DJ Gets Paid In M&M's

A lot of people out there have a huge misconception about the pay rate of your favorite local DJ. A lot of people seem to think that they pay for such a cool job is somewhat outstanding. This is far from the truth.



A easy way to break it down would to describe it as either good or bad. There isn't really a in between. Any given part-time DJ usually makes hourly. That hourly rate usually depends on several things such as talent, budget, or market size. It is the full-time DJs who usually make the most. However this also varies.

If you are a full-time DJ in a very big city such as New York or Los Angeles you are easily pulling in six figures annually. This does not include endorsements. Working in NY or LA is the dream of any on air personality. If you are a full-time DJ in a small town it is easy to say you aren't making six figures. It is highly likely you are also making hourly rate as well as the part-timers. So in reality the city you broadcast in makes a huge difference on your pay rate. The bigger the city, the bigger the paycheck.

A lot of us live check to check just like you do and normally we are doing this on payday.



I came across a story written in Sept of 2008 about a 5 year old boy who does 2 minute sports recaps on the "Jones & Heather" morning show at WWLI Lite Rock 105.1 FM in Providence, R.I.

As a joke his father one day had his son record a sports recap of the weekends football lineups. One member of the "Jones and Heather" morning show decided to run it on the air and it became a huge hit with the listeners. They had asked him to return and by the time this story was written the 5 year old had been on the air for over a year.



This was in Sept of 2008 and if he is still doing it the now 6 year old has been in radio for almost half his life. A statistic not everyone in this industry can boast about. And what is his compensation for doing this you ask? Candy. Yes the young lad receives M&M's every time pay comes around.



Now I know this is a great industry to be in and I thought this was a feel good story that I wanted to share with all of you. Personally I would never work for M&M's but then again I am not 6 years old.

Since Sept 2008 the economy has hit the radio industry very hard and I hope the little guy is still on the air. But in a plus in his situation, his pay doesn't take much out of the annual budget.

Source: http://www.dailynewstribune.com/news/x2032138507/Hes-got-game-Local-5-year-old-a-veteran-of-sports-radio

Crazy Radio Stalker Story

We've all seen them... they come out to every remote your station does. They call in constantly on the listener lines. They show up unexpectedly at the radio station at all times of the day. Yes, I'm talking about the crazy P1 stalk... er... listeners.

While I've never had one of my own stalkers, I have had the experience of sharing one with the rest of the airstaff. We'll call her "Linda" for the sake of argument and to protect the guilty.

I was working for a rock station, and "Linda" was a huge fan. She was "39 year old heterosexual female, liked to smoke Marlboro cigarettes, and drink Budweiser Beer." How do I know this? She put it in the letter that she sent to one of our morning show hosts. I should also mention that the letter wasn't written on stationery or even on a nice sheet of paper. No... it was written on a series yellow post-it notes that also included a crudely drawn map for said morning host to find her house! "Linda" also sent every single one of our jocks a letter that day. Each one personalized, and written in a different form. Aside from the post-it notes letters arrived written on paper, 3 x 5 cards, and even one written on an envelope. Not all of us received maps to her house, though.

"Linda" also had the habit of showing up at remotes to just hang out. The first time I met her, we were doing a remote at a Quiznos. It was also the day of our annual listener halloween party. She was the first person at the remote and proudly told me that she was coming to the party that night. I had no idea at this point who she was or how I was inviting a world of crazy upon our doorstep. I politely thanked her for listening and wound up giving her a t-shirt. But she stuck around for the entire remote to help us "promote" the radio station, and by that, I mean scare people off! And true to her word, she showed up at the Halloween party that night. In fact, she was the first on line! While we were still setting up! At this point, she had integrated herself into our lives and thought she was one of us.

There was one particular day when I decided to go to one of my favorite delis for lunch. I took one of the station vehicles (get the logo out as much as you can). As I was leaving, I heard someone call my name. I looked up and "Linda" was standing on the porch of the apartment over the deli. I didn't know until then that that was where she lived. "I saw the van and thought you were coming to visit!" Ummm.... no. Now I can never go to one of my favorite delis ever again!

Coming soon, I will tell you about "Bob"... who is even crazier!

One Insight Can Beat Up all Your Ideas

EVEN THOUGH YOU HATE TO ADMIT IT, YOU KNOW...

Much radio advertising is inadequate. It’s blather. So much of it is built on the theory that if one has a clever idea and fills 60 seconds with words, one has a commercial. This is a reality anyone who loves radio is forced to admit.

When I’ve created a spot that blows the doors off response rate, I’d always assumed it was simply because somehow, my ideas were better.

Turns out, mere ideas are not at the core of big advertising success. I was unaware of this. I required enlightenment.

That enlightenment came from between the pages of Phil Dusenberry’s book, One Great Insight Is Worth a Thousand Good Ideas: An Advertising Hall-of-Famer Reveals the Most Powerful Secret in Business. (Originally published as, Then We Set His Hair On Fire.)


LEGENDARY ADVERTISING

If you don’t know Dusenberry, he worked his way up from the bottom (starting in radio) to become Chairman of BBDO. If you don’t know BBDO, you might want to get out of the radio station more often. Founded in 1928 and now recognized as the Most Awarded Advertising Agency Network in the World, BBDO has 17,200 employees in 287 offices in 77 countries. BBDO gave us the Pepsi Challenge, GE’s “We Bring Good Things To Light,” and Fed Ex “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight,” to name just a speck atop the tip of the iceberg of BBDO’s iconic and wildly successful output.

What is so intriguing about Dusenberry’s book (terrific anecdotes about the likes of Ronald Reagan, Michael Jackson and Don Johnson aside) is his assertion about the overwhelming importance of insight-the power of it, and how it differs from mere advertising ideas.


GOOD IDEAS ARE USEFUL, FOR SURE--BUT INSIGHT CHANGES THE GAME

Our experience with a recent Slow Burn Marketing client illustrates the difference between idea and insight. The client is a Lasik surgeon. Our idea was to execute a series of five commercials culled from casual interviews: three patient testimonials and two doctor-voiced spots.

As we began travelling through this process, a little light went on. This person was no mere Lasik surgeon. This surgeon was truly different. These patients loved their doctor. The doctor loved the patients, and knew things about them personally.

Our original idea was, “These are patients happy with the experience. Let’s do three happy patient testimonials and two doctor-voiced spots.”

The insight was, “Holy cow-what a surgeon! No ego overdrive. This surgeon is humble and practices medicine from a standpoint of servitude.”

We threw out the original idea.

Instead, we acted on the insight inspired by really listening to all these people. In each commercial, the patient describes his vision challenge, and how much he was thrilled by the Lasik experience. These sound bites are intercut with the surgeon discussing the patient’s personal challenge, and how much she enjoyed working with him.


THE RESULTS ARE QUIETLY EXPLOSIVE

More than one person has heard these commercials and cried. (No joke. Real tears.)

We’re just a little bit astonished at the rabbit that we pulled out of the hat.

And all this was possible because, instead of being enamored of our original, pet idea, we allowed room for the reality of the client difference to infect us and push us toward something greater.

Here now, the irony: this same doctor has since had the opportunity for some station-created spots. The station-produced material is bogged down in clichés and executional ideas about how a radio commercial should sound, without exhibiting any honest insight into the patient experience or the client uniqueness.

This so vividly illustrates the challenge presented almost every time someone asks me, “Why isn’t this commercial working?” Nine times out of 10, the spot we hear is a product of ideas about how to advertise and entertain-rather than the being result of insight into the advertiser’s product or service. For instance:

A message about a sensitive medical problem is laden with bad, insensitive comedy about the problem. It demonstrates no insight into the advertiser’s truly enormous difference, or the prospect’s emotions about this sensitive issue.

A commercial for high-end replacement windows gives a condescending lecture to homeowners about all the things they’re likely to do wrong when buying new windows. It demonstrates no insight into either the advertiser’s difference or the psyche and ego of the upper-middle class prospect.

A mortgage message (yes, another one) uses idiotic, banal and insipid slice-of-life dialogue about no-fees re-fi. It demonstrates zero insight into either the advertiser’s difference or the prospect’s feelings about the single biggest financial investment of his life.

These are just three of the myriad ineffective concepts that have crossed my desk in an attempt to find out why the advertising isn’t working.


THE PROBLEM IS IDEA-ITIS

These commercials are bogged down in the swamp of clever ideas, often ego-driven, with no genuine insights.

Don’t get me wrong: ideas are important. Without ideas, Motel 6 wouldn’t have 20-plus years of Tom Bodett leaving the light on for us. But the ideas that propel possibly the biggest juggernaut in the history of radio advertising are inextricably linked to key insights about what Motel 6 is and what matters to the prospect. (Just for instance: when first approached about being in the commercials, Tom Bodett asked why they wanted him. The answer: “Because you sound like a guy who would stay at Motel 6.” The First Commandment of Advertising: Know thine customer.)

It seems that one of the challenges of radio advertising is that it’s often executed by people who love radio without necessarily having a love for advertising. And the more budgets are slashed and people who don’t Get It are put in charge of it, the worse it’ll get.


MY EXPECTATIONS ARE TOO HIGH--HOW ABOUT YOURS?

This is going to be expecting too much, perhaps. But anyone who wants their clients to thrive on radio must get past mere ideas. There must be an endless quest for insight.

One way to start this quest is to study effective advertising and the insights behind it-not just radio spots, but any genuine, US Grade A Fancy, historically proven advertising, from “Everyone laughed when I sat down at the piano,” to “Think small” to “Think different” to “Just Do It” to “AFLAC!”

The resources are there. Many are free. One of my personal favorites (which is not free, but often affordable even though it’s out of print) is a 1984 retrospective of the golden age of Madison Avenue. It also has a somewhat prophetic title: When Advertising Tried Harder. If radio as we know it and love it is to survive, radio advertising needs to try harder. The only way we will thrive is if our advertisers thrive. We have to get better. And that’s an insight we can all count on.

An advertising Creative Director in Los Angeles for over a decade, Blaine Parker is a principal in Slow Burn Marketing LLC, a small and feisty marketing agency perched on a mountaintop outside Park City, UT.

A New Way To Broadcast On Location

How many times have you done a remote and the Marti or ISDN line sounds completely horrible? I am going to guess, a lot. For you people who do callins from a cell phone, aren't you tired of the crappy quality your cell phone makes you sound?

Well a new way to make your remote sound excellent has been discovered. This method can make your voice sound much better than any marti or ISDN unit. So how is this done?



With the iphone. (The newer iphones not the older ones) We had gotten into a bind because our marti units weren't getting good signals on one of our remotes. So at the last minute the jock recorded their callin with the iphone and emailed the audio to the studio. When the person in the studio downloaded it, it was in M4A format. A free M4A converter was found for free online and it was converted into MP3.

Initially when it was first heard it didn't sound spectacular. It just sounded very normal. But once the callin ran on air the station processing made it sound completely different than how it sounded when it was initially converted.

So if you attempt this don't say "It doesn't sound all that great". Because remember, the station processing contributes to how it sounds when it finally airs.

It has gotten to the point where a lot of jocks at the cluster are now using their iphone instead of the regular broadcasting equipment.

WHAT YOU NEED:

• A newer iphone
• M4A converter (found free online)
• email address
• station processing