Tommy Kramer Tip #67 – Bumpers: Why?

In the continuing battle to get more “right brain” elements into radio stations, I recently had a client station that was still playing “bumpers”—those things that would end a break by the morning team with a bumper (what some people call a “punctuator”) like “Shaker and Blotto…on 102.5 The Rock” into the commercial stopsets.

Bumpers were a bad idea when they first came on the scene a couple of decades ago, and one of the main uses for them was in syndicated shows. The thinking was that you had to remind the listener (who apparently must be an idiot to most programmers) what the name of the show was, and/or what the name of the station was. But in the real world—the listener’s world—he hears the show’s name or the station’s name, then a commercial. So guess what image is carried forward? You = commercials. Plus, the bumper destroys the First Exit, the most powerful radio technique I’ve ever come up with, by literally stopping the momentum instead of moving forward seamlessly and having the spotbreak on you almost before you’re even aware of it. (If you’re unfamiliar with The First Exit, please see Tip #3 on my blog site.)

It’s easier to see how nonsensical this is if you visualize a real-life conversation. If we’re sitting over lunch talking and I make a good point, I don’t have an announcer come over to the table and say “Tommy Kramer!” after it. That would be very weird.

This is just another one of those old radio things that sounds Strategic in the planning stage, but is actually an incomplete thought. If you’re good, identify yourself regularly when it’s appropriate to do so, and have true Momentum, people will learn and remember who you are and where they heard it. Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory don’t use bumpers into commercials, so why should we?

Momentum trumps everything else. Period. Bumpers are an impediment to momentum. No amount of so-called “branding” can overcome that. While radio people see promos, bumpers, and commercials as different things, in the listener’s world, there are just two elements—Music, and things that aren’t music. To the listener, the bumper is just a commercial for you.

Oh, and let’s do away with the little movie and TV “drops” too. They were great 20 years ago, but they’re not new anymore. I say just get into the spotbreak, and make everyone else sound like they have to quack their names out before they can move forward.

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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 #15 – How to give Time Lines

I keep hearing these dysfunctional Time Lines…”coming up,” “in a few minutes,” “later” or “later in the show,” “soon,” in minutes, ” “straight ahead,” etc.

All meaningless. To the listener hardened by “teases” with no follow-through for years, all lies. You might as well just say “…but not now.” Or “sometime before we all die.”

Here are the ONLY three ways to give Time Lines that actually work:

1. A SPECIFIC time—“7:20″ (NOT “about” 7:20 or “around” 7:20). If you make an appointment with me, be on time. (If you’re a network, use “at 7:20 Eastern” or something similar.)

2. A DURATION—a clear time FRAME, like “in the next twenty minutes” or “this hour.” Use five or ten-minute incrementsnot “in six minutes” or “within nine minutes.” (That’s too exact. I’m not listening with a stopwatch, and it isn’t the way people really speak.) If it’s going to come up in 17 minutes, say “in the next twenty minutes.” Keep in mind the purpose of giving a Time Line in the first place—to tell me how long I need to listen in order to make SURE that I’ll hear what you’re promoting. So you want toovershoot to the next five or ten-minute increment, so I won’t miss it.
Oh, and instead of “just after 8 o’clock” or “in about an hour” (too vague), say “between 8 and 8:30.”

3. “Next,” meaning that it will follow what’s playing now—this song, or this stopset. Do NOT say “after this” into commercials (or the silly “on the other side”); that just points out the commercials. Don’t say “when we come back,” either. That just says you’re “going away” somewhere while I sit here, waiting—or more likely, tuning to another station. And don’t say “in sixty seconds” or “in two minutes.” (Again, too exact. I’m not sitting here with a stopwatch. I’m busy.)

The CBS promos don’t say “The Big Bang Theory…sometime Thursday.”

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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.