Last updated: 7/2009

on 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 station's format.
The Radio Presenter's 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. The aim of this book is to provide you with 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.
You can buy The Radio Presenter's Handbook as a soft-back book or as a downloadable e-book. Once you've paid for the e-book you will be given a link to download an exe file which is 926KB in size and will take approximately 30 seconds to download using a broadband connection.
Read the first two chapters for FREE below:
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. You need to think more like a business, with a clearly defined brand off-air, whilst being on- air a personality within the constraints of your employer?s format.
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.
Make no mistake, the business you own and operate is complex. 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! And that is the key to succeeding. Understanding that you are a business; one of many operating within the modern consolidated radio and media world. To maximise your revenue and progress your career you need to start thinking of yourself as Marketing Director, Sales Director, and Product Director of ?You? Limited. Throughout this book we?ll look at what you need to do to be a success in each of these areas and empower you with the knowledge to understand the technical jargon associated with formats, research and brands.
You operate on a daily basis in a unique, clinical environment, where your every move is scrutinised. Can you imagine how people would perform in an office job with that type of intense pressure placed upon them? By equipping yourself with a detailed knowledge and understanding of your current product and how to develop it, you?ll grow in confidence and take control of your business.
Over the following pages I?ve tried to let you in on some of the secrets of the industry that PDs tend to keep to themselves, together with imparting a gathered knowledge of what makes a great presenter. This book examines all areas of your presenting life including:
? The many myths that exist within the industry. PDs and MDs seem to programme largely based on research today, but what sort of information is available to them and how could you use it to your benefit?
? Understand how you can gain a greater understanding of your strengths and weaknesses as a presenter.
? How to prep for your show efficiently and effectively.
? How to construct and deliver great links, every link.
? How to develop yourself as brand. You?ll learn what a brand is, why they are important in the 21st Century and why you need to be one.
? The art of negotiation and how to walk away from the next contract negotiation with the deal you want.
? Running your business and taking the first steps towards your next goal.
I hope you enjoy reading this book and feel that you gain knowledge that you previously didn?t have. But do remember that nobody really knows what it takes to be a great presenter. By its very personal nature, radio is such a subjective business that it?s likely neither you, I, nor the rest of the world could ever agree on who the great presenters are. Or, more likely, we would agree to an extent because we work in the industry, but it would
be very different to what your listeners think makes a great presenter. Hopefully this book will teach you how to surprise and delight your audience on a daily basis, giving them a reason to stay with you for longer and to come back for more. As a consequence you?ll become more successful and will gain greater rewards for doing the job you love. Not everyone can be the next Kenny Everett, Chris Tarrant or Jonathan Ross. There are however, a number of lessons you can learn that will help you become a better presenter and to make more money, and those lessons are what we?ll endeavour to explore in this book.

2 EXPLORING THE MYTHS
There are many myths and legends within the radio industry often perpetuated by naivety and received wisdom. What does a RAJAR diary look like, what is tracking and how should you put together a demo tape? This chapter will examine all of these questions and more.
?Soap and education are not as immediate as a massacre but in the long run are as deadly?. Mark Twain.
You can only grieve for innocence once you have lost it. The loss of innocence is not to be celebrated but once you have a greater knowledge base you are in a stronger position. The dictum, ?Knowledge is Power? has never been truer and the more understanding you have of the systems your employers use, the greater the opportunity to use them to your advantage.
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, it?s an essential measure of performance. Whilst admittedly some programmers will only ever take a decision with research to back them up, most programmers use it as a steer that checks that they are going in the right direction.
There are essentially two types of research, quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative is where actual figures are quoted, such as RAJAR. For instance, 35% of 25-44 year olds listen to you for an average of 10.4 hours a week. The purpose of this type of research is to collect data that provides the user with an actual picture of their current position compared to competitors. Qualitative research is the type of information that is obtained from Focus Groups. This is data that is not subjected to formulaic analysis for the purpose of generating projections. The results will include verbatim such as ?I like the fact that the radio station has lots of competitions?.
There is a multitude of research resources available to programmers these days and it?s likely that your PD will use one or more of the following:
? Tracking is operated by several companies and in-house under licence by some of the bigger groups. This is the research that your PD may be given each week. It?s what puts him/her in a good or bad mood for the rest of the week! 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. It?s useful for the PD because, as the name suggests, it tracks the station?s performance week by week (it?s 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 it?s 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).
?We?ve 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 station?s 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??. The results to questions like these can provide experienced PDs with a really good check on how their station is performing and ensure that they are delivering to their strategy. They will have decided upon the key indicators that are important for their station (such as ?the station that puts you in a great mood?), and will want to track their performance against this perception. It?s likely that during your career, and certainly when you work on bigger stations, many of the decisions taken about you and your show will be based on this research. It?s important that you really understand the vagaries of this type of research. Many PDs will guard this information and only bring it out to show you when they want to make a point about something you?re doing wrong, or when the figures are very good and they want to praise you. If you accept that the figures will go up and down, it can be useful to see them each month to get a take on your current performance. Don?t be afraid of it ? ask your PD for a copy each month, look at it, understand it and then bin it!
? 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. Despite the vocal criticism by some sectors of the industry and the call for People Meters, RAJAR is one of the most accurate and reliable audience measuring methodologies in the world. 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 number of people in the sample depends upon the station?s TSA and the amount they pay for the service, but it?s typically around one percent of the TSA size that is sampled (there are around one hundred and thirty thousand respondents sampled each year). 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. Once you understand this, you?ll appreciate how this method of research is all about awareness and recall. 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 listener?s mind. When the listener is marking in the diary their listening at the end of the day, they will see the time that corresponds with your feature and remember that they were listening to you at that point.
Equally, as the listener has to mark off the length of time they listen to you it?s important to keep them listening for longer by effective forward promotion. 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 there?s always an element of deviation in the figures ? in the case of RAJAR it?s about plus or minus three percentage points (depending on your station?s reach/share and the number of people in the sample). Therefore if your station has a reach of 28%, it could in reality have either a 25% or 31% reach. Small rises or falls in reach or share therefore should be treated with an element of sceptical caution.
If you are involved with a station that is a subscriber to RAJAR you?ll 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 20% 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 7%, the fifth station a share of 71%. This is why some stations with older demographics are able to have relatively low reaches with high share scores. The older generations grew up with radio as one of the few media options available to them and are therefore more attached to it than the younger, media savvy generation of today. Far more hours are delivered by the older demographics (those over 35) than younger demographics.

A RAJAR diary is A5-sized, with around 50 pages. There are two pages for each day of the week, with the time in 15 and 30-minute periods down the side. There are also some tick-box questions at the front, relating to the respondent's general radio usage, use of the internet, cinema and newspapers, and television viewing.
A card fold lifts up from the front cover when opened, and the respondent is asked to choose from some accompanying stickers which radio stations he or she has heard in the last year. These stickers are then put on the card fold which is then visible over each of the days' grids. 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 .
This line would then mean that:
? The respondent would be counted as having been listening to BBC WM at these times
? The respondent would be counted in BBC WM's weekly reach
? The time spent listening here would count towards BBC WM's share of listening to all radio.

At the end of the week the diary is collected and added to the other diaries from the three month sampling period (the respondent starts filling in their diary on the Monday and it is collected on the following Monday). Once collated, the information is presented to the radio stations. In addition to top line figures such as reach (cume), share and total hours, each half hour of the day is broken down demographically into numbers of listeners (?000?s). In the table below you can see that the breakfast show?s audience peaks between 08.00 and 08.30 with the vast majority of the audience in the 25-34 year old males demographic.
All Adults 15+ % All Males 15+ Males 15-24

Unweighted Sample 1819 863 130
Estimated Population 5841 2871 460

06.00-06.30 8 3 0
06.30-07.00 70 34 33
07.00-07.30 83 40 3
07.30-08.00 94 33 6
08.00-08.30 102 35 18
08.30-09.00 90 10 0
09.00-09.30 78 19 0
09.30-10.00 60 33 0
10.00-10.30 72 23 0
10.30-11.00 74 4 0
11.00-11.30 75 5 0
11.30-12.00 69 5 0
12.00-12.30 50 3 0
12.30-13.00 76 5 0

? 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. It also includes detailed lifestyle information and from the listening patterns entered into the diary, it?s possible to ascertain other media consumption such as the internet, satellite TV or the cinema. Switching analysis is an analysis of the listener?s pattern of switching between different stations. If robust figures are used it can highlight particular areas of the output that listeners are tuning into or out of.
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. This is just one of many forms of RAJAR analysis that can be undertaken. 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 FM?s 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. How often are you doing the same things within your show or performing at the same level as you were six months ago? Therefore it?s important to recognise that RAJAR is simply a snap shot of how you and the station performed over that six month period. Only when you have a trend, which by the nature of RAJAR will take up to a year to obtain, can you start to use the data as a tool for measuring your performance. One of the mistakes many users of RAJAR make is that one book of research is used to assess a presenter?s performance when in fact they may have joined the station midway through, or at the beginning of the sampling period. There is a widely held belief amongst experienced programmers that it takes twelve to eighteen months to build a show and therefore the earliest an assessment of performance can be made is after a year (i.e. four sets of published data). It doesn?t matter how good a presenter you are, listeners to your show and station remember key elements and assume they continue even if they haven?t heard them in a while. As a consequence it?s common to hear in focus groups (see below) a set of listeners complaining about a feature that the station hasn?t run for two years. That?s because when they heard it, they didn?t like it and maybe didn?t listen again at that time assuming that it still happened. 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 listener?s consciousness. It?s also worth remembering that listeners are creatures of habit. Radio is a ritualistic habit and tends to form part of a person?s routine. To break their existing
? 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. There will perhaps be just 10 people in the room so that everyone has the opportunity to speak. Many PDs will sit in a viewing area whilst these sessions are taking place. The group may be asked to do a series of exercises such as producing collage boards with images of what they think the station represents. These sessions provide a valuable insight into the listeners? perceptions of the station and presenters. As mentioned previously, the perception can be quite different from the reality. It?s not unheard of for a PD sat in the room next door observing the session to be screaming, ?You morons, we changed that feature years ago, what do you mean you don?t like it?? It also highlights perceptions that the station may need to concentrate on changing.
Although information about you taken from these sessions could appear to be deeply hurtful, it?s essential that you get hold of it if possible. The ability to understand certain comments by the audience and then change those elements if required, can make you into a far better presenter. Focus groups are now used by many companies all over the world as a regular dipstick of their company?s position in the market and also to test new products and ideas. If you?re ever given the opportunity to attend one of these sessions, take it! You?ll 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. It?s particularly useful as a gauge from the station?s core audience of the back catalogue of songs the station should be playing. They can also be used to test any aspect of a station?s output. Between fifty and one hundred radio listeners are invited to a venue and are played hundreds of clips of music. They are asked to rate each piece of music using a hand-held controller that monitors their reaction to each track.
Music Research. Oh how the industry has argued about this over the years! 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 station?s target demographic is invited onto a panel. Each week, panel members are played the hook (chorus or most memorable bit) of a selection of songs, either over the phone or via a web-link. There?s a general acceptance that the highest rotating songs need to be tested every week to check they are the right songs and to know when they are approaching burn-out, the point where they either need to be rested or taken down to a lower rotation. 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:
Favourite ? This is the percentage of the survey that loved the song.
Positive ? The percentage that liked the song.
Negative ? Those that didn?t like the song.
Burn (Burn-out) ? Those that perhaps like the song but are fed up with it.
Familiar ? Those that are aware of 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 it?s the station?s core, or users that like the song.
So, that?s a basic over-view of the research that is available. Let?s 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. Unless you?re in the fortunate position of being headhunted, the chances are that you?ll need to do an element of selling to gain a presenting position. The first stage of this process is producing your sales brochure (or demo tape!).
Some of the following advice might seem obvious, yet as the years go by and the industry becomes more sophisticated, it?s amazing how many basic mistakes are still made on demo tapes. Your application should be neat, tidy and to the point. A PD has neither the time nor the inclination to read a long rambling letter about how you?re a team player, or how you would be a valuable asset to the station.
When it comes to the demo itself get into it straight away; no music, no jingles, and showcase your best bit first. You?ll get about thirty seconds before the tape is replaced by another one. Make sure the cassette or CD is labelled with your name and telephone number and be available on that number.
Your demo should sound as if you?re on the station. PDs are generally looking for the following:
? Be likeable ? shock jocks, aggressive and sarcastic presenters may well have their place, but unless your act and brand is highly developed it?s likely to sound forced and unnatural. You need to sound like the sort of person who I?d like to go with to the pub.
? Be real and at the same time, be realistic. If you are not a natural performer and entertainer, if you?re not an interesting person or can?t tell a story fluently, the chances are that you?re not going to make it as a successful presenter. You need to be you, be-cause when it comes to doing a live show day in day out, if that?s not the sort of person you are, you?ll soon get found out.
? Be credible.
? Be entertaining, because after all, listeners listen to be entertained. If this was not the case then they would chose a CD or MP3 player over the radio. Entertainment doesn?t necessarily mean being funny, but it does mean being engaging (preparation that is more than reading the papers and delivering a few amusing stories).
? Be interesting. Nobody likes a bore. Make sure your material is original, relevant and has the effect of stopping somebody in the middle of what they are doing to concentrate on what you?re saying. Think to yourself, if I was to say what I?m about to say to a group of friends down the pub would they be riveted, or would they be looking rather embarrassed for me as there is a general halt in the conversation and people stare at their shoes?
? Be visible. You?re not in the type of profession where you can be a shrinking violet and expect an audience or a potential employer to come and find you. In the same way that you must become your own Sales Director, Marketing Director and Product Director, you must also learn about PR. You are more likely to get an immediate hit with a PD if he/she has seen your name in the trade press, has met you at an event or other people in the industry are talking about you (remember word of mouth is the most powerful of all marketing methods). You need to develop an external visibility in your marketplace that we?ll touch on later, but there?s an internal (within the industry) PR presence that you need to maintain. Go to the industry events that the PDs are at, make sure that you send press releases to the trade press and develop the art of promoting yourself at every given opportunity.
? Be humble. There are so many egos at work in the industry that if you can be self-effacing at times you?ll actually become more conspicuous!
If the tape attracts the ear of the PD you?ll get a call. This is where the work really begins. It?s essential to try and develop a relationship with the PD first ? find out about them, how they work, what they like and don?t like. Ask any successful sales person and they?ll tell you that if you can go into a sales pitch armed with facts about the client with which to flatter them you?ll get the deal without having to sell. Lose any thoughts of super-stardom when you go for the meeting and think of yourself as the Sales Director, not the performer. Any sales pitch is about identifying the need of the customer and then providing them with a solution. Pitch yourself not as the performer, but as the sales person for ?You? Limited.
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 you?re 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 that?s what you do), explain that you understand this and that?s 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. Needless to say he got the gig.
You should also approach the meeting armed with accurate figures from your current position. These figures need to mean something and need to be accurate. You should present them as figures over a period of time. Make sure that you include the figures for your show and the station?s figures so that there is a context if the figures fall over a period. If your station is in decline generally, there?s little you can do individually, but the potential PD needs to be able to see that.
I don?t know how many times presenters have turned up for an interview to say, ?Well, I doubled the audience in six months?. I have then taken a look at their figures and found that indeed the 15-24 year old audience has doubled, but the overall audience had fallen by 50%. Get the facts and make sure they are right.
Despite all this work, the PD will sometimes need a nudge to take the plunge and offer you a gig, especially if you come without form. If the meeting goes well but no show or contract is offered you need to go for the
The Assumptive Close ? As the name suggests, it involves you saying something that assumes the position is yours, ?So when shall I come in to learn the desk??

? The Alternative Close - If you ask a question outright, there is always a chance that a PD will say 'no'. To minimise this chance, ask a question that does not let a 'no' come into the equation. Such a question involves giving alternative choices to the PD other than a straight 'yes' or 'no'. For instance you could say ?Would you like me to start this week or next week??
? The Puppy-Dog Close - this is all about having the affect a puppy-dog has on a small child! It is often called The Evaluation Close in business-to-business sales. It is quite simple where you give the PD the offering. It could be that you just thrust the product into their hands, let them feel it, taste it, look at it. It could be that you let them trial it, knowing that once they've had the puppy-dog round, they could never give something so cute back! Offer to do the show free for a week!
The last myth that we?ll 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 don?t ever consciously think about. It?s just something that is there for them to listen to when they turn it on. If they hear something they don?t like they either turn it off or tune into another radio station. 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. Therefore the big introduction to the show and the fond farewell at the end are of little or no value.
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 20% 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 sta