Category Archives: Content key

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #519: Bits That Should Be Buried Forever

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It’s incredible to me that we still hear ‘bits’ on the air that were stale 25 years ago. Here are some examples of the type of stuff I’m talking about:

This Day in History.
No one cares. Especially the younger demographic. Millenials don’t remember past last Thursday.

“Stupid Criminal” Stories.
Again, why does this matter? How is it top of mind? (And we all have the internet, you know.)

Trivia games.
Dead, dead, dead. I can ask Siri and get the answer in three seconds. It’s not 1980 anymore.

The “uhm” Game.
I always thought this one was stupid – because it makes the contestant sound stupid. Why would you want to do that? My wife tells me that most women hate being made a fool of.

Obviously, there are quite a few others that I didn’t mention, but the message is the same: think of something new, something fun, something yours. But most importantly in terms of performance, do something that makes the listener feel like you’re actually looking to connect with him/her, instead of just filling time. Bad bits use listeners as props. Good content is always about relevance and connection.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #510: The Magnifying Glass

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Great artists will see one thing in the corner of the picture that stands out. It’s like their eyes are magnifying glasses.

So when you’re going through your process, you don’t want to just pick out an approach, or just start to tell a story and hope it works. You should be alert to what “caught your eye” about it.

Now we come to the purpose of this tip, the “magnifying glass” part:

What are you going to point out about this subject or situation that only you see?
What are you going to say about it that only you would say?

If you want to really stand out among the ocean of other air talent, to quote The Mandalorian, “This is the Way.”

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #508: The 3 Questions (REVISED)

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Years ago, my first two tips about Content were “The 5 Subjects,” which was about simplifying your show prep, and “The 3 Questions,” a sifting exercise that helps you refine your on-air performance.

“The 5 Subjects” tip was updated last week, and here, in 2023, is an updated edition of the companion piece. (The 3rd question is different from the original. Times change.)

The 3 Questions to ask yourself about your Content choices:

1. Why is it on?
This is about what matters most to the Listener today. Don’t settle for less. If it’s the 20th most important thing on the list of what he or she cares about, toss it. Generic “any day” or “rainy day” Content is lame. Today’s show should be about today.

2. Where are you going with it?
This is about planning an ending. You want to have one, even if taking the “First Exit” means you don’t use it. (That technique is Tip #4 on my website.)

3. What’s the Emotion at its core? (Great storytelling is always about some sort of emotional “reveal”. This is the secret to having a real connection with the Listener.)

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #507: The 5 Subjects (REVISED)

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One of the first tips I wrote years ago was a show prep piece called “The 5 Subjects”. Here in 2023, is an updated edition.

The 5 Subjects (a Content guide)

1. Job stuff.
Besides stories that grow out of the workplace, this also includes finances, “the family wallet”, too. The economy affects our choices. But I start this list with the job scenario because all Content is primarily about what you have in common with the Listener.

2. Entertainment.
This is about the Entertainment world as it applies to your Listener. Knowing your listener defines what TV shows, movies, social media posts, etc. you want to talk about.

3. “The Buzz”.
While this can be about the Entertainment world, it’s not always. There’s something today that everyone is really, honestly talking about. If you’re not, you’re irrelevant. (Obviously, not mattering is not a healthy choice. Yet every day, I hear people blathering about stuff no one cares about.)

4. Relationships.
Brother to sister, parent to child, friend to friend, spouse to spouse, us to God. Literally everything is about relationships. Even down to what stores or restaurants you choose.

5. Things that “grow out of the show”.
Every show has some spontaneous ingredient that grows out of the air talent. There’s something unique about you that the listener can connect with. Experiment until you find it, then make it a constant.

You can’t go wrong with these subject headings. They’re assembled from my own career, and hundreds of coaching sessions with great radio talents over many years. This is the most compact guide I could put together to help you each and every day.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #506: Which Camera Angle to Choose

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I’ve been talking about “camera angles” for decades, born out of an acting and performing background, and a brilliant teacher I had in college while taking film classes.

The premise is that any story can be told from a variety of camera angles, and standing in another person’s shoes ALWAYS provides a different way to tell that story.

Recently, in a session with a brilliant talent named Tracy Leek, a good example of this came up as she talked about her 15-year-old daughter’s dread of getting her driver’s license. Here’s what I wrote in her session recap:

Her starting to drive offers multiple angles, too:

Parental worry: put as much bulk and metal around her as you can, because a teenager will have an accident.

Peer pressure: other kids in the car can and will distract her.

Other drivers: they don’t know she’s a beginner, and road rage is a constant worry.

Which will you choose? The one that expresses your emotions the best.

Tracy is a top-level talent, and this has become a main building block for her over our years of working together. If you’re not paying attention to this, you’re missing opportunities to connect with the listener.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #491: Where Stories Are Born

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In the last tip, I wrote about getting away from Information and concentrating on Storytelling. That tip and this one grew out of an email conversation my associate John Frost and I had with the PD of a station we both work with. Let me share it with you…

It’s kind of like John Lennon wrote in “With a Little Help From My Friends” — “What do you see when you turn out the light?” was his question. For our purposes, it’s simply, “What do you see?”

When we’re in the grocery store, watching someone pick out a tomato with one hand while she holds her child’s stroller with the other. Or just staring out the window, and we see a leaf fall that signals the season changing. Or getting an email or text from an old friend you haven’t heard from in a long time. What catches our attention is the starting place. That’s where a story is born. Baseball great Yogi Berra said it best: “You can observe a lot by watching.”

I believe, and I’m sure Frost agrees, that telling stories is the most important ingredient in radio.
The next tip will be about how to put a story together.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2022 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #490: Information is Not a Story

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Information and Stories are totally different. Yes, we use information in the telling of a story, but in coaching talent on storytelling, I’ve often found that they often do one or more of these three things:

(1) overshoot, trying to dress up so-called stories from Facebook or the internet that the listener may not care about at all,
(2) choose “stories” that are too full of factoids and details, or
(3) invent not-quite-plausible scenarios as a way to get in a line they thought of and were determined to use.

So here’s the deal:

Everything you and the listener have in common has a story behind it, and new stories get added to that memory pile every day – if you’re smart enough to capitalize on them.

“Just the facts, ma’am” is a police report. What happened, and the emotion(s) generated by that = a story.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2022 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #488: The Biggest, but Simplest Content Thought

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Let’s make this easy, and get to the real core of how to be a terrific air talent.

Your job is to share what you see about, and what you feel about the things you have in common with the listener.

Everything else is just nuts and bolts. If you don’t have the ability to zero in on what matters most to the listener, then you need to run, not walk, to your PD and find out who your target listener is.

When you can visualize what’s going on in the listener’s life, you can be relevant and worth listening to. If you can’t, and just talk about what interests you, then you’re a disposable commodity, not a “must listen” talent. Even worse is the real “show about nothing” (Seinfeld’s show wasn’t really that; it was a show about what that generation was like in the 1990s.) When you’re just talking about “click bait” stuff you see online or on social media, you’re just another drone.

If you settle for that, you’re turning your back on what will make you stand out. And you’re helping to make radio boring.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2022 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #481: What You Say vs. What I Feel

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Get this: it’s not about what you say. It’s about what it makes me feel. I, the listener, will make up my mind pretty quickly about this. Information is fine, but unless I feel something about it, it’s just not relevant.

You have a choice when you open the mic. You can scatter words all over the place, but unless it fires up a pilot light inside the listener, it’s just ‘blah – blah – blah.’

If I feel entertained, that’s good. If I feel like you’re someone I might like to be friends with, that’s even better. But if I only feel like you’re using “filler” stories and material that I can’t identify with, then it’s pretty much a strikeout.

A final thought — if you’re funny, it’ll show. But if you try too hard to be thought of as funny, that’ll show, too. So if you can resist the “I want to be funny” agenda, and meld the selection of meaningful, relevant Content with a natural-sounding delivery, you have a chance to become truly great.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2022 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #476: THE 2 Content Guidelines

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All great air talents know this. But the road from good to great is a little muddy sometimes. So here’s an easy “sifting” tip — the only two real Content guidelines:

1. Hopefully, what you’re talking about is something that the listener cares about.

2. But it should at LEAST be something that the listener has an interest in. Has. Already.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:
If it’s not in one of those categories, why are you doing it?
Why put yourself in the “trained seal” arena with your Content? If you’re just “performing” prep sheet stuff, you’re not as good as you could be by focusing your Content selection process.

It’s very hard to get someone’s attention if it’s just something you find interesting, or even worse, if it sounds like you’re trying to force me to have an interest in it. When I don’t care, I don’t care. And while silly is sometimes fun, it can also just be silly. (It’s about context. It still begins with one of the two categories.)

Look around you. What about where you are and what you see do you have in common with the listener? Talk about that. Add your personality. Simple.

Great shows aren’t cookie cutters. They’re INDIVIDUAL.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2022 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.