Essential Radio Skills - how to produce and present a radio show

"Peter, your books are great, and the more that is "out there" for people as a resource to help them learn and create powerful radio the better! Let's work HARD to help kill boring radio."

Valerie Geller
US Radio Consultant

"I am grateful to you for the hard work you’ve put in … I hope you’ll accept my sincere appreciation for all you’ve done to galvanise your colleagues into engaging with these vital issues."

Mark Thompson
BBC Director General
on 'Useful Stuff' BBC newsletter
produced by Peter Stewart

Completely revised 2nd Edition ...
Out now!
Look for the green cover!

ESSENTIAL RADIO SKILLS -
how to present and produce a radio show
by Peter Stewart
Publ: A&C Black

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SECOND EDITION - OUT 2010

There’s now even more advice and information on how to present a radio show in the second edition of Essential Radio Skills.

As information on production moves to the companion volume ‘Essential Radio Journalism’, ERS is able to concentrate more on what goes on the radio rather than behind the scenes.

The chapters have been almost entirely re-written with more information and up-to-date techniques and examples. Reflecting recent incidents, there’s more on current professional practice regarding the use of humour and swearing, running competitions and ‘safeguarding trust’ issues. There are brand-new sections on developing a team show, how to voice-track a programme … and surviving redundancy. There’s more on studio equipment and new technology, and at a time when it’s what goes between the songs that’s increasingly important, an expanded chapter on how to make your content relevant, interesting and compelling.

There are dozens of new quotes from some of the most well-known and influential programmers in the business, together with pictures from some of the newest radio stations in the UK and a dozen new line-drawings.

There are more than 500 references are cross-linked with websites for further reading, downloads, videos and audio examples. And every chapter is cross-referenced with the brand new National Occupational Standards for Radio Content, which the author was instrumental in devising for Skillset.

But that’s not the best of it.

Peter has researched behavioral psychology theories and NLP and developed them for the radio industry. So this new edition includes for the first time, brand new techniques to entice and engage listeners and get them to listen longer.

In the new edition of Essential Radio Skills:

· How you can use Authenticity of Individuality and Positioning Theory to develop your own on-air personality
· How understanding psychographics can help you provide more targeted content to your listeners
· Why programmers need to understand Habitual Behaviour before they read their Rajar results
· The Exchange Theory for Love Relationships and its influence on listener loyalty
· The importance of the Three F’s in programming a breakfast show
· The critical distinction between Instant and Delayed Gratification and how an understanding of them can help presenters increase their ‘time spent listening’
· An explanation of the psychological link between the songs you play and the memories and mood of the listener who hears them, and how it can better aid your music programming
· What your station’s Strategic Point of Attraction should be
· Positive Product Memory and how understanding it can help you programme your music more effectively
· An explanation of music categories and a critique of a sample hour on one of the world’s must successful radio stations
· Street-level music scheduling strategies to provoke a feel-good emotion with your audience
· How a pizza can help you programme your show; avoiding Psychological Homeostasis and why managers shouldn’t want an audience to listen to their station efficiently.
· The critical difference between a programme which has a formula to it, and another which has structure.
· The recommended phrases to use if a guest defames someone on your show, and what could be your greatest ‘get out’ clause to avoid landing yourself in trouble.
· The research which suggests that sung jingles provoke better recall of a station than verbal positioners.
· The study that suggests whether or not you should be playing music underneath your news reports
· Your Broadcasting Mind Set: the career-affirming statements to reassure you before a programme
· What Acoustical Analysis has shown us to be the favoured voices of listeners, and how to use the Proximity Effect to make yourself sound better
· The BBC’s top seven attributes of a great radio voice
· How long a link should be, how often you should tease an item in a programme, and the difference between ‘speed’ and ‘momentum’.
· The statistic that’ll make you swear you’ll always use your own headphones
· How an understanding of Human Spacing, Vocal Proxemics and the Auditory Disconnect can help us better connect with our audience
· The use of hesitation and speed when reading the written word
· The ten rules for Effective Communications, from one of the world’s foremost experts
· What a scene from ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ can teach us about Linguistic Appropriateness
· The simple technique that will stimulate the analytical and emotional sides of your listener’s brain, to enable better communication with them
· The twenty words that are thought to be the most attractive to people listening to your programme
· Dozens of examples of kinaesthetic, auditory and visual language for the radio presenter, and how using them can make listeners more in tune with what you are talking about
· NLP techniques adapted specifically for the radio presenter so you can better relate and communicate with your audience
· The sentence structures that work best when attempting to engage with your valued female listeners

And that’s just in the first 14 chapters!

There’s also, all of this…
· How you can make your content more relatable, by following the principles of Archimedes
· The technique you can use to get away with more risqué content
· Why using Isolation of Thought will help make you a better presenter
· The cart-and-horse strategy for phrasing your links to have a greater effect
· How John Wayne can help you create more targeted content … and how vol-au-vents can help you create enough of it.
· What we can learn from gelatologists and the playwright Neil Simon, to attract more loyal listeners.
· The importance difference between teasing and trailing, and the analogy of TV’s ‘Generation Game’
· The group of listeners you should be concentrating on, to get to listen longer.
· Marketing research by Coca-Cola and its use in radio programming
· Why it should never be time to do the news on your radio station
· The use of The Gap Theory of Situational Interest in increasing listening hours
· The difference between horizontal and vertical scheduling of trails, and the time of the week that’s it’s best to start talking about your weekend shows
· Why many presenters simply seem to bully their listeners into listening, and what you can do that’s more friendly … and more effective
· Explanations and illustrations of benchmark features, exit points, contra deals and payola.
· How listeners process travel and weather information and what you can do to make your bulletins more usable and relatable.
· Research into the Cognitive and Emotivist responses to music radio
· Why loving the music you play will help listeners to love you
· What to say when linking songs, how to segue, and how to do a dead-roll.
· How to make your competition above board and beyond reproach … while still creating creative radio
· The number one reason why you should be running competitions (hint: it’s not to give someone a prize)
· How to use the psychological device of Prospect Theory to make your contest more compelling to players and listeners.
· The fifteen emotions contestants may experience when they ring to win
· The Scarcity Principle and how it can help you decide on the best prize to offer (hint: you can save money and make better radio by understanding this Principle)
· Using the Power Of The Constructed Image to sell the contest and the prize
· The 5Ws and an H of interviewing, and the best time to use them
· The difference between ‘hearing’, ‘listening’ and ‘active listening’ and how you can use them to your advantage
· Phone-ins and the paradox of Choice Paralysis
· How to choose the topics that’ll get the best response (hint: that’s not necessarily the topic that most people want to hear about)
· An explanation of the Three Levels of Communication, the understanding of which will help you better connect with callers
· Why it can be a good thing for a presenter to say ‘I don’t know’
· How to set up topics in the most compelling way possible, and avoiding promoting the Acquiescence Effect among listeners
· Understanding the Approaching Assumption Alert, to help welcome and engage new listeners
· The single sentence that may encourage more phone-in calls (hint: it’s not ‘ring now’).
· How a producer should schedule the calls to make better radio
· What ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ can teach us about the pace of the radio phone-in
· Communication Accommodation Theory and how understanding it will get better calls on air
· The point you know when to move on to another phone-in topic (this revelation may surprise you!)
· The 18 types of caller to avoid putting on air, and how to say ‘no’
· Signs a double-headed show is / isn’t working
· How Monica, Chandler and Joey can help you cast your ‘team show’
· The Consistency Principle of zoo characterization
· The Presenter Paradox of solo-host shows and team shows
· Dividing the roles and responsibilities of zoo characters
· Using chemistry and on-air conflict to better-connect with your listeners
· Voice-tracking tricks to help you relate, despite being recorded
· What to do and say when a guest swears on air
· Listed: the worst words that radio regulators worry about
· How not saying the word ‘fantastic’ can cause you trouble with Ofcom
· The important difference between silence and dead air
· Coping with corpsing, sneezing and hiccups while on air
· How to get the most from programme reviews and snoop sessions, and how to give self-feedback
· The routes into radio, where the jobs are advertised and how to create a great demo
· What to do when your station’s taken over, tips to avoid redundancy, how to leave with your head held high … and avoiding being tricked into quitting
· The Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief for radio presenters who’ve been made redundant, how to promote yourself and read a new contract
· Tips on being a freelance and how to fit in, fastest, when you’re a stand-in presenter
· Whether you need an accountant, agent, or union membership
· Appendices: Signs Your Station is Uninteresting; Mickey Mouse’s Ten Commandments for Radio; Your Personal Safety (advice written with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust on meeting and dating listeners, accepting presents from them, and how to avoid getting a stalker.)
· More than 400 radio terms in a hugely comprehensive glossary
· Debbie. And why remembering her is paramount.

The chapters
The Radio Presenter
The Studio producer
The Audience
The Programmes
Music Programming
Speech Programming
Outside Broadcasts
The Law, Regulation and Guidelines
Knobs, Buttons and Switches
Audio Imaging and Production Elements
Stand by Studio
Your Voice
The Words
Your Content
Humour on the Radio
T&T
Presenting Programme Items
Presenting Music
Competitions
Basic Interviewing
The Phone-in
Double Headed and Team Shows
Other Programme Formats
When It All Goes Wrong
At The End of The Show
Getting In
Radio, Recession and Redundancy
Back anno, appendices, glossary

my new online bookstore

Via you can now buy and download books immediately to your desktop to save or print.

The first books are there ...

- Find A Line
This is the word-bank of fresh and original lines for presentations, news scripts and advertising copy … for headlines, jokes, competition slogans and payoffs. In Find-a-Line are around ten thousand cool phrases, rhymes, puns, and alliterations to grab attention. It’s the book that will assign well-worn words and phased-out phrases to the cliché crusher! It’s the base-camp from where you can kick-start your creativity. It’s an ingenuous one-of-a-kind compendium

- Talking Topics
A book of hundreds of ideas for conversations with co-hosts and listeners

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