LAST DAY FOR CREATIVE/PRODUCTION SUMMIT REGISTRATION

Just a reminder: The registration rates for the International Radio Creative & Production Summit increase tomorrow.

THIS IS NOT I.

The other day I received an email from a client in India — someone for whom I conducted a week of seminars fairly recently. He said:

Recently saw a video of you on YouTube, you were much younger then... could barely recognize you...

Well, the guy on YouTube does look younger than I. But it ain't me.

It's a jock in the Phillipines (and, I believe, a reader of this blog) who for some reason decided to mime to a recording of my Morning Show Ratings Explosion.

He gives a very convincing performance. But I'm pretty sure I don't look quite that goofy when I conduct a seminar....

"NO ONE READS BLOGS ON THE WEEKEND."

That's what a blogging "expert" friend told me.

If he's correct, then either you are:

Lost

or

Really, really lonely right now.

If you're a real radio guy (that term applies to women and men equally), here's something to entertain and, I hope, inspire you.

It won't be here on Monday, though.

(Sorry, it's gone now. Maybe next weekend there'll be another surprise gift.)

IF YOU MISSED THE "STATION IMAGING" SEMINAR...

It's amazing how many people want to join the Radio Station Imaging Secrets teleseminar after it's already concluded.

(You can check out the "reviews" in the posting beneath this one — the one entitled "STATION IMAGING TELESEMINAR: HOW WAS IT?")

If you missed the teleseminar, I've come up with an idea I think you'll like.

I've decided to offer the mp3 recording of the entire Ask Dave Foxx/Radio Station Imaging Secrets teleseminar... for one week.

You can download it right now, with the understanding that:

* You'll be paying a couple of bucks more than the 245 people who joined in on the live call. (As part of their registration fee, they also received the mp3 recording afterward). The people who are excited enough and act quickly enough to register for an event like this get the best deal, always.

* You will receive the surprise bonus we announced midway through the teleseminar.

* After about a week, I'll remove the offer from the website. Some months from now, I might add it to our regular catalogue — but it definitely will be at a higher price and it will not include the surprise bonus.

Fair enough?

Oh — If you go there now, you'll see a complete listing of the major questions that were addressed.

STATION IMAGING TELESEMINAR: HOW WAS IT?

After weeks of preparing...

Of burned-out servers and lost files...

Of sifting through hundreds and hundreds of questions and selecting the most-asked and most relevant ones...

"Radio Station Imaging Secrets" with Dave Foxx is history.

And, by the way, history-making: the first worldwide teleseminar devoted to radio station imaging ever held. 245 attendees from 17 different countries.

So....If you were among the 245: How was it? Anything in particular that stood out as especially valuable?

MY FIRST DAY ON THE AIR

There are some things they don't prepare you for in radio school.

I traveled from Los Angeles to a tiny town in Virginia for my first radio job.

My first day on the air was a Saturday.

The jock before me split as soon as I cracked the mic, and I was alone in the building.

The first hour went pretty well. Didn't "wow" any records, no noticeable dead air.

And then, from inside the studio, I began to hear a competing radio station.

I'm not talking about some annoying RF interference. I mean another radio station was blaring from a speaker in the on-air studio.

You see, in the U.S. we had something called the Emergency Broadcast System. Within each county, one station was designated the EBS station. In case of emergency, everyone was supposed to tune to that one station while the others suspended their regular programming.

Actually, it was kind of cool. We had a sealed envelope with the secret authorization password and everything. (Just like in FAIL-SAFE.) It was begun during the Cold War, and fortunately it never needed to be employed.

Our studio (and I guess all stations' studios) was equipped with an EBS monitor. I was hearing our local EBS station through the monitor.

Four things you need to know about that EBS monitor:

1. It had no "off" switch.

2. It had no volume control.

3. It was hard-wired into the circuitry.

And most importantly:

4. It did not mute when I opened the studio microphone.

So for the rest of my show, every time I cracked the mic to read a live commercial, spot tag, PSA, news, etc....My audience heard a tinny version of the "big" station 15 miles away, through the EBS speaker and into my microphone.

A less than glorious start to my career.

As I write this, suddenly I'm visited by the long-buried memory of returning to my new apartment in that tiny town, filled with despair and thinking, "I've made a terrible mistake. I'll never be able to do this."

But tomorrow was going to be another working day, so I tried to get some rest.

DO YOU PROCRASTINATE? FINE. BUT PLEASE DON'T BLAME ME.

The last time I conducted a teleseminar, when it was all over I found an angry email in my inbox.

"Hey, I tried to sign up, but you never sent me the instructions on how to dial in!"

Uh-oh, I thought. I must've screwed up.

I checked our email logs.

Turns out the guy tried to sign up while the teleseminar was being conducted.

He went 'way beyond "waiting until the last minute."

But procrastination seems to be natural for many of us (including me).

For example, our station imaging teleseminar is tomorrow (Thursday). Registration has been open for a week now. Wouldn't you think everyone who wants to attend would have signed up by, say, Tuesday?

Well, as I write this 41 people registered today.

To avoid my getting blamed by someone who waits until Dave Foxx and I are halfway through the event to try to sign up, I'm planning to take down the registration page at 2PM (Pacific) on Thursday. (Also, we're approaching our maximum phone line capacity of 245 lines.)

That's what I'm planning to do. If I get around to it.

RADIO: WHAT IS "LOCAL"?

I can't wait to see what Randy Michaels does with the Tribune Company's broadcast properties.

Randy spoke twice at my PD Grad School. The second time was in 2003.

As the architect behind Clear Channel's path to world dominance (only to be kicked out, leaving the company in the hands of people who, uh, had a different vision of what radio can do), Randy was challenged by an attendee:

"You've ruined local radio!"

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING AUDIO CONTAINS BAD LANGUAGE. (Really.)

Randy enlisted me to help with his response. I never even suspected he had lain a trap for me.

Randy Michaels' Response

"IT LOOKS SO EASY." (Sigh)

Ever had someone say that about your job? Especially if you're a DJ, right?

Dave Foxx and I carefully compiled all the questions for Thursday's teleseminar, painstakingly prioritized them (by frequency & relevance), and a couple of days ago I spent a few hours arranging them, formatting them, numbering them....Until I had a very fancy-looking "blueprint" for the call.

Today I went to look for it, and it had vanished from my computer.

And from my back-ups.

How could it possibly disappear from my hard drive and my daily back-ups? Two of the most awful words in the English language:

"Microsoft Word"

("Yes, I really want to save that document. Yes, I'm sure I want to save it. YES, just save it already, will you??")

So I spent most of Tuesday afternoon recreating it from scratch.

(Sigh) Meanwhile, to the rest of the world it will (as it should) look so easy.....

HOTLINING IS FOR WIMPS

Program Directors:

Don’t hotline your jocks.

“Hotlining,” of course, consists of hearing the air personality make a mistake and immediately calling him on the phone during his airshift to scream at him.

Don’t do it.

It’s a sure-fire way to ruin the rest of the jock’s show.

It’s a power trip.

The embedded message in a hotline call is, “I can hotline YOU, but YOU can’t hotline ME. I’m the boss!”

Have you ever been hotlined?

What was your immediate response as soon as you saw that line flashing?

I know what it was. Whether uttered aloud or thought silently, your response consisted of two words:

“Oh, ....”

But…

You’re a dedicated program director. You work long and hard, trying to perfect your product and build your audience...and then some idiot disc jockey screws it all up by playing a record out of rotation or reading the wrong liner card.

You go nuts. How hard can it be to follow a music clock when the computer has done all the work for you?

You’re furious. You want to kill the guy.

You know what? It goes with territory. That’s part of the frustration of being a program director. That’s why you get the private office and the business cards and maybe even your own parking space.

As Super Chicken was fond of reminding Fred, “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”

If you want to motivate your staff to its peak performance, you wait until after the jock has finished his air shift and after you’ve calmed down.

By that time, you might decide it really isn’t worth talking about.

If you decide it is worth discussing, you pick a time, place and manner which enable you to motivate the jock to perform better, rather than simply to let off steam and ruin the rest of his show.

P.S. If a consultant ever hotlines a jock, the consultant should be fired.

WHY WOULD TWO OVERWORKED RADIO PROS WRITE & PRODUCE FREE COMMERCIALS FOR THE SUMMIT?

Uh....Well, I kinda invited people who already have registered for Summit 2008 and who have attended at least one previous Summit — I call those people "Repeat Offenders" — to create spots for me to use to, um....

Pay tribute to their remarkable talents?

Thrill, delight and/or inspire you?

Okay, it was so I could use the spots to promote the Summit. There, you forced me to say it. Happy now?

But they're very good spots, and you are free to note the techniques they used even if you don't come to the Summit.

Ric Gonzalez will be attending his 8th Summit. Here's what he sent me (note the very smooth transition; unlike most commercials, the "story" actually does connect to the "product"):

Ric's Summit Spot

Meanwhile....

Pete Jensen will be attending his 6th Summit in August.

He produced this very cool spot to promote the event. Aside from the legendary Chuck Blore, I don't think I've ever heard someone get this good a performance out of a 6-year old.

RADIO STATION DOES ANYTHING FOR MONEY?

In the just published issue of my Radio Advertising Letter, a subscriber wondered:

1. Is a particular commercial illegal? (Unless the FCC has changed its rules, it is.)

2. What should he do about it? (He tried to explain the problem to the station's Traffic Department and, essentially, was told to mind his own business.)

Any subscribers who want to add their own comments, here's where to do it.

"Ask Dave Foxx" Station Imaging update

This morning we emailed dial-in numbers, passwords, etc., to everyone who has registered for Dave Foxx's upcoming Radio Station Imaging Teleseminar.

If you registered but didn't receive the email, please check your spam filter. (One did bounce back to us; the person's ISP decided it was spam.)

It's nice to see how enthusiastic people are about this. Aside from the Summit, there's no one teaching people how to do effective radio station imaging.

As a result, Imaging Directors around the world are flying blind. Their only source of inspiration is the imaging they hear on other radio stations. So we end up with people who haven't learned how to do effective imaging imitating other people who haven't learned how to do effective imaging.

MORE RADIO COMMERCIAL CLICHES THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT

Once at one of my copywriting seminars, a radio station account exec protested, “What’s wrong with using clichés in commercials? Obviously they must work, or people wouldn’t keep using them.”

I guess I’ll just need to keep repeating this to radio programmers, copywriters, producers, air talent, and salespeople:

If everyone does it, it’s probably wrong.

I know nothing about engineering, so I have no idea if most radio station engineers do their jobs poorly.

(Somewhere in a desk drawer, however, I do have a copy of my First Class Radio-Telephone Operator’s license. With that piece of paper, I was allowed to stand around and “supervise” while the unlicensed engineer/owner converted the station’s transmitter to a nuclear power plant.)

Anyway….

The fact that “everyone uses clichés in commercials” should be enough reason for you not to.

But here’s a more specific explanation of why clichés are to be avoided like the plague.

Using timeworn clichés invites the audience to stop listening.

If I say to you, “It’s just like riding a bicycle…” you are free to let your mind wander because you know what I am going to say next.

If I’m trying to get you to take an action as a result of hearing my commercial, I can’t afford to have your mind wander — not even for a few seconds.

Bad copywriters don’t fill their commercials with clichés because they work. They fill their commercials with clichés because they’re bad copywriters.

A Partial List of Cliches You Never Again Will Use In A Radio Commercial

“Going on now”

“Now is the time...”

“They won’t last long.”

“Service second to none”

“Savings throughout the store”

“The sale you’ve been waiting for!”

“It’s sale time!”

“It’s midsummer madness time!”

“It’s bargain time!”

“It’s inventory time!”

“It’s big savings time!”

“It’s clearance time!”

“Storewide savings”

“It’s happening now!”

“It’s happening at...”

“We service what we sell.”

“For all of your _____ needs”

“Friendly, knowledgeable staff”

“Locally owned and operated”

“Conveniently located”

“And, what’s more...”

“So hurry on down...”

“For the finest in...”

“It’s our people that make the difference!”

“Quality service”

“Not to mention”

“And, what’s more...”

Everyone Thinks It's So Easy....

I'm talking about producing Dave Foxx's Radio Station Imaging teleseminar. Everyone probably thinks, "Hey, how hard can it be? Send out an e-mail or two and then just open the phone lines for 70 minutes."

Well, it's a little bit more time consuming than that. Even when there are no technical glitches.

I've already told you how our Web host's server melted down, we lost an entire week trying to recover, etc.

We finally had everything working perfectly late last night (or, early this morning) when we went "live" — when we opened up the registration page.

Just before stumbling into bed, I sent an email to one of my Web guys (Gustavo), suggesting a technical change we should make for the NEXT time we do a teleseminar.

Unfortunately, Gustavo is very gung-ho and decided to go ahead and make that change today -- as a pleasant surprise for me.

But that change messed up some of the other registration functions -- which I didn't learn about until I came back into the office this morning. (They've been fixed. Supposedly.)

All I know is I've told Gustavo, "Don't touch ANYTHING until we've sold out and taken down the registration page!"

By the way, in the first 11 hours after opening up registrations, 75 people from around the world have signed up. We've reserved a total of 245 phone lines. So if my arithmetic is correct, 30% of the spaces already have been snatched up.

(Bjarke — thanks for being the very first one. You registered even before I could send out the email announcements!)

P.S. Hey, y'know there's a new REAL post by me on this page, a little lower down. Not about the teleseminar.

Downloading Your Station Imaging Bonus

Okay, I was going to go to bed.

But I keep hearing from the first flood of Dave Foxx teleseminar registrants that they're having trouble downloading their free bonus (which is a pretty cool thing Dave devised for them).

Remember those 1,001 technical details I referred to in previous postings, trying to get all this to work (on a brand-new server)? Looks like this is one we missed.

If you've already grabbed one of the limited spaces at the teleseminar and had trouble downloading your bonus, please email me and I'll take care of it in the morning.

Mid-morning, that is.

Mid-morning Los Angeles time.

I've GOT to get some sleep....

Thanks, guys.

Station Imaging Seminar - Wanna Join?

It's 2:02AM as I write this.

The last of the Dave Foxx Station Imaging Teleseminar invitations have been emailed (to members of our E-Mail Gang and Preferred Customer List).

I promised I'd post this invitation for the rest of the radio world as soon as the last email went out.

So here it is: Station Imaging Secrets with Z100/New York's Dave Foxx.

By the way, this was really cool: Someone registered for the teleseminar before we sent out a single email -- during the few minutes between when we turned on the registration page and when we began emailing.

The response certainly looks good so far.

But I'm going to bed now.

HOW TO SAVE TIME AND LIVE LONGER

A few days ago I critiqued two commercials for a client.

The client is a direct marketer, so he takes this stuff seriously. (Direct marketers don’t distract themselves with ridiculous attempts at “branding.”)

I was typically meticulous in my critique. (You say “harsh,” I say “meticulous.”)

I’ve never told anyone this, but as soon as I’ve e-mailed a critique to a client, I become a little nervous.

What if they’re offended? I don’t want to offend people. Especially clients.

What if they’re so offended they demand a refund? I really don’t want that. (I also don’t give refunds on critiques, and no one’s ever asked for one. Still, the concern does cross my mind.)

So when my email inbox included two messages from him this morning, I took a deep breath before opening them.

The first was in response to my first critique:

Awesome! Thanks for doing a killer job on this... this is VERY helpful. Once I've produced some new spots using your suggestions I'll send you them to you to review.

The second message, responding to the second critique, said:

Thanks again Dan... great suggestions and points.

It was a nice way to start the morning.

Usually I critique commercial copy before it’s produced. That makes sense to me, because that way the client has time to change the copy before going into production. But in this case, the spots had been written and recorded.

One hour and 16 minutes after I received the client’s second “wow, thanks!” response, I received a very long email from someone I don’t know.

That someone appears to be the guy who wrote and produced the commercials I had critiqued. It was a cc of a message he had sent to the client.

It was not what one would call a rave review of my critique.

Two elements of his rant leapt out at me:

1. He defended the use of the lame voice talent (whom I had pointed out sounded like a schlocky announcer who clearly was simply reading the copy he was being paid to read) by saying, “With our budget, that’s all we can afford.”

Ridiculous.

Those particular spots didn’t require a Harlan Hogan. I know plenty of guys (they used a male voice) who would’ve done a much better job for $300 or so.

I don’t know what they paid their VO guy, but if they’re not willing to shell out $250 - $300 for a decent announcer read, they need to adjust their priorities.

(Come to think of it: The client paid ME more than that for the two critiques. And he got his money’s worth. Certainly they can afford a decent voice performer to deliver their sales message.)

2. The email was very long. I mean, this guy was upset.

And Then I Did Something Very, Very Smart.

I closed the email without reading it.

I got the gist of it: “This O’Day guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Why read further?

So I could become offended?

So I catalog and rebut his evidence of my alleged incompetence?

A number of years ago I managed to learn not to waste my time responding to hate mail or nutty mail. (To be fair: This guy’s rant didn’t appear to be hateful or nutty. He just totally disagreed with me.)

Why argue with a nut or a jerk?

But do you know what would have happened if I had taken 2 minutes to read his entire attack (or, from his perspective, the defense of his work)?

I would have spent hours mentally refuting his every point. Completely involuntarily.

That’s how my brain works. If I think I’ve been unfairly attacked, my instinct is to defend myself — even if only within the privacy of my own mind.

But I had other stuff to do today. Why waste any of my sorely limited time (and even more severely limited brain power) marshalling an argument I never would deliver?

What Does This Have To Do With You?

Maybe nothing.

Or maybe you’re a radio station producer and a thoughtless salesperson mentioned, while passing you in the hallway, “The client hates that spot you did for him.”

Oh? You mean that spot that was approved every step of the way and now is on the air?

Let it go. Getting upset won’t help.

Or you’re an account exec and the Traffic Director screams at you because you didn’t remind her that she had promised to change your client’s rotation, so she forgot to do it and it’s all your fault.

Let it go. Let her words float past you like a summer breeze. (You don’t bother to argue with the wind, do you?)

Or you’re a jock, and the station engineer (!) pointedly tells you the comedy bit you did on yesterday’s show “really wasn’t very funny.”

Should the station engineer be critiquing the air talent? No.

Should you care anything at all about whether the station engineer thinks you’re funny or your show is good? C’mon.

Let it go.

Use that time and energy for something constructive.

Why, look at me. The time I saved by not reading and then mentally constructing a devastating response to that email?

I used it to write this post.

Station Imaging Seminar: Problems Fixed (We Hope)

Okay, it's now 5 1/2 hours since the previous update on Dave Foxx's Radio Station Imaging Teleseminar.

We think we've got all the Internet stuff working.

We've tested and retested until...Well, until we got sick of retesting.

We have only 245 phone lines available for the teleseminar.

Because the call will accommodate only a limited number of participants, first we'll notify the people who submitted questions....

And then I'll send emails to the folks on my Preferred Customer List and our E-Mail Gang....

And then I'll post the official notification here.

By the way, the event is scheduled for Thursday, June 26.

Dave Foxx Station Imaging Seminar Update

I've received quite a few e-mails asking when we'll be doing the Ask Dave Foxx teleseminar.

And I've been replying, "Uh...Soon, I hope."

Here's the deal...

When the server (provided by one of the world's largest ISPs) that hosts my website crashed and burned two Sundays ago, it cost my two Web guys and me an entire week just to rebuild everything. (Well, everything except whatever we missed. If you find a broken link at my site, please let me know.)

Meanwhile, we were supposed to be getting ready for Dave Foxx's upcoming teleseminar on Radio Station Imaging.

We've received hundreds of questions, and Dave has been sifting through them, looking for the ones that seem most universal and/or most challenging.

The plan was to begin accepting registrations on Thursday morning.

But....

Having (barely) survived the server crash, now we're trying to solve an unexpectedly tricky technical challenge related to the "Ask Dave Foxx" registration process.

That one tiny element has had us flummoxed for 48 hours.

Gustavo — one of my two ace Web guys — keeps sending me e-mails with Subject lines that read:

Fixed!

Followed 2 minutes later by another e-mail that says:

No, Not Fixed. Trying again.

I'm still hoping we'll figure out how to get the Internet to work the way we want it to.

If and when we do, I'll post the information here first.

BEST RADIO VIDEO EVER

If you're one of my newsletter subscribers, probably you've already seen this.

But when I realized that today's main posting involves a commercial for a hardware store...

And I remembered that this video mentions "hardware store"...

I thought, "What the heck? That's as good an excuse as any to share a clip from the best radio video ever made."

That's Randy Michaels, recorded by Art Vuolo ’way back at our second PD Grad School.

RADIO COMMERCIAL STRATEGY: Educating The Customer

A radio station sales manager asked if I had any ideas for a relatively new client: a small, independently owned hardware store. Just one location, in the center of a small town. The store didn't seem to have any obvious Unique Selling Propositions (lowest prices, free delivery, etc.).

So I thought about my own rare ventures into hardware stores and quickly realized a key emotion that I suspect is felt by many customers:

Fear.

Not heart palpitating, sweat producing, shortness of breath inducing fear.

More like uneasiness, a pronounced uncomfortableness.

Will I be able to find the tool or accessory I need?

How will I know which item to buy?

How will I know how many or what size I'll need?

If I can't find what I need, will a store employee be able to help me? Will they laugh at my ignorance?

This immediately led me to suggest a very powerful strategy utilized by too few advertisers: Education.

I suggested a series of commercials in which the store owner answers the most common questions posed by do-it-yourselfers in a relaxed, conversational, non-threatening manner:

Hi, I’m Ed Proprietor of Ed’s Hardware Store. A wrench is a pretty simple tool.

But if you ask someone to hand you a wrench, they might say, “Which wrench do you want? Pipe wrench? Monkey wrench? Crescent? Open-ended? Box wrench?”

Here’s a quick & easy explanation of the differences. (EXPLANATION GOES HERE.)

The reason we carry so many different kinds of wrenches ... and hammers, and saws, and screws & nails all kinds of thingamajigs and whatchamacallems ... is because we want to make sure we have exactly what you need.

Having helped thousands of (LOCAL) handymen & women, carpenters, electricians, and part-time fixer-uppers over the past 15 years, you can pretty much count on our having what you’re looking for.

And if you're not sure what it’s called, don't worry; we’ll know.

I’m Ed Proprietor of Ed’s Hardware Store in Smalltown, on Main Street, right across from the Post Office. Stop by today; we’re here to help."

Where would YOU rather shop:

At a hardware store where the clerks don't know and don't care?

Or at a hardware store where the clerks are eager to answer your questions without making your feel stupid?

Voiceover Guys: The Successful Ones Are Generous

Last week I got a call from a woman who is thinking of attending this year’s Summit.

I’ll change the name of her market to “San Diego.” (You wouldn’t be able to identify her even if I named the actual city, but I don’t want to embarrass her.)

She said, “There are no well-known female voices in San Diego, so I think there’s a big opportunity for me here.”

I told her I know a couple of very successful female VO artists in San Diego. In fact, one of them is a Repeat Offender and already has registered for this year’s Summit.

“Oh,” she said. “Then maybe I shouldn’t come.”

I told her the obvious:

• There’s enough work in San Diego for more than one (or two or three) good VO artists.

• With the Internet, her competition is not San Diego VO talent but VO talent from around the world.

Then I tried to explain something that might not be so obvious to someone who hasn’t yet “made it” in voiceovers:

She should attend not only to learn from the Big Shot guest speakers but, more importantly, to learn from her fellow attendees.

Including the female VO people.

Including the other San Diego female VO attendee.

Successful voiceover people tend to be exceptionally generous in sharing their knowledge with others — even when the “others” are their direct competitors.

SIDEBAR: I’m talking about the ones who have real talent and truly are successful. I’ve heard consistently dreadful stories about one L.A. VO performer who is slightly well-known because she got one high-profile gig — a straight announcing job that requires no real performance skills.

But despite the one high-profile gig, she’s not very good. She can’t win auditions. She doesn’t get a lot of work.

And….

When budding voice actors (mistakenly thinking this woman has “made it”) approach her for advice, she treats them with haughty disdain.

Okay, back to the truly successful VO people….

During one Summit panel session of superstar voice actors, one of them talked about the time he was auditioning for a part that required a particular accent — which he didn’t know how to do.

The guy sitting next to him, waiting to audition “against” him, said, “Oh, it’s easy. Let me show you a quick trick….” And he taught the panelist — his competitor for that job — how to do the accent!

For years I couldn’t understand this phenomenon. The voiceover biz is extremely competitive. Why are so many of its star performers so friendly with people who are trying to land “their” jobs?

I live in L.A., and I can tell you that actors certainly aren’t known for such generosity. (But I can tell you some great stories about actors deliberately screwing up their competitors’ auditions.)

Finally, a few years ago at another Summit session, Steve Morris explained it.

(Among numerous stellar credits, Steve voices many of April Winchell’s brilliant commercials, including the “Snow Summit” and “Ortho” commercials you might have heard me play at one of my seminars.)

I’m paraphrasing from memory, but Steve said something very much like this:

“It’s like if you go to the 7-11 to buy a lottery ticket, and you see some other guy buying a lottery ticket, too. You don’t turn to him and say, ‘You bastard!’ For any given audition, the odds are neither of you is going to get it.”

That’s what I tried to explain to the woman from San Diego.

Talent Is Not A Zero Sum Game.

When you’re good and you know it, you’re not paranoid about sharing your “secrets” (as if there are any) with others. You’re too busy trying to learn new things that other people already have discovered, so you can continue to improve your craft.

I learned this a long time ago:

If you have a dollar and I have a dollar, and we trade dollars…We each end up with one dollar.

But if you have an idea and I have an idea, and we trade ideas…We each end up with two ideas.

Always Putting Music Under DJ’s Voice

In the current issue of my Radio Programming Letter, I wrote at length about “MUSIC, CONVERSATION and THE ILLUSION OF FORWARD MOMENTUM.”

In a nutshell: In response to a subscriber’s query, I said it’s stupid for radio stations to have a music bed playing underneath every jock’s voice every time a jock speaks.

Not surprisingly, my remarks generated lots of feedback.

Mostly along the lines of, “THANK YOU! I’ve been trying to explain this to my PD/consultant.”

But Alex Duffy of Chiltern Radio (UK) attempted to put me in my place:

Dan,

I love reading your newsletter, it’s so often full of useful tips and advice, but I think I can pick apart your argument about using beds...

You said that AMERICAN IDOL doesn’t use beds when the judges are giving their comments. Maybe not, but what about at the end when there are two contestants left and it is being decided which one is going home? I bet there’s a tension bed running in the background! There is here in the UK on X FACTOR, BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT, DANCING ON ICE, and all our other reality TV shows. And the reason these beds are there? A bed can change the mood of what is happening.

Why do we get incidental music in films? When the happy couple finally get together at the end there’s always a happy tune that strikes up in the background — it’s emotive, it’s building on emotions, tugging on heartstrings, and enhancing the atmosphere.

If I’m wrong then I’m wrong, but if that's the case, then why is there music in films???

First, Alex, thanks for your kind words about my Programming Letter.

But....

I’m afraid you didn’t succeed in picking apart my argument, because I was referring specifically to the practice of always putting a music bed underneath conversational elements — i.e., one or more people talking.

The examples you gave are using sound to enhance the emotional impact when conversation is absent.

If your caller has 10 seconds to come up with the answer to your tough trvia question, playing the “musical clock” adds to the fun and to the suspense.

The only two reality shows I’ve ever seen are THE CONTENDER (Season One) and PROJECT RUNWAY. (Don’t jump to conclusions; my 15-year old daughter loves the show and asked me to watch it with her.)

(It was to her tremendous chagrin that I picked the winner every week. Look for my new line of O’Day Apparel — perhaps O’pparel — to debut next month.)

The climax of each episode of THE CONTENDER was a tightly edited, condensed version of that week’s fight. There was “exciting” music during the fight’s highlights. But when the ring announcer pulled down the microphone to declare the winner, the music came to an abrupt halt.

Why?

Because everyone wanted to hear what he was going to say.

On PROJECT RUNWAY, tension-enhancing music plays at the end of each episode, while two contestants remain onstage...knowing that one of them is about to get kicked out.

No words are spoken. Not by the hosts. Not by the contestants, who stand uncomfortably for what seems like an eternity.

But the music stops immediately before Heidi Klum — the wooden, incredibly famous supermodel I never heard of — says, “Hector? You’re out.”

Because at that the moment, the drama is in the words.

Then why is there music in films???

First: Most music in films isn’t used very well. I’m guessing the percentage of “badly used film music” is approximately the same as “bad radio.”

Don’t take my word for it. Ask any good film composer.

Second: When used properly, the music enhances the emotional response the filmmaker wants to elicit

Third: Just as in radio, many directors use music in an attempt to force the illusion of an emotion the scene is not able to deliver on its own.

The action ISN’T exciting; but maybe if we add loud, pulsating music we can make the audience THINK it’s exciting.

Or….

The tender moment between these two characters plays out completely flat. The actors share absolutely no chemistry. Or they’re not very good actors. Or the dialogue is bad. Or the story is lame. Solution? Bring on the violins!

When it’s used well in movies, music enhances the emotional impact that already exists in a scene.

For a superb lesson in how to use music in movies, watch THE SIXTH SENSE again. There is almost NO music in that film. Very, very little. But when there IS music, it notches up the scene’s creepiness to an almost unbearable level.

Sustaining tension throughout a 90-minute film without resorting to cheap tricks requires a lot of artistry and skill. Even 40 years after it was made, FAIL-SAFE remains what critics would call a “gripping drama.” It’s relentlessly tense.

FAIL-SAFE benefited from an immensely talented director; a good story; a fine script; and a consistently strong cast.

Oh, and one more thing:

It didn’t use a drop of music. Not a single note.

Y’see, when in just a few minutes a nuclear war (started by accident) might destroy Life As We Know It, we really don’t need John Williams to musically yell, “HEY, THIS SURE IS TENSE!!!”

How About Live Theatre?

Although — especially in recent years — “incidental music” occasionally is used in stage productions, I’m not aware of any non-musicals that play music while an actor is delivering his lines.

Why should they? They’ve got the actors. They’ve got the audience. It’s an intimate experience.

That’s what makes good (even not-so-good) theatre so exciting: The performers and the audience are collaborating to produce a dialogue between them.

Intimacy.

Y’know, kind of like radio’s biggest strength: the ability to communicate one-to-one.