That Guy Sucks

9/8/1995

Which of the following statements doesn’t fit:  Labor Day Weekend; golf, playtime; sunburn, tanning lotion; poolside margaritas; cool tunes on the radio; obnoxious deejays.

If you answered poolside margaritas, you need to stop drinking…or start… whichever is more appropriate.

Obnoxious deejays.

Is anything more irritating?  Nothing can turn a listener off quicker.  And nothing burns into a listener’s brains more.  So why don’t programmers spend more time working with and instructing talent t o ease this obvious stumbling block?  Programmers spend hours laboring over music computers, station production, flow clocks and promotions, yet one ignorant deejay can blow the entire station’s image with an inconstant presentation.

This problem is most prevalent during weekends.  Scheduling weekend air shifts is one of the biggest headaches for programmers.  No full time jock wants to work a weekend shift.  Most have no choice.  But they all want specific shifts that may not be right for the station.  It’s hard enough to find talented people in major or large markets…It’s nearly impossible in smaller markets.

Unfortunately, weekends are the most important days for attracting new listeners.  Most listeners are creatures of habit during weekdays.  Seldom do they stray from their favorite stations.  Not so on weekends.  Maybe they’re dating someone whose musical tastes are different.  Maybe they’re in situations that call for a different station than the one they’re accustomed to listening to during the week.  Maybe it’s because weekends are not so structured and therefore provide more time for listeners to sample different stations.

For all of these reasons…and more…weekends should be of extreme importance to you and your deejays.  You can’t afford to have potential listeners tuning in to your station then quickly tuning out because “that guy sucks.”

Not that offensive deejays are exclusive to weekends.  Far from it.  There are more than enough bad jocks to go around.  And lately, they seem to be going around like an epidemic.

Not so long ago I wrote an Editorial on getting the most out of air talent.  It doesn’t seem to have worked.  At least not on my stations of choice in Los Angeles.  If I repeat myself, perhaps you should repeat some of these suggestions to your air staff.  They obliviously didn’t get it the first time.

Communications is the key to being a good programmer.  It is also the key to being a good jock.  Communication between PD and the air staff is the combination that will open the lock.  Just because part-time deejays only work a few hours doesn’t mean you should spend less time instructing them on the format.  The truth it, you should spend more.

Deejays must know who their audience is.  Since most don’t, it is up to you, the programmer, to explain it to them.  Make sure each deejay knows how to relate to the audience.  Make sure that the jock knows that it is the listener who is important…not the deejay.  And make sure each jock knows that the weekend audience is not the same as those listening Monday through Friday.

If the music is right, if the promotions are right, if the presentation is right, a good jock can add to those elements to make a station better.  Except for those jocks who are more important than the music (Howard Stern, highlighted in this week’s magazine on page 12, is the perfect, and maybe only example), an air personality’s job is to accentuate the positives of the format.  It is not an air talent’s job to be important…it is an air talent’s job to make the station important.

On weekend shifts, this rule should never be broken.  Jocks are there to pimp the music…pimp station promotions…and that’s all.  No funny bits…no cute comments…no weak attempts at being hip.

It’s simple.  Shut the hell up.

Weekend promotions should be simple call-in-and-win contests.  Nothing more.  If the contests have listener interaction, make sure the bits are kept short.  Besides a name and city, jocks should only ask contestants yes or no questions.  It keeps the jock in charge of the call.

Weekend jocks shouldn’t ask a winner, “How do you feel?”  That gives the listener an opportunity to stumble around forever.  A weekend jock should say, “You just won… isn’t that great?”

Yes or no answers.

Weekend jocks shouldn’t be allowed to talk about themselves.  Nobody cares where they came from…how long they’ve been in town…what movie they saw last night.  Just pimp the music.

Long contests on weekends are losers.  Soliciting contestants is hard enough on weekdays.  On Sunday? Forget it.  More than likely, you’ll have 12-year-olds playing along.  This weekend, I was listening to a station that had a great Labor Day musical presentation.  Nothing but hit after hit.  Then a shift change occurs and the next jock, who normally does a different shift during the week, decides he wants to impress the audience with his “hipness” by playing a stupid contest.

He solicits contestants.  Nobody calls.  He continues to beg and finally gets someone on the phone.  They didn’t know about the contest.  So the jock explains it to them.  (Forget we’ve already heard the explanation several times.)  Then the jock can’t hear the contestant.  He asks their name not once, not twice…but three times.  Of course, the jock can’t hear the lame answers to the lame contest either.  It lasts forever.

Oh, by the way.  The contestant finally won.  The prize?  A station T-shirt.  The listener then asked to make a request.  The jock replied, “Sorry, we don’t take requests.”

Perfect.

Nothing is more irritating to a listener than a bad jock.  And the truth is, there aren’t really any bad jocks…there are ignorant jocks.  There are those on the air who think they have something more important than the music to share with the audience.

If I want someone to share their thoughts with me,  I’ll call the psychic hotline.

It is up to the programmers to put jocks in their place.  And the proper place is within the boundaries of the format…not outside.  Otherwise you’ll get an audience response you don’t want.

“That guy sucks.”