Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #277 – Dick Clark and the “Room Temperature” Voice

Man, there’s a lot of “Foghorn Leghorn” loudmouths on the radio these days – especially in Sports and Talk formats, but they’re honking away at full blast in other formats, too.

You do know you have a microphone, right? And the mic is the Listener’s EAR, so there’s really no need to shout into it.

Turn on the Game Show Network sometime and watch “The $25,000 Pyramid” and you’ll see the great Dick Clark.
Dick was really the first “veejay” doing American Bandstand, became known as “America’s oldest teenager”, did countless other things (his New Year’s Rockin’ Eve broadcasts were legendary), and was a terrific guest, if you ever had the chance to get him on your show. I did, with my first team show partner, doing “Hudson & Harrigan” on KILT in Houston. Dick prepped with asking our names, how we said the station’s name, and a quick summary of what he wanted to promote. Then, when we got him on the air, he treated us like he’d known us for 20 years and we’d just met for a backyard barbecue the day before.

On “Pyramid”, Dick was the consummate pro, handling the rules of the game effortlessly, showing contestants where they might improve, joking with the guest celebrities, etc. – all the while keeping the momentum crisp and the excitement up, with a “room temperature” delivery that never shouted at you. He didn’t need to be loud. He knew that by being a little quieter, it would sound more real, and that this delivery would draw you closer to him. You wanted to hear what he had to say, rather than wanting to find the volume control or the “mute” button.

Settle down. Talk to the listener. Be a human being. As Dick Clark proved, it works – for a long, long time.

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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 Coaching Tip #276 – The 2 Most Important Content Guidelines

In a coaching session this week, it occurred to me that most talents today might not have been as fortunate as I was in terms of who influenced them. The names might not mean much to you, but I started off working for a wonderful P. D. named Larry Ryan in Shreveport, my home town, whose mantra was “Do something! Any idiot can intro songs.” That gave me permission to try – and equally important – permission to fail.

Then I worked for radio pioneer Gordon McLendon (who, with Todd Storz, INVENTED Top 40). Gordon was all about Creativity too, and P. D. Michael Spears taught me tight, concise formatics to harness that creativity.

Others followed: the great Lee Abrams, who infused “Stationality” to a stunning degree, and made me realize that TRYING to be funny was the wrong path; being yourself (and therefore unique) was far more important. Bill Young in Houston, who rarely said anything, but when he did, it was like gold coins dropping into your hands. Jack McCoy, creator of the best contest ever, “The Last Contest” at KCBQ in San Diego.

But all that aside, people like those aren’t very prevalent anymore, so let me try to help you with what I believe are the two most important guidelines for Content:

1. Today’s show should be about TODAY as much as possible. Recycling old material usually sounds like just that, recycled, calculated. Some days are “drier” than others, but Wednesday’s show can’t just be a repeat of Tuesday’s show. In this era of voice-trackers reading crap off a computer screen, or taking “click bait” stories from the internet or social media, there’s a lot of nothing being said.

2. RELEVANCE is the key. If it doesn’t matter to the listener, you’re just “a voice saying words” – a dull, droning noise to be tolerated (maybe), but not really connecting with the listener in any meaningful way.

So, as I wrote in my session recap with a good talent who has it in him to become a great talent yesterday, “Today, if at all possible. Relevant, always.”

If you’ll sift everything through those two thoughts, I guarantee that you’ll get better, no matter what your level of experience is. We ALL had mentors. If you’re not still learning, you’re regressing.

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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 Coaching Tip #275 — You’ll Use Everything You’ve Ever Known – IF…

There’s a famous story that David Letterman tells about Johnny Carson. One night on The Tonight Show, fairly early in his career, the young Letterman was a guest. And he and Carson got on one of those rolls where everything each of them said was funnier than the last thing. The audience was in stitches laughing at each line, and finally Carson broke into the “patter” he had used as a magician when he was young – the absurdity of which resulted in uproarious laughter that led perfectly into a commercial break.

During the break, with the set darkened, Carson, who was a mentor to Dave, leaned over and said, “You’ll use everything you’ve ever known.”

Truly great air talents know this, and it’s a really interesting parameter to work on as a coach. But the key is IF you can figure out exactly what the “fuse” is to light that “nugget” up. Often, I see air talents with a good concept, but no idea of how it might work. Using something just because you have that bullet in the chamber doesn’t mean that you can just fire it indiscriminately.

Think “What would facilitate this?” Because it has to make sense in the flow of the conversation, or it’ll sound awkward.

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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 Coaching Tip #274 – Everybody Cares

Over decades of radio, including working with literally hundreds of stations in all different formats, I’ve found that there’s one thing every truly great station has, and the ones that aren’t great don’t have: Everybody cares.

In a station where everybody cares, no sloppy Production is done (or left for someone else to do), attention to detail is a “given”, and bad or uncooperative attitudes are simply not tolerated. You find high-profile, high-level talent, but no prima donnas. Everyone is clear on what the Strategy of the station is, and that strategy is carried out on every level, from the person answering the phones to the General Manager.

That may sound pretty obvious, but if it’s so “obvious”, why don’t more stations have it?

Here’s the deciding factor: if even ONE person DOESN’T care, that poison gas will eventually affect the whole staff.
Example: a person who voice tracks a show when he or she could have done it live leads to another jock, who puts in MORE effort, feeling unappreciated – especially if the one with a better work ethic is making less money. And then the dominoes start to fall. Resentment sets in, grudges are held, communication stops – and in the communication BUSINESS, that’s a killer.

I walk into stations sometimes where you can’t HEAR the station at all. No audio coming from speakers in the hallways, deathly quiet offices, no “buzz” about what’s happening on the air. This drives me crazy. If YOU don’t care enough to listen to your own station, why should anyone else?

Just this past week, a PD of a major market station told me that her afternoon jock had scheduled a doctor’s appointment for one of his kids DURING HIS AIR SHIFT – which is only THREE hours – and voice-tracked his show that day. This should not be tolerated. Those three hours should be blocked out as untouchable by anything else.
So that station is doomed. Dead Man Walking.
Disclaimer: Yes, I realize that there are exceptions, and I’m not urging you to violate HR concerns. Your kid woke up sick, and that was the only time you could get him in to see the doctor, or a single parent scenario not giving you any options. But this wasn’t one of those instances. This was just someone electing – with other options available – to knock out his show when there was alarming weather coming in and Traffic complications that it would cause, and he should have been on live.

So from a coaching standpoint, here’s the bottom line: simply CARE. Infuse the other air talents around you to care – about their performance on the air, their Production, their interest in comparing notes and listening to each other and always trying to get better. And make that your default setting, with NO exceptions.

Because in the end, winners and losers are often decided by who cares the most.

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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.