Work with yesterday’s
show for a better tomorrow
A guide to effective airchecking
Valerie Geller
, author and broadcast consultant, offers an invaluable guide to producing stronger radio programming. Valerie
also presents a session on achieving compelling content at the AIB Global Media Business Conference 2003.
What is powerful radio?
Powerful radio is when you sit in a parked
car, or dripping wet wearing a towel and are
riveted. You cannot MOVE because you
need to hear what is happening next on the
air! You know it when you hear it, but the
trick is training people TO DO THIS. And it
is not easily achieved.
Here is the curse of our business: Because
everyone can talk, everybody thinks talking
on the radio is easy. It is not. It just appears
that way. Just like a great athlete, singer, or
ballerina, the great ones make it LOOK easy.
So how can you train your presenters to
create powerful radio? In 30 years of working
with on air presenters all over the planet,
we’ve found a couple of ways that work.
First, listen to powerful radio. If you don’t
knowwhat the radio means to someone alone
in a room or alone in a car, you’ll never be
able to create it as well as those who do. The
second is through the method of regular
airchecking.
What exactly is airchecking?
Airchecking, a longtime standard method of
on-air and presentation development, is more
than just a “tape critique.” One-on-one
coaching, or airchecking, is a specific, focused
way of working. It is not the only tool that can
be used to develop, improve, and advance
talent, but it is the best way. Airchecking is
the process of listening to tape of a show and,
using specific criteria, determining what
worked and what did not work. With a guide,
airchecker, coach, or programme director as
your witness, one then decides what can be
improved.
Even if you listen to tape of your shows
religiously, you are likely to miss many
nuances of the total performance. One air
talent I work with says, “When I listen alone,
I focus on how I did. I get critical of just me,
not how the whole show went. When I listen
with other people in the room, I focus on
everything that is happening on the air: the
guest being interviewed, sound effects,
callers, spot breaks, etc. I hear it all.”
It can’t be helped. Think of your school or
family group photos. When you see one, the
first thing you do is look at yourself. It is the
same in radio. It is a natural thing to pay
attention to how you made a certain point or
handled a particular caller or just how YOU
sounded. You are less likely to be aware of
other’s people’s contributions that form the
total listening experience for the audience,
such as the subtleties of a caller’s comments
or the traffic reporter’s clever contribution.
There is something about listening to your
show with a witness in the room that forces
you to hear your work differently.
Constructive environment
Managers must learn to create an
environment that makes staff receptive to
constructive criticism. The goal is to aircheck
in such a way that each talent sets achievable
goals to fulfil his or her creative potential.
Talent, if you do not know what you sound
like on the air, you are already in the danger
zone. You are working with a handicap. Try
watching a child play by making faces in a
mirror. What do I look like if I’mmad?What
do I look like with my tongue out? Can I see
myself from the back? Airchecking is like a
mirror. How do I sound when I am sad or
angry? How do I behave with a difficult
guest? What happens when I try to sound
smarter than my partner? Am I smarter than
my partner? What happens when I pretend
to know something about a topic I know
nothing about? What happens when I’m
bored on the air? How do I sound if I didn’t
get enough sleep? What kind of a show will
I have if I have not been out of my house in
a month except to go to work?
Listen like a listener
Your audience knows, but without your
aircheck tape as a mirror, you do not. Sitting
alone with a tape of your show is like a single
mirror.Workingwith a talented aircheck coach
can give youmultiple reflections of your work.
There are other angles you cannot see with
only one frame of reference. Viewing those
other angles is the power of a good aircheck
session.
So, what exactly is an aircheck? One New
York DJ defines an aircheck session as “a
way for the programme director to yell at us
periodically.” Says another: “Isn’t it like a
report card?” From a third, “Oh yes, we do
that once a year with talent. We analyse a
tape of a show. The meeting takes an entire
day. You can read the report in their file.”
And one industry professional simply asked:
“Isn’t it some kind of post-mortem after a
dead show?” These comments all have a
grain or two of truth, but try thinking of your
show as a garden and airchecking the show
as a weeding process. In order to maintain
its health, growth, and beauty, you should
regularly walk through your garden taking
note of which plants are thriving and which
need attention. Some parts of the garden
flourish, some struggle to survive. Always
you appreciate its beauty. If there is a special
new plant in your garden, you want to learn
its potential and create the right environment
for it to grow. You make sure it has the right
sun, soil, etc. Your aircheck is like that walk
to see howwell your garden is coming along.
It’s been my experience that anyone who has
been airchecked the right way has come away
with new ideas, a fresh perspective and actual
tools to grow the show, improve and increase
audiences.
When done correctly, airchecking can also
be a solution to the dilemma facing managers
and programmers around the world who
complain: “I can’t find any good talent. I’ve
listened to dozens of tapes and they are all
bad or mediocre,” or “This is a good station
in a reasonably sized market, and the job pays
a decent salary. Why can’t we find the right
people?” Exactly where are all those talented
and creative people hiding?Where is the next
generation of talent? You may get lucky and
find a genius on the doorstep of your radio
station, but one important task of radio
programmers and managers is to find and
develop new personalities.
Learning to aircheck
Unfortunately, there is no airchecking school
for programmers. One learns by working
with people, seeing what is effective and
what is not. Some aspects of airchecking will
vary greatly, depending upon the individu-
als involved. It is in the best interest of pro-
grammers and managers to learn to aircheck
effectively, simply because if the talent wins
the station wins. There are a few things one
must never do, but the only right way to
aircheck is the way that works.
Without an understanding of what is required
for an individual air talent to succeed, even
the most gifted new hire may not reach his or
her potential. In a case like that, it takes a year
or two for the talent to leave or be asked to
move on. What went wrong? Let’s go back to
the garden analogy. You came home from the
garden centre with some big, fancy bulbs. The
picture on the box showed a huge, exotic
flower, but, unfortunately, the boxwas without
instructions. Howmuchwater is needed? How
much sun? There may be nothing wrong with
the talent you have chosen, but when you have
to play a guessing game with insufficient
information there is a good chance of
damaging the talent, or at least failing to create
an environment where talent, like that fancy
flower, can blossom. If you found something
you did not recognise in your garden, you
would not cut it back without knowing what
it was? It could be something wonderful. The
same goes for air talent.
A great aircheck session with a trained
programme director or consultant can move
