Almost forgot to post this week's All Access "The Letter" weekly newsletter, and since the text version got screwed up, there's actually a good reason other than sheer laziness to do so. So...:
This week: learning from Allen Ludden, with a special guest appearance by Bert Convy.
I spent most of Wednesday flying across the country, and it took me almost as long to make it from JFK to Manhattan as it did from Long Beach to JFK. In that time, I learned three valuable lessons. Those were:
1. Simple is better.
2. The Church of the Open Door in Brooklyn appears to keep all of its doors closed.
3. When you look at the weather report for your destination and it says "rain, heavy at times," you might want to consider packing a raincoat. Might be advisable, 's all I'm sayin'. Would have been a good idea had I thought of it in California rather than on the plane.
For purposes of talk radio, though, Lesson 1 is the important one. And that's where Allen Ludden comes in. JetBlue offers TV to its passengers, and that's great, except that whenever I fly, it happens to correspond with when TV is at its worst, daytime. I always fly when ESPN replays the same SportsCenter over and over and over and over and over until you can do the commentary verbatim, right along with the anchors. How many times can you watch the same exact highlight reel of Ortiz' homer, then Bernie Williams' homer, then that Melky Cabrera catch to rob Manny of a homer? Maybe it's better if you're a Yankee fan. But I always end up watching channels I'd never otherwise watch, in this case GSN, the erstwhile Game Show Network, which was, on Wednesday, in full "Password" mode.
You remember "Password." Everyone remembers "Password." It was on for a long time, in several different variations, mostly hosted by Allen Ludden, but the basics were always the same: you give one-word clues to try and get your partner to guess the "password." Simple. "The password is... cheese." "Cheddar..." "Cheese!" Anyone can play. A Martian could watch it for 30 seconds and figure out the rules. Game show perfection, and it lasted for decades. On the flight, I watched "Password Plus" and "Super Password" (with Bert Convy!) all the way through and played along, and it was reasonably entertaining.
And then they had some other game shows, one old one with Bill Cullen where you had to answer questions and they corresponded to a grid of octagonal squares and I couldn't quite figure out what the object was, so I switched away. And there was a newer one with Chuck Woolery that involved, well, I have no idea what that was- there were contestants and some sort of grid board with lights, but I couldn't understand the rules at all, so I didn't watch. "Jeopardy?" Yeah, watched that- answer in the form of a question, simple. I noticed that if it took me more than a few seconds to grasp how to play the game, I was gone. If I could figure it out immediately, I stayed.
That goes for talk radio topics, too. Recently, I was listening to a talk show and the host took an entire segment explaining a story in the news and the many aspects of it that could be debated, and after 15 minutes, I still couldn't figure out exactly what he was going for. If I was an average listener, I'd have been gone within a minute, maybe less. Getting to the point fast is important, but you gotta make the point easy to grasp, too. And that's the "Password" lesson: when someone tunes in at any time, whether it's the beginning of the show or halfway through a call, make it easy for that new listener to understand what the heck you're talking about. If the topic can't be boiled down to one or two simple phrases or points, a lot of people will move on to see what's on other stations.
Do I have a lot of scientific research to back that up? Nah. But I've done enough talk radio to know that it's true- the simpler and easier to grasp you make your premise, and the more you repeat that so new listeners don't have to wait to figure out what's going on, the more likely they'll stick around. But don't take my word for it- just ask Allen Ludden. (I know, I know, you can't ask him anymore, but you get the idea)
And, yes, I know, I just wrote a ton of words to make the point that you shouldn't take too many words to get to the point. At least I'm not doing a radio show.
For those of you who DO have a radio show, it's time for the weekly plug for All Access News-Talk-Sports and the Talk Topics show prep column, where you can find lots of stuff to talk about. This week so far, you'll find out why someone who found a frog in her salad ISN'T suing, you'll hear what the controversy is about Budweiser at the World Cup, you'll join the debate over teaching "character" in schools, you'll discover to what extremes people are now going to keep their job prospects bright, you'll learn why some people will pay $7,000. for a cat, you'll get up to date with the latest reason not to move to South Florida (as if gators and hurricanes and the Marlins weren't enough), you'll finally get the answer to who'd win a fight between a deer and a pit bull, you'll find out why some students' grades depend on how long they can, er, hold it in, and you'll collect several entertaining teacher-student sex scandal stories. Plus a story about Boudreaux' Butt Paste. And items and comments and links about "real" news stories like terrorism and the elections and that kind of stuff. All that plus "10 Questions With..." KHTK/Sacramento night host Carmichael Dave and the Talent Toolkit with three sites about dear old Dad, and the rest of All Access with lots of industry news and columns and the Industry Directory and stuff that will help you do your job better (and job listings, if you're looking for someplace new to do that better job).
Next week: I have no idea. Maybe something will happen at this weekend's convention. Or maybe I'll just dash off something stupid at the last minute as usual. Bet on the latter.
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