Monday Memo: Matter, and Money Will Follow
By Holland Cooke
Consultant
There has never been more news. And news has never been more quotable. It costs two-plus cents to make a penny.
Events impacting everyday life are unfolding around-the-corner, around-the-world, around-the-clock. The listeners our advertisers want as customers are in “What NEXT???” mode.
There have never been more places to get news. And the broadcasters that monetize information best have evolved what we used to call “a radio station” into a multiplatform source of content pertinent to its target listener. Trusted call letters are the surname shared by digital siblings.
Being known for helpful information is key. My client stations image relentlessly as “Your Only Local News Radio.” If you are too, rip me off, and burn-it-in.
But imaging merely talks-the-talk. All the promos in the world won’t walk-the-walk. We become habit-forming by delivering information that is relevant and useful and enabling and easily understood and seems up-to-date.
Accordingly:
- When we report information-given-to-us (press releases, etc.), rewrite to succinctly convey what the story means. Typically, press releases are about the sender. Our lead sentence needs to be about how-it-matters-to the listener.
- Keep it fresh. The second and third time someone hears a story word-for-word, the little voice in his/her head says, “You already told me that.” Every effort we make to update copy is worth it.
- Listen to your on-hour network, for three reasons: Emulate their crisp copy style, which conveys the consequence of items being reported. And emulate their delivery. Note how FOX News Radio morning anchor Dave Anthony sounds like he’s talking, not reading. And listen for opportunities to localize big national/international stories.
What is being reported by national media, how does it hit home, and who locally can comment or explain?
- How is DOGE government downsizing impacting people in your state, in your city? Most of the federal workforce does not live in Washington/Maryland/Virginia.
- We pray for ailing Pope Francis. When he passes, who from your diocese or parish can you interview? “The Conclave” won an Oscar and was nominated for eight.
Music radio is in the fight of its life with streams, and too much talk radio is an angry caricature. Matter most, and money will follow.
Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn
Observation, as a heavy CNBC viewer: Artificial Intelligence is to 2025 what Dot Com was to the late 1990s, game-changer… and shiny object.
Radio is an intimate, one-to-one medium; so “you” and “your” – speaking to one person – will resonate more than addressing “all of you.” There’s only one of me.
Don McLean recalls the newspaper headline on February 3, 1959: “Three Rock’n’roll Stars Killed in Plane Crash.” He says, “I cried,” telling AARP Magazine that, years later, “I had my tape machine on, and this song just came out of me: ‘A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile…’”
Here’s the script:
“If you missed Biff & Bev in-the-Morning, you missed…” It’s a donut: produced open and close, with an aircheck clip in the middle.
Many Americans have been, in the two years since the Supreme Court punted the issue down to the states. For suburban women voters in swing states, it is – by far – the number one issue, per a Wall Street Journal poll. It tipped 2022 midterms and 2023 elections and swung other elections in battleground states.
Next month, as the school year begins in so many places, the listeners that local retailers want as customers transition back to their “normal” routines. Their tempo changes and builds to a holiday season climax. And we – and our advertisers – want to be their soundtrack.
We – inside-the-box – live and breathe radio. Listeners have their hands full just living and breathing. Their day is time crunched and financially challenging, and we want to be its soundtrack.
Remember the old Gatorade commercial? The “Be like Mike” jingle accompanied a montage of gravity-defying Michael Jordan dunks.
Got young local radio news talent? CONGRATULATIONS, for five reasons:
Today, consultant Holland Cooke writes, “With 850-plus confirmed 2024 tornadoes – just halfway through the season – each night’s network TV newscast can make you “thankful that we don’t live THERE…” And with more gnarly weather on the way this week across much of the USA, he reckons that, “regardless of your format, your station can be the weather button that listeners will push, and advertisers can sponsor.” And he suggests a tactic proven over 80 years ago. 
Because you can? Because you aren’t doing AM/FM radio? Because you are on radio, but can’t-do-there what you can-do podcasting? Because you are making money podcasting?
Actor Hugh Grant’s Tweet called it “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley.” He was reacting to Apple’s 
Ratings – and advertisers’ results – reward what listeners remember, what sticks-out, not clichés that blend-in. So, avoid blah-blah-blah such as…
I asked ChatGPT: “Vendors are now offering radio stations a service that delivers advertising commercial copy generated by AI. Because AI draws from what’s already been done, this risks sound-alike scripts. Is there a list of commercial clichés users should instruct AI to exclude?”