Category Archives: Radio coaching tip

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #585: It’s About How Long it Sounds

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It’s not how long something IS. It’s about how long it SOUNDS.

Too many words, too many examples, or parenthetical “side road” journeys, will automatically make you sound longwinded.
And it’ll feel long, no matter how it times out on a stopwatch.

“2 minutes isn’t that long.” Really? How long does it FEEL? Try holding your breath for two minutes right now. You’ll understand.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip # 584: The Starting Place When You Have a Guest On

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If you want to have a guest do a good job and want to come back, you MUST start with this…

Take a back seat to him/her/etc. It starts with how you bring them on. Don’t “give away the plot” and tell the guest’s whole story. Take ONE thing and start giving, like “So, tell us about this movie…” (or whatever the guest is there to promote).

Or with a caller…suppose she’s obsessed with the movie “Back to the Future”. (This is an example from a show I coach in Houston.) Naturally, you ask how many times she saw it when it came out, and she tells you – instead of YOUR telling us you learned something about her, then telling HER that she has an obsession with a movie. (She knows that.) When you let the guest (or caller) tell the bulk of the story, that person comes across better – and so do you.

I can tell you from experience that the guest will really appreciate it. And you build a catalog of people who’ll gladly come back on the show.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #582: What Makes a Benchmark

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Pretty much every air talent tries to establish “benchmark” material. But what, exactly, makes something a “must hear” feature?

Well, first of all, it’s about the idea itself. Back when the huge box office sci-fi movies were just becoming all the rage, my morning show partner in Houston, Fred Kennedy and I came up with a thing we called “Star Fake”. It was the cast of Star Trek, but the plot of Star Wars. (With one exception: We did keep the Princess. Kind of essential.) Each episode was highly produced and campy, with a discernible ‘soundtrack’ and at times dozens of character voices, all done by Fred and me.

We tried it out for a few weeks, one episode per week. By the third episode, we had a LOT of people commenting on it and requesting more episodes. We ended up doing 49 episodes in all. We actually had to re-run them several few months later, that time running two episodes per week.

One of the keys was that even with those familiar “cast members”, there was always something LOCAL. We purposely fit local celebrities and political figures into the plotlines.

If you can keep it fresh, add a local flavor, and people like it, it’s a benchmark. Otherwise, it’s just something that’s ‘regularly scheduled’.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #581: The Formula for Doing It Well

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One of the things that comes up in coaching sessions with any music radio air talent is not just doing it, but “doing it well.”

It’s easy to wonder what key ingredients add up to accomplishing that. So here’s how it works:

Keep things short. This isn’t about a word count or how many seconds something takes. It’s about not adding words to sound more important.

Keep things simple. Make it easy to follow. Too many details, or parenthetical phrases will inevitably add up to unnecessary “side roads” in your Content. Always imagine the listener in the car, with his or her head on a swivel trying not to get crashed into by some distracted driver. The last thing anyone needs is something that takes too much time to follow.

Keep it short + Keep it simple = Doing it well.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #577: A Simple Guide to Giving the Weather

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It’s a shame that so few music stations do a good job of giving the weather forecast. An air talent clonking through it like it’s the biggest chore in the world is a drag, but by far, the more irritating form is the person who has to give every single little detail. Let me help you with this…

UNLESS YOU’RE FACING SEVERE WEATHER, the forecast should be short and sweet. What’s the high today, the low tonight, maybe the high tomorrow, and tell me if it’s going to rain (or snow). That’s it.

No “Partly cloudy with a thirty percent chance of showers today, then turning to mostly cloudy tonight and a forty percent chance of more showers or thunderstorms. Tomorrow, again mostly cloudy with a fifty percent chance of showers. High today in the high seventies, then we’ll see an overnight low in the upper 60s. Tomorrow’s high will be around 80. Currently, it’s 79 in Saddlebag, in Turkey Beak City it’s 76, and here at the KRKL studios, it’s 77.”

In case you think I’m joking, what set off this review is that I did actually hear a 111-word forecast recently!

Let’s make it easy. …4 guidelines:

(1) Anything less than 50% is “a chance of rain.” Anything higher is “a good chance of rain.” I don’t care about the amount of cloudiness. (“Cloudy,” “some clouds,” or “clear” is definitive without being analytical.)

(2) “Currently” is an unnecessary word. Of course it’s “currently”. You wouldn’t say “and two days ago, it was 75.”

(3) Pick a number. It’s not “in the high seventies.” It’s “High 78” or “high near 78.” (Then if it doesn’t make it to that temperature, God changed it. But at least you knew what it was supposed to be. Same with the low. Not “low thirties.” Instead, use “low 32” or low near 32.”) This sounds more accurate, and lends credibility. (“About” or “around” just says “I don’t really know.”)

(4) No one cares what the temperature is at your studio (wherever that is), or at the airport. I’m not in your building, and if I’m at the airport, I’m leaving town, and I no longer care what the temperature is.

Hope this helps.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #569: Conquering the “One Speed” Thing

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“Ear fatigue” can be caused by many different things. I want to refocus on one that I’m hearing way too much – the “one set speed” delivery. It doesn’t seem to matter if the song is “having a stroke” fast or “worm crawling” slow, the air talent is at one speed all the time. No variation. It’s boring. That person is a time filler, rather than a true personality.

(To be fair, this is often the result of a P. D. talking about “momentum”, which is a different thing, and isn’t dependent on speed.)

Anyway, in music formats, the cure to the “one speed” disease is really easy: Your delivery should match the Pace, or the Mood, of the song you’re talking over or coming out of. (Ideally, you’d do both.)

And for my Talk radio friends and clients – you should also watch falling into one set speed. Different subjects require different deliveries. They have a best pace or vibe, too.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #563: Talk About People’s Feelings

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Years ago at a radio gathering in Nashville, a dear friend and outstanding morning show talent and I did a Content seminar.

My friend had himself drifted a bit himself, doing old creaky bits like “This Day in History” and “Stupid Criminal Stories”.

…until I started coaching him. In the seminar, we talked about dropping stuff like that, and being more real-life and specific to his area, when a person in the audience asked what was wrong with trying to get a little humor out of something like “This Day in History”.

I explained that it’s “empty calories” in diet-speak, because it doesn’t really tell us anything about you. And since it’s just factoids, there’s no connection between you and the listener doing stuff like that.

Then I said, “You need to be talking to the woman who’s in the grocery store and has a hundred dollars…but the bill just rang up as 120 dollars, so she’s having to take some things out of the shopping cart, and she’s embarrassed.”

Talk about what people FEEL. It cannot fail. You’ll be a star.
Yes, there are techniques involved, but I’ve seen this work for literally hundreds of people that I’ve coached.

What do you have to lose by throwing away stock bits that don’t mean anything to anyone now? Crack your chest open and let us see 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
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #562: A Useful Key to Using Social Media Posts on the Air

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It’s hard to understand why an air talent thinks that reading social media posts on the air can somehow be inherently interesting in itself.

Sure, some postings are good, cool, funny, sweet. And we can certainly use those. But we all know that most “normal” people – who aren’t trained in how to communicate or entertain – are pretty boring. Bless their hearts, they use too many words and include insignificant details. The first sentence we hear can make you not want to hear the second one.

However, I never point out an issue without giving you a solution. Here’s a simple cure that will make this work for you:

Just use the good part – the one “quote” worth repeating. It’ll just be a sentence or two. We don’t need to know their dogs’ names.

Then you continue – if you want to – with your words, not more of theirs.

Start today in disciplining yourself to quit reading too much of it. Just using the one relevant part as a springboard, with your supplying the rest, lets us know how YOU feel. (We bond when that happens.) And the bonus is that this process actually makes the person who posted it look smarter.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #559: Two Thoughts About Imaging

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Your station’s Imaging is on 24/7/365. More, by FAR, than any individual air talent is on.

It sends out your message to the listener; how you want to be thought of. Or as everyone says today, “Your Brand.” (Ick. What a stupid label.)

So, let me help you with two related thoughts:

1. Tell the truth.
Enough with the empty bragging. “The best of today and yesterday” sounds like a butcher shop trying to get rid of some hamburger that looks kind of gray.

2. Tell me what makes you different.
We’ve heard all the “blah blah” about “your favorites” or “50-minute music hours” or “12 in a row”. What separates you from every other station? What’s the Benefit for my spending time with you? (“Traffic on the 8s” worked for KRLD in Dallas, and became a mainstay for many other stations after they saw how this worked.)

If I consider every time your Imaging plays to be an unnecessary commercial for you, that’s not going to form the basis of a long-term relationship. Why you, instead of someone else? THAT should be your message.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #555: Finding the Core of a Topic

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Okay, let’s go to work on why a topic (if we must use that word) clicks on the air, or just falls kind of flat.

Case in point, a husband-and-wife afternoon show I’ve coached for several years. They have lots of chemistry and a good sense of who the listener is, but like everyone, they need a little reminder now and then.

Our last session focused on thinking about subject matter in an artistic way; how to really bring something to life. Remember, the whole idea is to actually ENGAGE the Listener.

Here’s what I sent them in a session recap:

The other day, you got into a thing with this: So many times, we have inanimate objects that we decide to give them a name…”
Okay, that’s true, but why do I care? The reason is simple – that wording lacks a core Emotion.

But “We give names to the things we LOVE, like our cars…” is stronger, because it plugs into the emotional side of the brain, rather than just the intellectual side.

You’ll find that the starting place for prepping something is to find its Emotional “center”. It’ll frame the story, and shape the wording for you.

Yes, I know, I dwell on this a lot. But it’s the difference between a “blah” movie and a great movie that you wouldn’t mind seeing again.

And your show is really a movie without the camera.

More on that in the next tip.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.