Where Has All The Talent Gone?

...Article by Tracy for Radio & Records Magazine One of the most exciting things about this industry is that it is never static. Its always changing, ever-evolving. Society is on the move, and our stations are constantly challenged to move with them. Our stations must find new ways to entertain listeners who are bombarded with new choices of entertainment. However, as things change, one thing remains the same: Managers, programmers and consultants lament that the on-air talent pool is drying up. Now this is nothing new. That argument has been around since DJs started using headphones. A good case can be made that the early effects of consolidation has led to fewer opportunities for talent, causing a significant gap between the extreme ends of the talent pool. But as we move toward the dawn of a new decade (and depending on how you view the chronology of time, a new century and millennium) Im as excited about the current state of personalities in this industry as ever. At Don Anthonys Morning Show Bootcamp last month, it was refreshing to be surrounded by over 650 talented, motivated personalities that were hungry to learn, share ideas and grow to become entertainers. The problem is, many arent receiving the information, knowledge and coaching to realize their dreams. The problem we face today has nothing to do with finding talented people who want to be on the radio. The problem is managing these personalities and developing on-air superstars. Programmers are rarely provided with the training they need to establish a relationship that can help mold talent to get the most out of their abilities. The net effect is as ridiculous as a professional football team drafting a great athlete out of college and saying, Okay, youre the quarterbacknow get out there and win some games, without providing an offensive strategy or playbook. In our book Morning Radio: A Guide To Developing On-Air Superstars, Alan Burns and I outline many of the ingredients that lead to successful air talent development. The Recipe Hiring a morning show that truly makes a difference may be the most important thing you ever do. Everyone is looking for the short-cut. We want to find and hire that Silver Bullet show, a market leader who listeners love, generate no complaint calls, is willing to work for cheap, and is currently not under contract. Well, that show doesnt exist. Usually, the best approach is to build your own show. We call it the five-step recipe: Step 1: Hire Great Talent. There is no substitute for excellence. Many radio executives spend months looking for talent, then eventually settle for less than they wanted (and needed) because they give up. While air check tapes may be useful, dont put too much emphasis in the traditional approach of listening to audition tapes. Most shows can sound great in a five-minute tape, but may or may not be able to deliver entertainment four hours a day, five days a week. Similarly, some shows cant be properly showcased in a brief air check demo. Your challenge is to find interesting, entertaining personalities. Many of them may not even be working in radio now. As Rick Cummings says, Its easier to teach entertaining people to do radio than teach radio people to be entertaining. Step 2: Make Them Understand Whats Expected. Before you finalize the deal, be sure the show knows what you want them to be. Are they comfortable with your format, your strategy? Are you confident that they understand the mission and will fit well into your plan? Do they know and accept their role on the station? Are they the savior that will take the station from worst-to-first? The caretaker that is designed to get the station publicity and improve the profile? A baby-sitter that is expected to simply execute the format? The key is to know what you want, and be sure that they understand and believe in the plan. Step 3: Offer Support and Direction. A great actor can take a script and make the character he is playing sparkle on the screen. But its the director that determines the outcome of the film. Once you hire great talent, your mission has just begun. They need time, attention, patience and support to become great. The partnership between program director and personality must be a strong bond based on encouragement, honesty, feedback and positive critique. This process is much easier if youve executed Step 2 properly. You also must be prepared to provide the tools for the show to utilize. After paying a free agent millions of dollars to play baseball, its not a significant expense to provide the bats and spikes to make them better! Be sure your show has what they need to perform! Step 4: Let Them Be Creative. Great talent will take your ideas, your strategy and your direction and create something far greater than you ever expected, if you let them. After arriving at a common vision for the show, provide an environment that lets them shine. Thats why you hired them to begin with. Step 5: Pay Them What Theyre Worth. Personalities who are capable of performing on the radio at a level that creates multi-dimensional personality and offers entertainment value between-the-songs is one of the most valuable elements that establishes a stations image and personality from its competition. Successful talent can bullet-proof your station from competitive attack, and help separate you from stations that share your music. Those shows are also rare. When you find one, and they perform, hang onto them. Cherish them. Most radio stations are either under-paying or over-paying their talent. In other words, not only is a lot of money spent on talent that is NOT making an impact, but many shows that provide tremendous benefit to their stations are not being paid accordingly. As your show develops into a station-leading entity, its better for everyone to reward them financially before someone else tries to lure them away. The PD/Talent Partnership Its one thing to find a morning show with potential, its another to make it work. In most cases, the key to that success is that the program director establish a relationship with the talent. Its a partnership, the way Michael Jordan and coach Phil Jackson worked together in the Chicago Bulls championship seasons. That partnership must be built on mutual respect, confidence and trust. Talent must KNOW that the PD believes in their show and is their #1 fan. They must have confidence that the PD is going to support their show even when they make mistakes. Notice I said WHEN they make mistakes. Great personalities will make plenty of mistakes, because the great ones take risks, and when you take risks sometimes you lose. Conversely, talent must respect the role and authority of the PD. Its a two-way street. A great PD will have the self-confidence and judgement to offer advice to make good ideas great. Her or she will defer control of some ideas to the talent that knows how to deliver entertainment. Work together with a mutual goal to bring out the best in the personalities and put them in a position to become the stars they long to be. Feedback The partnership will be enhanced with regular, consistent feedback. Feedback is much different than criticism, though correcting poor performance is certainly part of the process. Talent needs feedback, relies on it, and expects it. Theyre laying it on the line every single day and when they rarely hear from their supervisor, the natural (and often accurate) conclusion is that nobody cares. Even if its not true, thats the perception. And when talent thinks the boss doesnt care, bad things tend to happen. Delivering negative, critical feedback usually results in an adversarial relationship with talent, so its important to understand the proper way to coach talent. Usually, offering feedback properly will result in a stronger partnership, greater trust and increased confidence. Here are some guidelines: Most feedback should be positive. Talent really wants to make the PD happy. From their perspective, life is good when the listeners and PD are happy. So, just as training a child to behave properly in life, you will get better results when you tell them what they are doing right, and why it works. It doesnt have to be just the biggest elements on the show. Sometimes the best feedback is from something relatively minor. Feedback should be objective. Never base your feedback on opinion, but on objective judgements of performance. It doesnt matter what your friends, your wife, or the manager of the auto dealer thinks. Your feedback must be based on mutually established objectives for the entertainment value of the show. Feedback should be specific. Generalized comments like hey, the show sure sounded great today accomplish nothing. In fact, those comments are usually worse than saying nothing at all. Be specific about what sounded great. Was it the mood of the show, the pace, the phone calls, the way they executed the things youve been talking about? Have a reason for your compliments and your complaints. Feedback should be based on content, not mechanics. Dont waste time belaboring formatic elements or mistakes in execution. Every qualified personality already knows when something went wrong mechanically. Focus your input on the entertainment value. Feedback should focus on YOUR show. Nothing frustrates talent more than playing a tape of another show, and saying you should be more like them. There are good reasons to use other stations as examples or to gain ideas, but not as a model to base the show on. Summary The art of developing and managing creative air talent is one of the most important and over-looked aspect of station operation. With all the added pressure and responsibility on managers and programmers in todays environment, finding the time and resources should have a greater priority. When you consider the benefits, its a terrific investment!