

The good news is that this current state of affairs gives you a huge opportunity to take a somewhat subconscious but extremely tangible advantage over your competitors. There’s a reason to use it. Great movie directors (James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, etc.) know that the editing and sound engineering is an enormous part of their success. So I have to wonder why radio has largely forgotten about this area. Sadly, the reason is usually that no one is even thinking about it.

Yes, the computer runs the show a lot of the time now, but you can program in perfect cue tones, etc. It doesn’t take long.

Most radio today is so sloppy, my generation laughs at it. Your generation of listeners doesn’t laugh. They simply hit another button, or turn it off entirely and check their Facebook pages or watch something on Netflix. That’s why ratings are largely in the dumpster now for so many stations. No standard of excellence. So it just comes down to who has the best Content. That’ll always be a huge factor, but at-work listening, in particular, can be increased dramatically with better flow. If you don’t get what I’m talking about, well, that’s kind of sad. But you can actually DO something about it – if you want to learn.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2018 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #186 – How long should an Interview last?

If you wonder about how long interviews should last, the quick answer is “It should end before I want to kill the guest.”

Seriously, in practical terms, plan on ONE segment. Anything past that should earn its way onto the air by adding something new and compelling to the interview.

Remember, an interview’s purpose isn’t to drum up business for the guest. It’s to make the guest come across as interesting enough or entertaining enough for me (as a listener) to even CARE about what they’re pushing, whether it’s a new album, concert, movie, charity, etc.

And I’d recommend never having a guest on for more than an hour, no matter who it is.

No doubt you’ve heard “leave the listener wanting more,” but not all air talents have the discipline to really do it. The minute you find yourself checking the clock to see how soon this segment will be over, you should have already ended it.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2016 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #127 – I was gonna say…

Bet you’ve heard this a hundred times…one person says something, then the other person says “I was gonna say…” and tacks on another thought. If you’re that second person, this may seem innocuous to you, but it carries several liabilities:

First, it’s not in the “now”, so, of course, it stops the momentum. (Or even makes it go backward.)

Second, what “I was gonna say…” REALLY says is “I’m determined to get this thought in, even though the moment has passed, come hell or high water.”

Third, it gives the impression that you have to get in the last word—or even worse, like you’re trying to “top” the other person’s thought.

So the solution for “I was gonna say” is…don’t say it.
Remember, every single thing said by each person (and that can be a caller or guest) should move the subject FORWARD, like the game “leapfrog” that we played as kids.

When you stop wasting words and embrace the discipline of just letting it go instead of forcing a thought in, you’ll have taken a step forward in being perceived as not wasting the listener’s time. With all the ‘buzz’ about PPM indicating that breaks should be short, it’s important to realize that it’s not really always about length as measured by a stopwatch; it’s also about how long it FEELS.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2015 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #93 — The 3-second rule

You might need some help with this one from your PD if you work at a station that thinks it’s good radio to backsell more than one song, or to talk about a song that played before the one you’re talking out of.

I’m sure you’ve heard of “the 3-second rule” that a lot of people use when they drop food on the floor—that if you pick it up within 3 seconds, it’s still okay to eat it. (I call this the “how to get ptomaine poisoning” rule.)

Let’s borrow that and make our own version of the 3-second rule. My buddy Randy Brown, when he was a great PD in Dallas, says that often back then, he’d have a friend or date in the car with the radio on, and when a jock’s break finished and they went into a stopset, Randy would ask his passenger “What was the last song that played?” NO ONE ever remembered. And that was the song that had JUST FINISHED PLAYING, not one from two or three songs ago.

“But I’ve got a ‘bit’ I want to do about the song before last.”
Tough. Either just let it go, or save it for another time, when it makes sense to do it.

“But that song three songs ago ties into my promoting a station event with that artist.”
Then your PD should allow you to move it, so you’re not, in effect, saying “the group that did the song you didn’t hear eight minutes ago is coming to town soon.”

I’ve said this before: Time moves in only one direction, from now…this moment…forward. This is the definition of True Momentum, and a huge key to sounding logical and organic.

Live by the 3-second rule, or die by it. Your choice.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2015 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #64 – Momentum is King

As you’ve heard or seen me state before, Momentum and Pace are different things. Pace is how fast you go, but Momentum is how straight a line there is between Point A and Point B. You don’t necessarily gain Momentum just by going faster. It takes being concise, and good construction, like a great writer’s book that you can’t put down.

Recently, this came up in a dramatic way as a Talk show I work with really got it, and moved effortlessly forward by keeping a close eye on the lengths of calls. I told the host to think of each call as a scene in a movie, and that while not all movies are great, we only resent the ones that bog down and waste our time. By itself, Momentum turns a “C-plus” show into a “B-plus”. Content will vary from week to week, but good editing and constant forward movement are like the tide coming in. Unstoppable.

It’s the same in every format. Given two equal stations, the one with better Momentum will always win. And it’s not just about what happens when the mic opens. It applies to your Imaging, your commercial Production, your jingles (if you use them)—everything. Example: Don’t just sit there, not even realizing that every time your Imaging ends “dry voice”, then the next song starts, you just LOST momentum. Do something about it. (Call me and we’ll build it into everything you do.)

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Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2014 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #36 – Before NOW doesn’t matter

You hear so many jocks these days say things like “Off mic, we were talking about x….” or “Before we got on the air, we were talking about x….”

As a listener, I don’t care what you did off-mic, off the air, or even just one minute ago before I tuned in. (I didn’t hear it.) Time only flows in ONE direction for the Listener—from right now—this moment, forward.

This same mentality applies to resets. Instead of those “backward references” like “a few minutes ago, we were talking about x…” just set the subject up now, as if for the first time, and then go ahead with whatever else you have to say.

This is how you welcome in new listeners, and by definition, you have better forward momentum.

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Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.