What makes truly great radio?
A lot of mostly vague yet discernible concepts like native intelligence, experience, opportunity, timing, chemistry and wise, trustworthy guidance.
And, talent.
How's that for a vague, yet discernible quality?
"Talent."
You can look it up but that won't help much. It's definable but elusive. You know it when you hear it. We all have it in varying degrees. It's always dependent upon supporting circumstances like time and place. Some might call it fate. Maybe even kismet.
Or, dumb luck.
The point of this essay is frustratingly vague, yet discernible: never stop refining your talent but just as importantly, don't try to define or measure it.
Just let it be and make it grow.
And through all this nonstop introspection, above all else, remember:
Great radio is not just about you.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
The neverending story
I just learned that another good radio friend is also out of work.
Damn. I feel sorry for him. He has a family and a mortgage and all that money stuff to worry about. Oh, he'll be fine for awhile, before self doubt creeps in.
He'll start out with his hard-earned, well-deserved professional pride, his head held high and with the quiet self-assurance that will lead him to new, exciting opportunities.
He'll decide this interruption in his career is nothing more than a hiccup. He'll find elation in an unexpected break from his work. He will lavish in precious gift hours in new time slots with his wife and kids.
I pray for him that it works out as he imagines it must. He's too smart, too talented and too experienced to not have the radio world beating a path to his doorstep.
Everybody will assure him of that.
Those of us who have been waiting for months and even years for that knock on the door are his biggest cheerleaders, even though we are also his competitors in a job market that seems to be shrinking by the hour.
Remember that great kids movie from the 1980s, The Neverending Story? That's the one where the kid named Bastian flies around on a huge flying dog named Atreyu trying to save the world called Fantasia from a rapidly creeping nothingness called "the Nothing".
The story takes place in a parallel universe and a world being gobbled up by this "Nothing", which represents people's lack of imagination in the real world.
I'm just sayin'...
© Dave Williams 2011, all rights reserved
Damn. I feel sorry for him. He has a family and a mortgage and all that money stuff to worry about. Oh, he'll be fine for awhile, before self doubt creeps in.
He'll decide this interruption in his career is nothing more than a hiccup. He'll find elation in an unexpected break from his work. He will lavish in precious gift hours in new time slots with his wife and kids.
I pray for him that it works out as he imagines it must. He's too smart, too talented and too experienced to not have the radio world beating a path to his doorstep.
Everybody will assure him of that.
Those of us who have been waiting for months and even years for that knock on the door are his biggest cheerleaders, even though we are also his competitors in a job market that seems to be shrinking by the hour.
The story takes place in a parallel universe and a world being gobbled up by this "Nothing", which represents people's lack of imagination in the real world.
I'm just sayin'...
© Dave Williams 2011, all rights reserved
Friday, May 6, 2011
The ingredients
I was eight or nine when I decided I want to spend my life inside the radio.
The local disc jockeys swept up my heart and what little firmament had taken form in my childish, primitive brain. Yet now, fifty years later, the emotional buzz I get from hearing great radio personalities is as strong as ever though I still don't completely understand why.
The songs played by the deejays of the sixties were wonderful. They remain the soundtrack of my life but like movie soundtracks I never focused on the music. Every song was exactly the same each time it was played. No, I lived for the song's presentation, its showcasing. I wanted to hear that clever deejay patter.
The deejays strung words together in fashion and order you never heard anywhere else in life. They colored fanciful pictures in my head. They made me feel special. They made me happy. They elevated even lousy songs to an equal footing with the classics.
They were magic. They were royalty.
And yet, they were touchable. I could call these gods on the phone. I could meet them at the grand opening of a record store. I spent the evening with them as they spun the records for our high school dances. I could see them standing right in front of me!
I heard the familiar voice, the famous tone and rhythm. The magic was even stronger in person because it emanated from a very ordinary-looking man.
These moments took my breath in awe and wonder. And early on something incredibly brash and naive inside me decided I needed to be one of these magicians.
The deejays of my youth were bigger than life. But then, life was much smaller in those days.
This is where I leave the metaphors and generalities of my first two posts behind. This is where I get specific about what I have learned from fifty years of loving and living radio.
The necessary ingredients for creating great radio stations and great radio personalities are as unique as we are. No two of us are alike and that, in itself, is a remarkable quality. We'll come back to that. But even as every word, every nuance of inflection and tone; every intent and reception of every utterance from great radio personalities is unique, there is one constant.
They always evoke an emotional response.
Always.
That's it! That's all you need to know.
Prove me wrong. Name one great radio station or personality of any format, of any era, who didn't excite you, delight you or piss you off every time you listen.
Is that ability a God-given gift or the result of passion, commitment and hard work?
Yes, it is.
The local disc jockeys swept up my heart and what little firmament had taken form in my childish, primitive brain. Yet now, fifty years later, the emotional buzz I get from hearing great radio personalities is as strong as ever though I still don't completely understand why.
The songs played by the deejays of the sixties were wonderful. They remain the soundtrack of my life but like movie soundtracks I never focused on the music. Every song was exactly the same each time it was played. No, I lived for the song's presentation, its showcasing. I wanted to hear that clever deejay patter.
The deejays strung words together in fashion and order you never heard anywhere else in life. They colored fanciful pictures in my head. They made me feel special. They made me happy. They elevated even lousy songs to an equal footing with the classics.
They were magic. They were royalty.
And yet, they were touchable. I could call these gods on the phone. I could meet them at the grand opening of a record store. I spent the evening with them as they spun the records for our high school dances. I could see them standing right in front of me!
I heard the familiar voice, the famous tone and rhythm. The magic was even stronger in person because it emanated from a very ordinary-looking man.
These moments took my breath in awe and wonder. And early on something incredibly brash and naive inside me decided I needed to be one of these magicians.
The deejays of my youth were bigger than life. But then, life was much smaller in those days.
This is where I leave the metaphors and generalities of my first two posts behind. This is where I get specific about what I have learned from fifty years of loving and living radio.
The necessary ingredients for creating great radio stations and great radio personalities are as unique as we are. No two of us are alike and that, in itself, is a remarkable quality. We'll come back to that. But even as every word, every nuance of inflection and tone; every intent and reception of every utterance from great radio personalities is unique, there is one constant.
They always evoke an emotional response.
Always.
That's it! That's all you need to know.
Prove me wrong. Name one great radio station or personality of any format, of any era, who didn't excite you, delight you or piss you off every time you listen.
Is that ability a God-given gift or the result of passion, commitment and hard work?
Yes, it is.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
The process
There is a recipe for creating great radio personalities and great radio stations. It's no different than making a cake.
The first thing you have to do is understand why you want to make a cake. It probably has to do with the fact that you like cake. A lot. So, you want to make the world's greatest cake. That's a good place to start. Why would you set out to make a mediocre cake?
If you're in a hurry you can make a cake the easy way, from a box. Add water and maybe an egg, stir it up and pour it into a pan. Stick it in the oven, wait awhile, and voila, you have a cake! It's a pretty good cake, too. Those people who make instant cake mixes have figured out how to make pretty good cakes on a massive scale. They make it possible for everybody to bake a pretty good cake.
But you won't be satisfied with just a pretty good cake. You don't want the same cake everybody has. You want to make the world's greatest cake and that, as you know, requires learning, practice and patience. And, it requires the finest ingredients.
As we leave our metaphor we understand that the finest ingredients necessary to make a great, one-of-a-kind radio station are great, unique people. Likewise, great radio people are honed and nurtured over time, if not from birth at least from the moment they discover their dream, their calling.
There's no getting around the need for patience, even for cakes from a box. Great radio and great radio personalities require a lifetime of learning and years of practice and loving patience.
Tomorrow: The ingredients.
The first thing you have to do is understand why you want to make a cake. It probably has to do with the fact that you like cake. A lot. So, you want to make the world's greatest cake. That's a good place to start. Why would you set out to make a mediocre cake?
If you're in a hurry you can make a cake the easy way, from a box. Add water and maybe an egg, stir it up and pour it into a pan. Stick it in the oven, wait awhile, and voila, you have a cake! It's a pretty good cake, too. Those people who make instant cake mixes have figured out how to make pretty good cakes on a massive scale. They make it possible for everybody to bake a pretty good cake.
But you won't be satisfied with just a pretty good cake. You don't want the same cake everybody has. You want to make the world's greatest cake and that, as you know, requires learning, practice and patience. And, it requires the finest ingredients.
As we leave our metaphor we understand that the finest ingredients necessary to make a great, one-of-a-kind radio station are great, unique people. Likewise, great radio people are honed and nurtured over time, if not from birth at least from the moment they discover their dream, their calling.
There's no getting around the need for patience, even for cakes from a box. Great radio and great radio personalities require a lifetime of learning and years of practice and loving patience.
Tomorrow: The ingredients.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
The source
Radio, as we still call it, has nothing to do with technology or how audiences connect with information, entertainment and companionship. It will always be about content.
Forty-some years ago we who worked in AM radio sweated bullets over the sudden tsunami of newly-viable FM radio. The technology geeks warned us that it was the end of our world.
It wasn't.
Now the hand-wringers are screeching about the impending end of radio wave propagation and the industry it created. The future, they warn us, is in streaming 4G apps and in content clouds. Radio, as a technology, will probably soon be dead.
So, what?
There will always be a new and improved technological means of delivering voices and images to a world hungry for information, entertainment and companionship.
Let the geeks wring their hands over how to deliver the content. The source of creation can never change.
The source, of course, is you.
Coming up: the process.
Forty-some years ago we who worked in AM radio sweated bullets over the sudden tsunami of newly-viable FM radio. The technology geeks warned us that it was the end of our world.
It wasn't.
Now the hand-wringers are screeching about the impending end of radio wave propagation and the industry it created. The future, they warn us, is in streaming 4G apps and in content clouds. Radio, as a technology, will probably soon be dead.
So, what?
There will always be a new and improved technological means of delivering voices and images to a world hungry for information, entertainment and companionship.
Let the geeks wring their hands over how to deliver the content. The source of creation can never change.
The source, of course, is you.
Coming up: the process.
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