No season is more clear cut than "back to school" season. Staying up late, sleeping in, and eating whenever you feel like it is over. Vacation mode is set to off as the alarm clocks are turned back on.

Hopefully you got a vacation this summer. Vacations are important, not just for the fun you have on them, but also for what happens just before you go on one. If you're like most people, your home or office is never more organized than when you are just about to leave for vacation. Perhaps it's even occurred you, "why don't I do this more often when I am here to enjoy the space?" The fact is most of us find more urgent or enjoyable things to do on a daily basis than to deep clean just about anything. It's science.

Why not use this back to school season to take inventory and do a deep clean of your radio station? To put it another way, let's take a page from Marie Kondo's bestselling book "The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up" and sort everything by category and throw out anything that doesn't "spark joy". If that sounds intimidating, I'm happy to share with you The Radio Scorecard(tm) I've developed for the stations I consult. The Radio Scorecard(tm) includes a 12-step review of every aspect of your radio station including music, each on-air daypart, as well as branding and stationality.

My single mom didn't raise me to be a snob. Quite the opposite in fact. Looking down on people was not a luxury we had. If anything, I was the one looked down on. I was the kid wearing VERY patched Sears Toughskins jeans and Trax shoes from K-Mart. I swore to ...

Okay, you've got a story you want to tell. Great. Tell me the story...but leave half of it OUT. Yes, I'm serious. Too much detail, unneeded side roads, too many words to express a thought, too much setup, more than one "punch line", or "backing and filling" because ...

Let's make this one really simple: With your Content, you can engage the brain, or you can engage the heart...or you can engage both. What you SHOULDN'T do is only engage the brain. That's boring. ESPECIALLY in a Christian format, we should be tapping into Emotions and ...

There's one area of programming that most CCM stations fail in, most of the time. There are many reasons, ranging from lacking confidence in content, a desire to be tight and brief and a misguided idea that we should avoid calling attention to ourselves. In other ...

Politics and Christian radio have a lot in common: we debate some of the same things over and over (and over). When I was 19 and doing nights on Kix! 94.1 (a Country station in Lansing, MI, where I grew up), I was enamored with politics. I even switched my college ...

As a child, you were taught the magic words. And if you're a parent, you've passed them on to your kids ... Saying "Please" when you ask for something communicates respect and "Thank You" expresses gratitude to the other person. What makes these words magical? It's ...

One of the biggest challenges in our format is Content. There are lots of questions that help you put it together: Is this top of mind? Does the listener actually care about it? Do you have anything to offer on this subject that's unique, and not just what everyone ...

Radio doesn't have a problem with reach, or generating more P1s (first preference listeners). It has a problem winning fans. In spite of increased distractions and competition, most consumers continue to check out over-the-air radio stations. The problem, as you ...

There's a lot of different styles of communication in Christian radio. We have those that lean toward preaching, we have those that want to let the music be the message, we have those that focus on encouragement, and we have personalities that live life from a Bible ...