Insite Talent Direction#1, Harry Lyles, Lyles Media
When you set a station up for success, you can’t guess. Your plan must be created with intent and the main objective to create success. For years we’ve been a firm believer in consumer facts and data. Asking discovery question to the locals is how you win. With real facts and data along with good teaching, coaching and encouraging that’s how you win. To achieve radio format excellence you need information and tools. The programming excellence system is about learning, growing and being a part of a successful team. Who doesn’t want to work with a station that gets ratings and makes money.
Talent Direction #1
We’ve said it a million times, talent can make or break a radio station. Here’s a brief talent concept to consider if on air consistency is important to you.
Your talent must reflect class. Never anything off-color, no negatives, no chauvinism. Your listeners want to think they are classy people…be equal to what they think they are. And relate every day.
Relate one-to-one. Teach your talent to talk to one listener as if he or she were a person in the room. Use all the ranges of emotion when speaking and be human. Picture a person in the desired demo and have fun!
Get to the point. Consistently work creating talk breaks and relevant content that gets straight to the point.
Avoid forced humor (be who you are). This is especially true in morning drive. Morning content is the engine for the rest of the day and makes a huge statement. No strong morning engine, no numbers.
Local wins. On air talent must be involved in the city. Get your talent to go places in your city and get to know firsthand what’s happening. And get that content live on the air…
All on air personalities should have fun and should sound like it. Doing the same thing every day creates boring radio.
Regardless of your station mechanics, mechanics are only a guideline. Your attitude and performance will make the ratings.
To win and in short, if you’re warm, positive, and have class, you’ll win a lot of listeners and score in the Nielsen game.
Finally, say the stations name with pride. Make the listeners know you are serious and care- they can feel that. The research says they know when you are in the game for real or a fake. It’s the difference between losing and winning.
All the best in 2022!
Harry Lyles, is President of Lyles Media. Email: hlyles@urbanradio