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| Radio Row |
Chances are that you have either heard or seen one of the
sports radio shows that you listen to every day do their show live from what
they call Radio Row at the Super Bowl in Indianapolis this week. All three
national radio networks are there as are many local stations (and from what I
understand the number of stations that are there is up from the last few
years).
For all of the people connected to the hundreds of shows
that go to the Super Bowl, this week is the highlight of the year. I know it
was for me. I’ve been doing radio for twenty-one years now, and I have had the
pleasure of going to five Super Bowls (in Atlanta, Tampa, New Orleans, San
Diego and Detroit). I’ve produced shows from Super Bowls and I’ve hosted shows
from Super Bowls. It’s a fun week. There is a lot of work that goes into it (it’s
not all parties, trust me), but it is a fun week when all is said and done.
That being said, not every listener enjoys the shows that
are done from Radio Row. Every year, without fail, I see someone lodge the
following complaints:
1.
My team isn’t in the Super Bowl. Why is my
favorite radio station spending so much time on it?
2.
Most of the guests are great but I wish they’d
stop plugging all these different products. I don’t want to hear these guys do
commercials.
3.
My favorite station is put guests on that I’ve
never heard of before (whether they are NFL players that aren’t stars or other ‘celebrities’).
4.
My favorite station seems to ignore the top
stories and the teams that I care about when they do their shows from the Super
Bowl.
These are all valid complaints. Granted the majority of
listeners are totally fine with shows emanating from the Super Bowl. These
complaints come from a minority of listeners. But the complaints should not be
written off. Not by hosts, producers or Program Directors. There is an art to
doing shows from Radio Row. If a station or show isn’t executing well, you are
likely to hear the complaints that I went over a moment ago.
So the question begs to be asked. How do you pull it off?
Like I said, doing shows from Radio Row is an art form
(like all radio to be honest with you). Let’s see if I can’t help those who don’t
like what they are hearing this week by going over the big four complaints.
First of all, only two cities are represented in the
Super Bowl. But there are many more cities that have radio stations doing shows
from the Super Bowl. You know why that is? Because football is king. Whether
you like it or not, the NFL is the most popular sport in this country.
Nearly everyone will be watching on Sunday night when the
Giants and Patriots match up at Lucas Oil Stadium. Most people will be watching
for the game. Some people will be watching for the commercials. Another segment
of the audience will be watching for the halftime show. But most everyone will
be watching and they’ll be talking about it the following day when they get to
the office.
That’s why radio stations go to the Super Bowl every
year. It’s not just a game. It’s a cultural phenomenon. Even if your team isn’t
playing on Sunday, I am sure you will be watching. Sports radio is about the
hot stories and hot topics. This week’s hot story/topic is the Super Bowl.
Now let’s talk about the guests. Every guest you hear
this week is plugging something. Some are plugging products. Some are plugging
shows. Some are plugging movies. The fact is these celebrities are paid by
different companies to be there and do these interviews.
I am not the biggest Jim Rome fan in the world, but one
thing that he does well is how he handles the guests and what they are
plugging. Many hosts go right into what the guest is there to promote, thinking
that once they get the question out of the way they can go on to doing an
interview. Unfortunately, and this happens a lot, one question leads to another
and before you know it, half of the interview is wasted on what amounts to a
commercial.
This is where Rome is terrific. A guest will stop by, and
Rome will tease what the guy is there
to promote without getting into a
conversation about it. Then he does his interview, and with the last question,
he gets the plug in. So he gets good content and gets the promotion taken care of. And the listener doesn’t feel
like half of the interview is about some product, show or movie.
There are different types of guests that are available to
the stations doing shows on Radio Row. Some are superstars. Some are stars.
Some are just filler, to be honest. The key is getting the right guest on the radio station.
That means producers and hosts shouldn’t automatically
put someone on because some PR guy is offering them up. If it’s not a big name
guest, you don’t have to put the guest on. If you want to put a ‘B’ level guest
on because there is a local tie-in and your audience knows who the guest is,
that’s fine. But don’t put on a guest just for the sake of having a guest.
Here’s another thing I wouldn’t do. Some PR companies go
down there and actually have porn stars make the rounds on radio row (others
actually have strippers do the same thing). Stay away from those guests. The
audience can’t hear how good looking
the guest is. So putting on a ‘hottie’ does nothing for the guy listening in
his car.
Here’s a good example of this. At the Detroit Super Bowl
a few years back, I put on a couple of guests because the host I was working
with at the time wanted to talk to them. He wanted them on because they were
good looking women. You know what happened? The interviews stunk (these girls
could not put a complete sentence together). One of them – literally – lifted up
her shirt and asked my host, ‘What do you think of my boob job?’ It was funny
as hell to see, but I’m not sure anyone that listened to it without having the
benefit of the visual was really entertained.
Now let’s deal with the fourth and final complaint. Local
stations doing shows from the Super Bowl should never ignore the stories their audience cares about. For instance,
St. Louis listeners this week want to hear about the future of the Rams, the
Blues and their playoff chances and Missouri’s recruiting haul. Every show
should leave themselves some wiggle room to talk about the top stories of the
day.
That simply means that not every segment has to be filled
with a guest. The best shows that are done from Radio Row don’t have
wall-to-wall guests. They have open segments that they can use to talk about
the stories their listeners want to hear about.
The worst thing a local show broadcasting live from Radio
Row can do is take their eyes off the prize. Unfortunately that happened to me
in that very same Detroit Super Bowl. Brett Favre’s future was the hot topic in
Milwaukee (where I was working at the time) at the end of the 2005 season. The
problem was we didn’t do enough on the Favre saga because we got too wrapped up
in getting guest after guest after guest. On the one hand having those guests
was great, but on the other hand, we didn’t do our job because we ignored the
top local story.
So there is an art to doing shows from Radio Row. There
is a method to the madness. Done correctly, Super Bowl shows can be compelling,
entertaining and a great listen.
Done incorrectly, it can become a jumbled mess.
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