Radio broadcast techniques
We need to appreciate the audio in our synchronous sessions and take steps to improve it. Here are several techniques used by radio producers that you can use to improve your synchronous communication.
Find great speakers
In radio, producers put a premium on the talent they allow to go on the air. Radio producers know that great content, interviews, and scripts can all go to waste if not presented well.
In order to present your content well, it is extremely important that you have an instructor who is a strong speaker. In the online environment, instructors who are adequate speakers in the classroom can quickly seem mediocre. And it gets worse: mediocre speakers quickly become intolerable to listen to. So take extra care when you select individuals to deliver your content in synchronous events.
If you have a good speaker, and you want to improve his or her performance, there are some steps you can take. Robert McLeish, who wrote Radio Production (See References at the end of this article), names the following skills that radio talent needs to be conscious of, and to work on constantly to improve:
- Projection — Is the vocal energy of the speaker’s voice appropriate?
- Voice Inflection — Does your speaker have the appropriate rise and fall in his or her voice? As McLeish says, “It is the predictability of the vocal pattern that becomes boring.” Not enough rise and fall in the voice will become monotonous. Too predictable a rise and fall becomes too rhythmic.
- Pause — Does your speaker stop at appropriate times to separate ideas and allow the audience time to absorb thoughts?
- Personality — How does the broadcaster come across as a person? What visual image is the speaker creating in the listener’s minds?
- Vocal stressing — Is there emphasis on the appropriate words in each sentence to communicate the desired meaning?
The simplest way to improve the speech style of your presenter is to record her (or him) delivering your content in a dry run. Then replay this recording for your speaker and the synchronous development team to critique. Everyone, including the speaker, can learn a lot from listening to these replays, and will have ideas on how to improve them. Do several different takes and encourage your speaker to vary projection, inflection, and vocal stressing. By experimenting, you can optimize the speaker’s voice. Encourage your speaker to exaggerate or even “ham up” the delivery in some takes. Many times when a speaker believes the performance is “over the top,” the delivery actually comes across as clear, animated, and engaging. It takes the replay to demonstrate this to the speaker.
Create dialogue
Currently, a majority of synchronous events just consist of a basic monologue. This is the effect of thinking of your synchronous event as a corporate PowerPoint presentation online. This is a mistake.
How many monologues, lasting more than three minutes, do you hear on radio or TV? The answer is very few. Maybe the President’s State of the Union address, but that is because it is beyond the control of radio and TV producers.
Look at successful radio and TV formats. All but the smallest TV markets always have two news anchors. Why? So the audience never hears one person for more than two minutes.
Try to think of professional football with one announcer. One person could easily announce the entire game and describe every play to the audience, but that is not enough for the producers. Ultimately, these producers need to prevent the audience from changing the channel or going to bed. The producers create a dialogue so the broadcast is more interesting and easier to listen to. They want each speaker to build off what the other is saying. The producers want banter, laughter, reaction, and even disagreement.
Let’s look at Howard Stern. Does Howard entertain with a monologue? No. Love him or loathe him, he surrounds himself with characters and then encourages dialogue between them. He wants banter and he wants his team to build on a topic.
The rule of thumb in radio is to keep speakers speaking for no more than two and a half minutes at a time, and preferably to hold them to a minute and a half.
Why dialogue? Monologues or lectures are one person, talking unchecked for a long time. Lecturers know they won’t hear a challenge to their message until the Q&A session at the end of the presentation. They know it is unlikely that someone will disagree or ask them to reiterate something right away.
Compare this to a dialogue. In a dialogue, you are talking to someone, so every word can be challenged immediately. The listener can and will ask the speaker to clarify or reiterate the speakers statements. Therefore, speakers are more careful about how they phrase things. That is, speakers tend to use simpler language in dialogues. They speak more slowly and deliberately. They speak in conversational tones instead of the monotone of a rigid lecture.
Vary voice types
I once produced a synchronous event in which there were two British men, of the same age and accent, having a dialogue. For my US-based audience, and for me, it became very difficult to tell who was talking because their voices were so similar. The flow of the conversation became confusing because listeners did not know who was talking. All the benefits of a dialogue were lost.
When you look for two or more people to be in your synchronous event, try to find individuals with different- sounding voices. The easiest way to do this is to vary the gender of your speakers. It is not coincidental that most radio and TV news teams consist of a man and a woman. Another option is to look for speakers with distinct accents from each other. In my event, a British accent would have been perfect, if paired with any non-British accent. Also, try to vary the tone level of your speakers. By varying the voices, you will have clear distinction between the speakers, and thus better dialogue.
Interview
Interviewing is not only a great way to create dialogue; it also focuses the presentation on the audience’s needs. Let me explain. Experts tend to think about content differently than novices, and they are usually unaware of this fact. Experts may not explain the topic in a way best understood by novices. For example, the expert may stay too abstract. Radio and TV producers are aware of this, and they try not to put an expert in any topic on the air without “supervision.” They normally will have someone interview the expert.
In radio and TV, the job of an interviewer is to represent the listeners: to be an advocate for the listener, to ask the questions the listener wants to ask but can’t, and to keep the speaker focused on what is important or relevant to the audience. A good interviewer will get the speaker to:
- Reiterate points for better clarification;
- Support assertions with real world examples and stories to make it more tangible for the listener;
- Stay concrete and not get so abstract the audience can’t relate to the content;
- Relax and thus create a more casual and understandable discourse;
- Stay on schedule to make the best use of time; and
- Maintain an appropriate pace. (This is especially important in a synchronous event. Without eye contact, an expert can forget that the audience even exists and charge through the content.)
Who makes a good interviewer? You want someone who is a good speaker and who can think on his or her feet. You also want someone who knows enough about the topic “to be dangerous.” That is, they know enough to ask the right questions but not enough to be able to answer those questions. For example, if the interviewer is an expert in the field and can answer the right questions, then they will not ask the relevant questions for a novice audience. On the other end of the spectrum, you might be tempted to get someone who has radio or TV experience. This is a mistake if they do not know anything about your content. They will not be able to ask the right questions. Even if you feed them good questions, they will not be able to ask the appropriate follow-up questions.
The best person to be an interviewer knows enough about your content to ask the right questions, but doesn’t know the content so well that they ignore the needs of the novice audience. That is why I recommend getting someone from your target audience to be the interviewer.
Here are two techniques used in radio that will help you improve interviews right away.
Pre-interview
Before you go into your synchronous session, always do a pre-interview between the interviewer and the interviewee. This will build familiarity and trust between the two, and that will help to make the interview more relaxed and thus promote natural dialogue.
In the pre-interview, they each find out where the other wants to take the interview. The interviewer explains what he believes the audience wants to get out of the interview — the person being interviewed states what message he or she wants to convey to the audience. They also must agree on what graphics to show and when. It is NOT a time for the interviewer to ask the exact questions planned for the interview. This could lead to the interviewee preparing rote responses, which tend to develop into the monologues that you are trying so hard to avoid.
Politely interrupt
Another important skill an interviewer needs is the ability to politely interrupt the speaker. If an interviewer is to represent the audience, he or she needs to guide the speaker in a direction that is helpful to the audience. This means it may be necessary to stop the guest occasionally to clarify a point or to get them back on track. Doing this live in front of an audience is a skill that takes tact and politeness.
Keep audio quality high
Radio producers have a keen ear and are always conscious of the audio quality of their broadcasts. They know that the quality of the audio makes their session more pleasurable for the listener. When I had the radio producer critique my synchronous session, I had my speaker talking through a speakerphone instead of a microphone close to his mouth. The audio quality appalled the radio producer. He felt that the speakerphone, with its background noise and less than optimal voice clarity, was degrading the audio and making it “scratchy.” He felt strongly that for an hour-long presentation this would eventually “grate on the listeners’ ears.”
We do not want to have an unpleasant presentation. To guarantee that we have pleasing presentations we must do everything we can to improve their sound quality. Make sure your speakers have high quality microphones and that they are the appropriate distance from them. If you are choosing between IP audio or a telephone conference call, please test them out first and consider the audio quality of each before you make your decision.
Pre-recorded sessions
In my experience, one executive normally starts and sponsors good training initiatives. I have always tried to get these sponsors to kick off the training events they created. They could explain why this training is valuable to the organization and is a good use of the audience’s time.
The problem is that these executives’ schedules prevented them from being at the synchronous event when I needed them. So I started to record them prior to the events, and then used their recordings to kick off my synchronous training session. This worked out for everyone. The executive wasn’t inconvenienced, and the learner received a compelling and motivating message that explained the purpose of the training.
Pre-recorded segments are a powerful tool used in radio and TV that brings control and flexibility to the producer. The majority of a National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast consists of pre-recorded segments. If you interview someone live, you have 10 or 15 minutes to get it right and no second chance. If you interview someone for a pre-recorded segment, you have as much time as the interviewee will give you. Once done with the interview, you edit out the fluff, and reconstruct the audio to tell a coherent, concise story that delivers the message you want. Pre-recorded sessions give you a second chance.
The other advantage of a pre-recorded interview is that it allows you to have individuals in your presentation that you would have a hard time getting during your synchronous event. If you can get your sponsor in your presentation, think of whom else you could get. Think of how testimonials from members of your target audience, customers, vendors, suppliers, clients, and high-level executives would improve your synchronous event.
Also, think of the control you have. Now you can interview several individuals and go with the ones that deliver the best message. If you pre-record someone, and he says a few great things but lots of inappropriate things, you can choose not to play the segment at all or edit it down to deliver just the great things.
What makes pre-recording sessions work is the editing. This used to be the domain of the sound engineers. Now, with low cost editing software, you can have novices create effective audio presentations.
People do not realize how much is edited out of a professional radio pre-recorded interview. For example, at Chicago Public Radio an eight-minute prerecorded segment normally is the result of editing down an hour-plus interview.
Other radio techniques
Here are three more techniques that radio producers use that may benefit your synchronous session.
- Formats — Many radio shows are arranged into multiple segments consisting of various types of presentation. This magazine format makes the broadcast more interesting by adding variety and breaking up your session.
- Music — Use music to start and close a segment or your entire program. This adds a professional touch to your synchronous event.
- Host — Having a host adds a level of consistency and professionalism to your programs.
Conclusion
Organizations like synchronous communication because of the money they save on travel, lodging, and lost productivity. All of these are good reasons. There is potential to save money by using synchronous communication. However, what good is saving money if you are not meeting your communication or training objectives? If you do not have your audience’s full attention, how can you reach your goals? Also, your goal should not be to save money once with one presentation. Your goal should be to save money over the long term by using synchronous events repeatedly. Can you achieve this long-term goal if you create a product that users are reluctant to return to?
Corporate PowerPoint presentations work in the classroom because the instructor has control over the audience. In a synchronous event, we cannot see our audience and thus we have much less control over them. Radio producers have never seen their audience, but have done a great job engaging them. Radio producers know their listeners can and will change the station quickly if the program gets monotonous. And now, your audience can basically change “stations” as easily as any radio listener.
There is potential to make synchronous sessions compelling experiences without adding significant costs to your development budget. Instead of thinking of yourself as producing a PowerPoint presentation online, start to believe that you are a radio producer, creating a radio show with the supporting ability to show graphics, and have interactivity. This will lead to engaging audio that anchors your audience in your sessions from start to finish, and that will have them coming back to future synchronous events.
References
Sally Adams with Wynford Hicks, Interviewing for Journalists (London: Routledge, 2001)
Stephen E. Lucas, The Art of Public Speaking, Eighth Edition (New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2004)
Robert McLeish, Radio Production, Fifth Edition (Burlington, MA: Focal Press, 2005)
Edward E. Tufte, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (Cheshire, CT: Graphic Press LLC, 2003)
