The listeners alleged the comments were homophobic and they were offensive and derogatory to the gay community.

What do you think?

Read the full story at BroadcastNow.co.uk here.

Interviewing done badly is just frustrating for the listener. You desperately want the interviewer to ask a particular question and they don’t.

Or you desperately want to hear the interviewee’s answer but you can’t because they keep getting cut off.

It’s not an easy skill to develop by any means. Hopefully the following guide at least goes a little way to helping you get the most out of your radio interviewing experiences.

First things, first.

Wherever possible, gain some background (preferably ‘a lot’) about the subject and/or person you are about to interview as accurately and comprehensively as you can. It’s not always possible, of course. Sometimes you’re ‘thrown on the spot’ and have mere seconds notice before you’re live on air. The key thing is, if you CAN, do the research. It can easily be painfully apparent when you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about and the best insurance…  is your research. 

Introduce well…

Warmly welcome your interviewee and be sure to have a jug of water and glass available for them.

Introduce your subject with their name and where they’re from, followed by a little background information about them.

So you might lead in with a piece from a relevant news story, then say something like;

“Professor P.J. Rhubarb is an associate professor at the University of Red Rhubarb where he lectures on the ‘Pros and Cons of Rhubarb’. He has been studying rhubarb for 25 years and is a leading authority on the subject. Mr. Rhubarb, what do you think of today’s news reports that people in Southern Rhubarb are protesting against the laboratory disection of Rhubarb for medical research?”

You’ll notice in that somewhat ridiculous example, we didn’t ask him, “How are you today?” or ask him about the traffic on the way in to the studio, or the weather…

Rather, it’s best to get straight into your first topical and relevant question. That’s what people want to hear the answers to.

You hear that far too often on radio – people ask “…and how are you today?”  They respond, “well thank you”. Sigh. It seriously adds nothing at all to the conversation…

Your listeners can’t hear you nod or shake your head 

If you keep quiet, listeners can’t hear you when you nod your head in agreement with something the interviewee just said. Nor do they want to. You see, listeners are interested in your interviewees’ opinions and generally whether you agree or disagree doesn’t matter much to them.  So avoid saying ‘right’, ‘ok’, ‘righteeo’, ‘fair enough’, ‘absolutely’…  (you get the idea) after an interviewee answers you or by interjecting. Let them answer you, then simply ask them to expand or go onto your next question.

Once the interviewee finishes speaking don’t do this…

Never simply say, ‘have you got anything further to add?’ Doing so (a) makes it sound like you haven’t been listening, don’t know your subject or aren’t interested, and (b) could take the interview on a whole new tangent, particularly if it’s a politician or an interviewee with a particular barrow to push.  

Be funny but only…

Seriously, unless you know you’re funny - don’t try to be. It often backfires.

Know your demographics – your audience…

Be sure to know your audience and have empathy for their sense of what they want to listen to. The questions you ask the Prime Minister on a youth-oriented station are going to be different to the questions you’d ask on a station targeted at 45+ listeners.

Remind people who you are interviewing

Midway through the interview, or if it’s a longer interview then every five or so minutes, state again who you are speaking with. For example, ‘I’m joined today by Federal Minister for the Environment, Mr. Rupert Blogosphere’. You know yourself, how often have you tuned into an interview and are really keen to know who the interviewee is, but the interviewer doesn’t let you know. That drives me nuts. Especially true at the END of an interview!! 

Listen.

This is the most important thing above all else really. Listen carefully to the responses because it stands out like ‘the proverbial’ when you ask subsequent questions if they have already been answered – or in the context of a previous question your new question doesn’t make sense.
It’s actually a LOT easier said than done – to listen carefully, that is – because you’re also aware of what’s coming up, how long the interview is going for, and other studio-related activities. Yet it is singularly the most important skill to attain.

Generally speaking, especially when starting out, avoid bias in your interviews. Usually you just want the facts, or to hear your interviewees opinion – not to offer your own opinion on the subject matter at hand. Certainly the listening public want to hear from THEM, not YOU.  

Interview length

There is no rule that an interview should be of a certain length. The criteria however, is that the interview is entertaining. As long as it is entertaining and informative, that’s what matters.

Two more hints in this post to make mention of and they are worth always remembering as you go headlong into your broadcasting career:

1. If you haven’t got one already, develop a burning passion for being curious about people and the world around you.

2. Your subject is the star. Not you. You should almost be invisible in an interview, such will be the power of the questions you ask and the listening you display.

Any other comments you’d like to share?

Crying shame when any station closes really.

Click here to read full story and HEAR THE FINAL MOMENTS of MIX 107

I like that. “Radio talker”.

But then I use the term ‘wireless’ often when talking about radio – its a kind of term of endearment nowadays.

(As an aside, was ‘wireless’ as a term for ‘radio’ restricted to the UK and Australia?)  

Anyways that’s what this article is about. Talking. On the radio.

Even better, it’s definitely an absolute ‘newbies’ guide (part one).

I’m writing this for a very specific reader. 

You see, I’m writing it especially for you if:

(a) You currently help out in an on-air capacity for your local community radio station or;

(b) You have a burning ambition to become a radio announcer and haven’t had any experience whatsoever.

When I’ve held training sessions for new announcers a lot of the stuff you are about to read here – is the very stuff I teach. Most of it is common sense but it’s amazing how easy it is to forget them when you open the microphone.

Two other things to say before we go on. One is that these aren’t ‘hard and fast’ rules; they are tips to help you deliver a better program. The second thing is that you must ‘be yourself’ on-air as much as possible. People warm to real, genuine personalities – so long as you sound as if you’re in control of your program and ‘know what you’re talking about’.

Let’s go.

Keep your time calls simple.

Instead of saying, ”It’s twenty minutes past the hour of 1 o’clock in the afternoon”, keep it simple.

So, you should always try to simplify your time-calls down to something like, “twelve-twenty” or “twenty past twelve”. 

Just like all communication, a combination of natural language and brevity are the keys to success.

When managing a community radio station, I’d often hear things like, “Twenty-one and a half past the hour of three o’clock” whereupon I’d walk into the studio when music was playing and ask the announcer what the time was. They’d look at the clock or their watch and say, “Twenty past three”.  Use natural language when you’re on air.

In Australia at least, once you’re past the 30 minute mark, use ‘to’ the hour. For example, if it’s 3. 38, don’t say, “Thirty-eight minutes past 3″, rather “Twenty-two to four” works better.

When things go wrong, don’t highlight them.

Let’s say there is a problem with a piece of equipment and it’s just affected something that’s gone to air. As a general rule, don’t highlight what happened. Chances are high that listeners didn’t even notice the problem. Of course if you do come on-air and blabber on about the problem and start appropriating blame at the technicians or whoever was seemingly ‘responsible’, listeners will definitely notice that. It’s a bad look for the station and it just makes you sound unprofessional.

Remain positive about the station

There shouldn’t be any reason you should say anything negative about the station you work for on-air. Full stop.

Tell people who you are – but…

Do tell people your name. But really, once or twice per hour is usually adequate. We’ve all heard announcers who feel compelled to say their name in every talk break. It’s almost a truism that you can tell people with either the biggest egos or the biggest insecurities on radio, by counting the number of times they say their name…!

Don’t talk over vocals in a song intro

If the format allows you to talk over the ‘ramp’ or ‘intro’ to a song, be clever about it and be sure not to talk over the song’s vocals. 

While on the subject of ramps, I’ve heard announcers rave on for a minute over a song’s intro – just because the song happened to have a 60 second intro! 

Another thing NOT to do is forward announce a song, letting the intro play under, then for all intents and purposes stop talking, only to open the microphone another twenty seconds later with a time call, then shut up for ten seconds, then talk about the weather… you get the idea. Say what you’ve got to say then zip it up and let the music go, baby, go!!! 

Timing to the top of the hour

If you’re in a format that is constrained to on-the-second at-the-top-of-the-hour news bulletins PLEASE learn to time out correctly. Nothing sounds dumber than: (a) a song being played for 43 seconds then being cut off abruptly for the news (b) playing an instrumental piece up to the news (very ‘old-school’) or (c) deathly silence leading up to the news. Timing IS easy. If you have track running 3:47 it needs to start at (hour):56:13 to time up perfectly (assuming the song has a ‘cold’ – which means a ’sudden’ ending).

If you are in a market that needs ‘to-the-second’ timing for news etc, it’s YOUR responsibility as the on-air presenter to ensure the clocks in the studios are synchronised correctly.  If you’re just using Windows-based programs, all you have to do is double click on the time at the bottom-right of your screen, then select ‘Internet Time’ before clicking ‘Update Now’ (assuming of course, you’re online).

Help your listeners feel like it’s their station

If you’re talking about an event in your coverage area, but the suburb you’re referring to is 35km from your studios, don’t refer to the suburb as ‘over there in…’. Remember, for people listening in that suburb, they’ re NOT ‘over there’. And that simple little phrase – telling people about an event ‘over there’ - ever so slightly erodes the feeling that your radio station is truly ‘theirs’. If you’re in Ballarat, why would you say on-air, “It’s happening this Sunday over there in Delacombe”, or in Inverell, “It’s always a terrific day at the races over there in Glen Innes”? See what I mean? Remove the words, “over there” from these examples and it sounds more like your Delacombe’s or Glen Innes’s station.

Smile…!

Yup. People can’t see you, but they CAN hear a smile on air. It’s a subliminal thing. Listeners may not be absolutely conscious you’re smiling yet your delivery will be guaranteed to be warmer.    

Be prepared before you speak

It can sound like you’re unprepared if you say something like, “I think now we’ll play a song by…”

You don’t want it to sound like you’re making it up as you go along. Be confident. In a music-based station for example, “Genesis, Invisible Touch  –  TotalRock Radio’ sounds a lot better than, “I think now we might hear a song by Genesis called, Invisible Touch”.

That might do for part one. I’ll post part two of The Newbies Guide to Being a Radio Talker soon. As always, comments welcome…!

However prevalent the ‘myth’ is that teens no longer rely on radio for music, data from a US research firm has found that radio is still a top source of music consumption for teenagers.

See the report on FMQB.com.

The new owner of the stations is Media Sound Holdings Limited.

Read the RadioToday report online.

Read the full report here.

They found that radio currently reaches over 235 million listeners ages 12+ during an average week.

Read more at fmqb.com

Rhythm of the City, 100 3DB

In the previous post there are a series of submitted logos including 3TT. Of course, 3TT WAS 3DB. And I remember buying this from Central Station records in Melbourne. It’s the actual 45″ single of the station jingle. The (b) side featured the “long version”…! I can’t imagine a station releasing a ’single’ of a station jingle these days somehow…

So, here are a few submissions to take you back down memory-lane. By the way, you can follow Andrew on Twitter at Twitter.com/TelevisionAU.

I’ve included the dates as provided by Andrew and added some of my own comments on some of the stations as I remember them.

Radio 2NX, Newcastle.

Newcastle, NSW station 2NX in 1993. Locals will remember they turned into ‘X13′ for a short time featuring dance music and no cold-voiceovers.

Victorian radio station 3CV

This logo from 1992 is from a radio station that I remember as always sounding most unlike a ‘country’ station. Growing up in rural Victoria, 3CV were one of the best sounding stations in that State outside of Melbourne I thought.

Radio 3MP, Melbourne

Ahhh, 3MP (Mornington Peninsula). They blasted on the scene officially to service the southern suburbs around Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula but a mix of savvy programming and a booming signal meant they were well and truly a competitive station in the Melbourne market. I remember fondly as “Bay City Radio” but this logo is from 1984.

Adelaide, South Australia radio station 102FM

When I lived in Adelaide there was the music stations 5AD and 5KA. There was 5AA doing either talk or ‘beautiful music’, and SA-FM had come onto the scene. Oh, there was a little community station called 5MMM then too! The other commercial option was 5DN which I remember as being a very good talk station. Wasn’t Jeremy Cordeaux on 5DN? Anyways, they went ‘FM’ and became 102FM. This is from 1991.

Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia radio station 8DN

Darwin’s 8DN which ceased broadcasting in 1991. This logo is from 1989.

Melbourne Radio Station 3TT

Boy was it dissapointing when 3DB ceased to be 3DB. At least to this writer. Anyhow the station that was on 1026kHz was to become 3TT and this is the station’s first logo. It’s not the one I remember though. (Not that I can picture it, but if I see it I’ll know, it if that makes sense…!)

Once again, thanks Andrew for the submissions…!