By Holland Cooke
Consultant

BLOCK ISLAND, RI – CNN reports: “Special Counsel Durham alleges Clinton campaign attorney used data to raise suspicion about Trump.” Right-handers light up Twitter with “BOOM!”

Maggie Haberman’s forthcoming book says White House staff “periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging toilets,” which they believed the president was responsible for. Lefties light up Twitter with “BOOM!”

Many days, these traps become the snark of the day for radio talkers.

The battle lines are drawn, and we’re quick to leap

No need to name names.

• One side wants to make voting easier; the other side wants to make it harder.
• Immigration? One side talks about cause; the other is effect-oriented.
• There are two sides to every story, right?

Whatever the question, each side has prefabricated a narrative. And whenever the other side has the hiccups, we “BOOM!” But to what end?

What is the desired outcome of “BOOM?”

Certainly, there is potential for validation. People who see things differently MUST be wrong, right? “BOOM!” confirms our predispositions. He wins the moment. But don’t we want more?

Time Spent Listening (TSL) is the name of the game.

• Nothing you say on air will attract new listeners, because the only people who hear you are already listening. And – with off-air promotion budgets now shrinking – assume the audience you have is the audience you will have.
• Goal: Get the existing cume to listen to more minutes per occasion and more occasions per week (think the same time tomorrow, what people call “horizontal maintenance”).
• Can we use “BOOM!” to achieve this ?

The advantage of talk radio over other formats: the voice of the listeners

“BOOM!” celebrate dysfunction. What if, instead, we used “BOOM!” “What if, instead…?”

Ask callers what they think it would take to fix what’s broken.

• Expect a lot of standard narratives, which will reassure like-minded people. And caller after caller will make you look popular, which advertisers notice.
• But some might surprise you, with an ingenious solution to the “BOOM!” expose.
• And lots of callers – which advertisers notice – make you seem more popular than the windy rants of the hosts.

Holland Cooke is the author of the e-book “Spot-On: Commercial Copy Points That Earned The Benjamins”, a FREE download here; and “Grow Your Podcast Subscribers, Without Buying Clicks,” available exclusively on Talkative books. HC is a consultant working at the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. And it hosts”The big picture“TV show Friday nights at 7 ET on RT America. Follow him on Twitter @HollandCooke

Key words: announcers, callers, CNN, consultant, Cume, Holland Cooke, listeners, radio speakers, time spent listening

Category: Advice