The Radio Presenters Handbook
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Being a presenter today is so much more than linking songs on the radio. In this modern era, where literally anyone with a PC and internet connection can create their own radio station, presenters need to become more entrepreneurial. They need to think more like a business, with a clearly defined brand off-air, whilst on-air being a personality within the constraints of the stations format.

The Radio Presenters Handbook encourages you to think of yourself as a company and in doing so take on the roles of Product Manager, Sales Director and Managing Director. You can buy The Radio Presenters Handbook as a soft-back book or as a downloadable e-book. 1 INTRODUCTION

Radio presenting used to be as simple as turning up and playing a few songs interspersed with a few witty lines, but the world has changed and so has the business of being a radio presenter.

Being a presenter today is so much more than linking songs on the radio. In this modern era where literally anyone with a PC and an internet connection can create their own radio station, presenters need to become more entrepreneurial. After years in the industry it became apparent that aside from the information provided by the PD of the station on which you worked, there were few books, guides or documents - aimed at you, the presenter - dealing with preparing for shows, developing your on-air product, negotiating contracts and understanding your brand. The aim of this book is to give you a thorough understanding of what it takes to become a great presenter, to make a reasonable amount of money and expand your business beyond a daily three-hour show.

Where most businesses have a single distinct customer base, you have two: the small customer base of Programme Directors; and the faceless, disparate group of customers that never buys your product but consumes it regularly, the listeners. What a nightmare market you operate in! By equipping yourself with a detailed knowledge and understanding of your current product and how to develop it, youll grow in confidence and take control of your business.

The many myths that exist within the industry. How to construct and deliver great links, every link.

How to develop yourself as brand. I hope you enjoy reading this book and feel that you gain knowledge that you previously didnt have. But do remember that nobody really knows what it takes to be a great presenter. be very different to what your listeners think makes a great presenter. There are many myths and legends within the radio industry often perpetuated by naivety and received wisdom. Mark Twain.

Research, whether you like it or not, is an integral part of programming all successful radio stations and groups. In a business where there are no sales figures to judge the attractiveness of the product, promotions or marketing to customers, its an essential measure of performance. There are essentially two types of research, quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative is where actual figures are quoted, such as RAJAR. Qualitative research is the type of information that is obtained from Focus Groups. Tracking usually provides the PD with two types of information: actual reach and share figures, and perception figures. This type of research is either collected from phone based interviews or online. Its useful for the PD because, as the name suggests, it tracks the stations performance week by week (its a version of sales figures). The PD reads the figures over a period of time and is able to ascertain whether their station is in an upward or downward trend. The danger with this type of information is that its usually based on a lower sample size (the number of people that have been asked questions) than RAJAR, and that it uses a different type of methodology to RAJAR (therefore the figures created by tracking will never accurately match those of RAJAR).

Weve been dealt a rough book as tracking indicates we were on an upward trend.

Where tracking is particularly useful however, is not only the general trend information of the stations performance, but also with the perception information it can provide. This includes questions such as Which station has the best music or Which station is best for traffic and travel. Its important that you really understand the vagaries of this type of research. RAJAR is the currency of our industry at present. It was the first radio audience research that both the BBC and commercial radio jointly subscribed to. Subscribing stations are researched every quarter with stations that have a TSA (total survey area) of under four million people publishing six month averaged scores, and those over four million publishing stand alone three month figures. The respondents are given a diary (see below) and asked which stations they have listened to in the past twelve months. These stations are then added to the diary. The respondents are asked to fill in the diary each day, recording their radio listening. If your station has a high presence and heritage in the marketplace, then it will do well in the research. It also highlights the importance of saying your station name frequently and introducing benchmarks into your show that will be etched into the listeners mind. Increasing the total time spent listening to your station is all about persuading the listening to come back to your station more often, or in other words to increase the number of listening occasions. You should make an appointment with the listener for later in your show and later on your station.

The caveat with any form of research is that theres always an element of deviation in the figures in the case of RAJAR its about plus or minus three percentage points (depending on your stations reach/share and the number of people in the sample). Therefore if your station has a reach of 28pct., it could in reality have either a 25pct. or 31pct. reach. If you are involved with a station that is a subscriber to RAJAR youll hear the following terms mentioned:

Reach (or Cume) is the total number of people that tune into the station for at least five minutes during the week.

Share is the percentage of all radio listening in your market that your station takes at any given time. For instance, if five people were listening to the radio, each to a different station, all for one hour then each station would have a 20pct. share. If five people were listening to the radio, each to different stations, but the first four people were listening for one hour and the fifth person for ten hours then the first four stations would have a share of 7pct., the fifth station a share of 71pct.. This is why some stations with older demographics are able to have relatively low reaches with high share scores. A RAJAR diary is A5-sized, with around 50 pages. All of the national stations, local and digital stations available in the area are included and therefore the total number of stations to select from can be more than forty.

The respondent is asked to draw a line downwards through the boxes from when they start listening to a station until they stop. So in the example below, the line shows that the respondent was listening to BBC WM on a Monday evening between 4.30 and 6.15 PM .

The respondent would be counted as having been listening to BBC WM at these times

The time spent listening here would count towards BBC WMs share of listening to all radio.

Once collated, the information is presented to the radio stations. Males 15-24
Unweighted Sample
1819
863
130
Rajar Analysis/Switching Analysis. Several companies offer in-depth analysis of RAJAR. The information that is gathered extends beyond simply which station the listener is tuned into at any given time. Switching analysis is an analysis of the listeners pattern of switching between different stations. From the switching analysis you could see for instance that a large number of people tune into the station at 5pm . This could be that the presenter is driving a large audience into the station at this point or that competitive stations in the marketplace are giving listeners a reason to switch channels which this station is then picking up. Using additional switching analysis information the PD would be able to pin point the cause. The information is so data rich that stations are able to analyze performance as diverse as understanding when listeners who only listen once a week come into the station or what proportion of an FMs audience is shared with their AM sister station.

RAJAR analysis, in any form, is historical information. The research is published six weeks after the end of the research period and the information contained within the data relates to a period of time stretching back six months. One of the mistakes many users of RAJAR make is that one book of research is used to assess a presenters performance when in fact they may have joined the station midway through, or at the beginning of the sampling period. It doesnt matter how good a presenter you are, listeners to your show and station remember key elements and assume they continue even if they havent heard them in a while. It takes something major for the listener to tune in at that time again (to the show or station) which is why it takes that period of time to build a show in the listeners consciousness. Radio is a ritualistic habit and tends to form part of a persons routine. Focus Groups are a type of qualitative research. A group of people are invited into a room (usually a hotel conference room) and asked about their radio listening habits. A moderator will ask the people a series of questions that will get them talking about various subjects connected with the station. It also highlights perceptions that the station may need to concentrate on changing.

The ability to understand certain comments by the audience and then change those elements if required, can make you into a far better presenter. If youre ever given the opportunity to attend one of these sessions, take it! Youll gain an insight into your audience that is unique.

Music Auditoriums are used generally to gain an understanding of the type of music a station should be playing. Its particularly useful as a gauge from the stations core audience of the back catalogue of songs the station should be playing. They can also be used to test any aspect of a stations output. Music Research. Music Research is provided to PDs and Heads of Music by an internal department or external company and can be phone based call-out or online. A selection of people within the stations target demographic is invited onto a panel. Music research also gives a programmer a steer on whether the songs selected for playlist are the correct songs versus what the opposition are playing. PDs and Heads of Music are essentially looking at five pieces of information from the research:

Positive The percentage that liked the song.

More detailed analysis of the figures will indicate the potential a song has to grow (e.g. will it become more popular when the audience hears it more), or whether its the stations core, or users that like the song.

Lets now explore some of those other radio myths.

There are various stories that exist in the industry concerning what PDs are looking for when hiring presenters. The first stage of this process is producing your sales brochure (or demo tape!).

A PD has neither the time nor the inclination to read a long rambling letter about how youre a team player, or how you would be a valuable asset to the station.

Your demo should sound as if youre on the station. Be entertaining, because after all, listeners listen to be entertained. In the same way that you must become your own Sales Director, Marketing Director and Product Director, you must also learn about PR. There are so many egos at work in the industry that if you can be self-effacing at times youll actually become more conspicuous!

If the tape attracts the ear of the PD youll get a call. Having analysed the station extensively in terms of audience figures, history and presenters, and researched the area the station serves, establish the needs of the station and how you are able to fulfil those needs. For instance, if youre a local person and the station appears not to have any local voices on-air you are immediately able to fill a need for the station to reflect its local community. If the station has a line-up of tight format jocks and you learn that the PD is after a personality for the station (and thats what you do), explain that you understand this and thats what you can deliver for the station. I have never been more impressed than on the occasion when a would-be presenter arrived for a meeting to inform me where he thought I needed a presenter, what the current audience figures for that show were and what he thought he could deliver. You should also approach the meeting armed with accurate figures from your current position. You should present them as figures over a period of time. Make sure that you include the figures for your show and the stations figures so that there is a context if the figures fall over a period. If your station is in decline generally, theres little you can do individually, but the potential PD needs to be able to see that.

If the meeting goes well but no show or contract is offered you need to go for the

The Alternative Close - If you ask a question outright, there is always a chance that a PD will say no. It is often called The Evaluation Close in business-to-business sales. Offer to do the show free for a week!

The last myth that well deal with in this section is how people consume radio. The longer you work in the industry the easier it is to forget how the average person listens to the radio. Radio is something that most people dont ever consciously think about. Apart from your mum, your audience do not turn the radio on when you start your show, and they can turn it off at any point during your show. The average radio listener is conservative and likes familiarity, they tune in to your station because they know what they are going to get. If you are inconsistent or deliberately try to unsettle the audience they will not stick around. That said, you should understand that the average CHR station churns around 20pct. of its reach every year. The average listener has 2.5 stations that they listen to every week, despite the fact that in most markets there are now thirty or more stations they could choose from. Aside from the core audience of your station (those that listen to your station most of the time) your audience couldnt tell you the names of more than one or two presenters on the station and they certainly wouldnt know what time they are on. Understand this and its relevance in todays crowded media world, and then appreciate the value of developing your on-air performance and brand, which well examine later.