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.
posted by Dan O’Day | 12:34 AM
13 Comments:
Exception: If the personality is doing something that puts the license/station at risk or leaves it open to a potential fine or lawsuit. As someone whose been on both ends of the equation, hotlining just to scream is stupid. However, you'd be surprised at the number of personalities who magically "tighten up" after a "Hey, just called to see how your show was going, Sounding great today!" call.
Of course. That's why I focused on hotlining solely because the jock made a mistake, the repetition of which would not cause any damage.
If the jock reads an expired tag to a promo, sure: Call her up and say, "Hey, there's a different tag you're supposed to read."
If the jock is endangering the station's license or public safety, of course you call.
If you happen to drive by the station and notice it's on fire, I'd say it's okay to use the hotline.
I was referring specifically to "the PD hears a jock make a mistake and gets angry and uses the hotline to scream at the jock" scenarios.
If you, as a PD, never do that, then when you do call the hotline, your jocks don't freak out with fear.
And yes, for years I've taught PDs the value of the occasional quick complimentary hotline call:
"Hey, I've been listening to you while running errands around town. You sound GREAT! Really made the morning fly by for me. I'll let you go -- don't want to mess up your show -- but I just HAD to call you. See ya later..."
But if you're an all too common no-impulse-control, tantrum throwing PD who routinely uses the hotline to scream at your jocks and you suddenly make one of those "great show" calls, here's how the jock will react:
"Okay, who is this really??"
On a breakfast show I did, I got endless text messages every day from my Program Manager telling me what to do in the next link and telling me "don't forget to ..." as if I'd never done it before. In the end I switched off the text system and reported him to the Group Program Controller. After that he just sulked.
Can text messages be forwarded as easily as email?
If so, instead of reporting him to your GPC, I wonder what would've happened if you'd just forwarded each and every one to him w/o comment?
I mean, if those messages were so important that your PC had to put them in your face while you were doing your program, they probably were important enough for the GPC to see, too.
Yes, except that the identity of the sender of the original text messages wouldn't appear on the forwarded version, like it does on email so it would - initially, at least - just like I was sending gobbledegook to the big boss.
Someone I know was having similar problems when a news editor was given the Program Manager's job, despite no experience whatsoever. When he started sending "don't forget...." messages to jocks, one replied "don't forget to read the news". He soon stopped.
That's an interesting tactic.
Every time your PC reminded you to do X, you could have replied, "Thank you! Please be sure to remind me to do Y...."
And THEN if you ever forgot to do something, you could blame your PC for failing to remind you.
In fairness, though, this might be a good time to point out that PDs virtually never receive any management training.
One day they're a jock, next day they're the PD. And magically they're supposed to know how to be a good manager.
This last one was a manager of the news department though ... he was perfectly adequate at this as it was his specialist subject.
He was thrown into programming as an extra job because the group was too skint/thrifty to pay someone qualified and in possession of actual ability to do the job.
So he had management training .. just nor management training in the relevant department.
in my first radio job, i got one of those calls during my shift after i had tripped my way through a weather forecast, barely making it out with a coherent thought.
the general manager called, casting doubt on my ability to read.
unfortunately, the guy doing the shift ahead of me had forgotten to take the phone out of the board from the previous hour's "instant money quiz", and the boss's call went out over the air under the music.
he never called me on the air again.
rg
Back in the seventies I had the studio "hotline" number for London's Capital Radio.
A friend had the Pd (the Crafty Cook!)off to a tee.
We would terrorise the poor late night presenters with calls from him.
One thought for the PDs who insist on calling because the jock didn't follow the clock properly, or read the wrong liner:
The listener (the one for whom you're doing all this programming anyway), probably doesn't even know a mistake has been made. Why throw off the rest of the jock's show because of something that, at most, two people noticed?
The encouraging call is good, but keep it short, too. Even a nice word can be a distraction and throw you off your game. Best to leave all comments til the jock finishes the show. At that point, you'll have him or her fired up to do even better on the next show.
More times than not the only person that noticed the "hotlinable" offense was the PD. The GM that gave me my first PD gig made it clear from day one that hotlining the jocks over formatics was a sure sign that I wasn't very good as a PD.
If a PD calls me, good or bad, it throws me off because I realize they are listening. That thought pre-occupies my mind for the remainder of the show and puts me on edge. Please let me forget about you for a couple of hours! I need to relax.
I have a PD who instant messages the studio throughout my shift about syntax, the weather, her thoughts on the "stupid" listener who just picked up a prize... Recently she started using CAPS just to get my attention. I turned off messenger and the show improved! Imagine that! Unfortunately, now, we have meetings! How can I suggest a management class?
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