Wake Up Calling

Making Mornings Work - Is Comedy Still The Key?

There is nothing more powerful for an Urban station than a compelling morning show that can consistently get ratings. And yes, it's important for them to be funny. Funny will beat non-funny every time - especially in the morning. How do you get funny? That is the question.

Some stations prefer to simply use syndicated big names. Others prefer to stick with their own local morning shows. If yours is a local morning show, naturally, you have more input and you can work on development. The amount of time spent with the talent really depends on the experience level of the show. If you have a young show, you're going to need to have more regimented development sessions with them. But as the show matures, the interaction then will take on a different tone.

The most important period in the development of the morning show is when you put combinations of people together. As the program director, you need to do everything right and see everybody through the difficult time of that initial "getting to know who does what."

Budgets are getting to be more and more of a factor and are often the reason stations turn to syndicated morning personalities. But if yours is a local morning show, that's a real problem. Tiny budgets for personalities and promotion means difficulties with getting the word out on their shows. Unfortunately, while they help, websites are not the complete answer

Marketing The Morning Show

In doing the research for this piece, I spoke with several stations concerning their local morning shows. I've never really understood why stations hire two or three talented people, pay them tons of money, then hire producers and claim they have absolutely no money to spend on marketing. I've seen shows fail because management took away all the marketing money. If management doesn't spend anything to market the morning show, the only cume it can get, unless they get lucky, is the station's cume. And with the meter moving into the top-50 markets soon, that is going to change.

If the station finds it doesn't have large marketing dollars, then you have to do very topical and interesting in-house promotions. The morning show has got to have strong recall so that people know that particular morning show did this specific feature or promotion. There's no better free promotion than taking advantage of the cume that's already listening to the station during the rest of the day. You need to run teasers of the next days' show or recyclers or snippets of that day's show. You've got to cross-promote the morning show.

Some of the responsibility for this has to fall on the talent. If the talent's concept of working on a promo for the next day's show is two or three minutes, that's got to change. Some quality thinking and time has to go into what you're going to say for that teaser for the next day. You really need to be diligent about isolating

the funniest snippet to use in a best-of clip. Sometimes that chore gets dumped off on an intern or producer, but it's a reflection of your morning show. So it should be worth at least 20-30 minutes every morning right after the morning show ends.

Urban radio needs to take a lesson from how television promotes itself. Spend a part of a day watching the leading television station in your market and see how they promote themselves every hour. In every break they brand their personalities and shows. Their promos are always looking at what's coming up at various times. Urban radio can do the same thing.

Morning Show Secrets

Now we're going to look at a couple of morning show "secrets" and the developing role of the programmer in crafting a "killer" morning show.

First, one of the secrets of a great morning show is strong phone bits. These killer calls don't just happen. Sometimes they can be spontaneous, but most of the time, they're the result of preparation, effort and ingenuity. One of the best ways to encourage morning listeners is to always try to air well-executed calls from other listeners. Many of your regular morning listeners, especially, would love to participate and they need to know it's safe to call. And when they call, the phone must be answered promptly, hopefully by one of the key talents, but if not, certainly by the morning show producer. This is one of the vital jobs of any good morning show producer. Even if they started off as "go-fors" they can wind up being the missing ingredient in making mornings work. These morning regulars need encouragement. You want your passive listeners to call as well as your actives. So send them a message that if they call, they might get to talk to one of the anchors and even end up on the air.

A great source of potentially clever callers is still the request line. Answer and record all incoming calls, and if you've got the digital 360, that's even better because it's faster. Answer the request lines actively. If a listener, who represents your target demo, calls your request lines and asks for Alicia Keys, for example, don't simply say, "I'll try to get it on for you as soon as I can." Talk to

them and keep asking questions until you get a response you can use. "Did you see Beyonce on the BET Awards Show?" "Why do you want to hear this particular song? What is the best thing about her?" If you can't get a paragraph, get a sentence. If you can't get a sentence, get a thought or a phrase or even just one word. An edited version of this call, as played on the air, might go like this: "So baby girl from the south side, what do you think about Beyonce's latest video?" Caller: "Outrageous! Awesome!" (Hit the next element, stager, drop or even a commercial that can act as a punctuator.) It's also important to know that bits have to be punctuated to be most effective. Your jock can't come back after that caller and say anything. That's not only anti-climatic, it weakens the bit.

The listener is not a professional entertainer. It's the air talent's job to make sure the caller says something worth airing. The most important element from talent who deliver great phones is control. Listeners must be managed, directed and guided.

The vast majority of folks who come into radio are usually people who are into the music, not high-powered personalities. The ability to be funny and do phone bits wasn't what lured them to this profession. The legendary jocks who inspired us were not clever comedians and actors with a battalion of writers and producers. So it's entirely logical that a format that always stresses music as its message should experience such growing pains.

The problem is the programmers and consultants. The talent's there. It's always been there. Programmers just don't know how to find and develop talent; just as many don't know how to find and hear the music or use their callout research to make better, informed decisions. Many of them grew up in the age of "less talk-more music," syndicated morning shows or heritage morning shows that were already in place. Callout research can't help you here, homies. But before we attack the programmers and consultants, let's look at reality. Many programmers weren't trained to recognize and develop talent, especially if they came from the clubs, the streets, off the van or even straight from college radio.

Given the current state of morning affairs, the programmer's role as a morning show coach has become crucial. It's become even more crucial because the morning show producer is a role that has seldom been properly filled, even on many syndicated morning shows. So, without a trained, experienced producer - in whom the morning team can trust and place complete confidence in -- that is a role that needs to be shared with the program director. Today's program directors and consultants must play a large role in the development and evolution of the morning show. It's not going to get better on its own -- and it's just as important as getting the music right. What's really scary to me, is what's going to happen when it's time for Tom Joyner, Steve Harvey, Russ Parr, Skip Murphy, Guy Black, Marc Clark and Donnie Simpson to retire?

The other thing that isn't the programmer's fault is management's inability to understand how crucial the morning show is to winning. Many are unwilling to financially support a top morning show. A few, who have been around for a while, think it's still a one-man band, or no more than a two-man band. They (the owners and managers) don't want to pay a producer, do perception studies, subscribe to any comedy services, or even run any syndicated short-form program aids unless they come with compensation.

Some of these guys are reluctant to wait for a morning show to develop, once it's in place. Part of this is understandable. There are tremendous financial pressures, but such impatience can stifle the nurturing of many truly gifted performers. So pulling the plug prematurely on a developing morning show has cost us potential talent. Couple this with the fact that these shows often were not given enough time or support to jell and you have one of the best reasons for mediocre morning talent.

The spontaneity and intimacy of radio are important, but making people feel good really is the key. Music tastes may change, so it's important to know about the hot artists hitting your format along with the big TV shows and the latest movies. You should also "pepper your playlist" with the correct amount of retro. Music in the morning, for the most part, should be uptempo and familiar.

Be sure to zero in on the topics your target audience finds entertaining. After you've researched the topics, edit yourself by eliminating repeated information and hone in on what you think is the most usable and important subject matter to the audience.

Keep your information easy to digest, with a single thought or topic. Then, after you've edited your material down, edit it again to get to the real meat of the subject. Use drops from TV shows and movies to help accentuate your point, if at all possible, be sure to put a local twist on a national story. Just remember to get to the point while informing and entertaining.

Word economy and mass appeal are important. Use the record ramp or intro to paint a picture with the fewest possible words and make certain each listener will see that same picture in their heads. Also, tying in the experiences that we have all had, such as a great kiss, a new ride, a great club or concert experience, or being cold after getting out of the pool, can really bring the listener to your side of the board. You have to assume that somebody listening to your morning show also has an Arbitron diary ... and may soon be carrying a meter. Being relatable means being remembered. Being remembered means getting written down in their diary, or being carried in an encoded signal in the PPM world.

You are a mirror on the radio and you reflect back what most people feel by being yourself. If you don't want the listeners to say you talk too much, say something that makes them laugh, think or chuckle and captures their attention.

Chemistry can make or break a show. Some programmers think a morning show can be instantly created by pairing a male and a female or putting together a cast of characters -- the zoo concept. Then they'll sit back and watch, totally bummed by seeing their custom-built morning show fall apart. Why? Because the chemistry just isn't there. Chemistry, like attraction, can't be forced. It either exists or it doesn't -- and no amount of threatening or cajoling can change this simple truth. Chemistry is wild and unpredictable. The most likely candidates often refuse to be compatible, while the oddest pairings turn into successful, winning partnerships. But when it works, there's nothing better. When the chemistry is there, your audience feels it. And when they feel it, it's much easier for that show to develop as a morning habit for the audience. And when your "chemistried" morning show goes on vacation, don't substitute "an alien from another shift" or a part-timer. Give the audience what they want and deserve -- the best of your morning shows from the past three months.

Another secret to successful morning shows is treating listeners like "users." It starts with hosts who never get a caller's name, who make smart-ass, often embarrassing remarks and then hang up without ever saying goodbye or thanking them. You know, it's the Urban version of "the rude boys." Even if these "insult jocks" seem to work, there are a lot of people turned off by them. It may work for a while with some Top 40s, but the females who make Urban formats work won't stand for much of it. Your morning team doesn't have to do that to score. Remember how you treat the person on the phones is how everyone listening feels treated by you. Ideally, listeners should be treated as teammates and stars. Otherwise your morning show and station may be perceived as arrogant, self-involved and uncaring.

You want the people in your morning show to sound like they care. Although caring morning talent is, and will remain, a crucial question, hopefully, there will still be at least a few of these funky, funny folks who will continue to make sure some fickle morning fingers find your frequency. Turn them into humans worth hearing. And when they score and the ratings come in, pay them. Management also needs a wake-up calling. They seem to forget that you can't save your way to success. Everybody seems to be suffering from a new ailment called "costrophobia" -- the fear of rising prices.

Word.