FreeWrite: Stick To The Basics - K-I-S-S!

Basics

Work with the basics they said. K-I-S-S. That's Keep it Short and Simple. Don't waffle. Don't go in circles. Don't hee-haw like a donkey (ok, they didn't say that). Get to the point. Start as close to the end as possible.

This was the mantra for Presenters. To always be present, know what the point of your talkset is before you shout "mic" and hit that button. I remember, a guest once asked me *Who's Mike?". Mic is just to let everyone in the studio know, you are about to go on air, so to be prepared. And especially don't talk.

We were told that people will lose interest if we lost the plot. Radio was secondary entertainment. Not like TV, where you would make the time to sit in front of it, with all eyes and ears on the programme you were watching. Radio on the other hand accompanied you while you went about your everyday life. Driving, talking to passangers in the car, cooking, housework, radio was just in the background.

The trick was to get the person's attention in the first 5 seconds, or that person was as good as lost. Possibility of surfing channels, and maybe not come back. It didn't matter how amazing our English was, and even if we knew every single word in the dictionary, we were not to be over ambitious with words. More than planning to impress, we planned to relate. We were suppose to talk to them, not at them. The conversation needed to be inclusive and personal. We refrained from saying "you all" it was always you. You spoke to one person. That person, should feel you are talking to them. They should feel you are a friend. A friend does not wow you with bombastic words. A friend was casual and relaxed.

Later on in my career, these were the things I monitored with my team of Presenters. They were not called DJs like when I started. They now followed a given format with very little room to be spontaneous. Songs were picked for them. Cues to talk were planned. Even the duration of the talkset was timed and cued in the programme.

I missed the ownership of a show. We didn't just present, we produced our own shows. We created the show from scratch, we chose the songs to play, which songs came after a talkset, and the content for the show. These days many things are planned out and the Presenter just needs to be the "link" between all the different components of the show and make it work. They then need to sit down with their superior, listen to the show together and identify what worked and what can be improved.

Sometimes we would get complaints that one DJs/Presenter's songs were bad. We always found that amusing, since the songs through out the station were handpicked by a team and was kind of the same throughout the day, with very slight changes to suit the time of the day. Credit to the DJ/Presenter for their presentation style makes the show sound good.

There's a lot more that goes into a Radio Show and it is not as simple as "Just Talking and Press Play", but my 5 minutes is up. The next time you listen to a radio show, you now have some idea of what goes on behind the scenes.

All images taken with my trusty iPhone 7 Plus, edited with my favourite apps Photofox & FontMania

Another day another prompt, another Free Write! This is where you are allowed to frolic in the happiest place or traverse into the darkest corners of your mind and then share it. It can be fact, it can be fiction, as long as they are your words!! Many have found a creative side to them they didn't know they had. Please don't take my word for it. Check out @mariannewest and @freewritehouse to get in on the action.

’Til we meet again over text, pics, videos, maybe even coffee - Steem On!!

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