Week 4: Morning Radio Character Part 2

In their book Morning Radio: A Guide to Developing On-Air Superstars, Alan Burns and Tracy Johnson described a great way to help define characters on a morning radio show and help identify personality traits that can be exaggerated for maximum impact. This exercise happens to be a lot of fun, allows the characters developed to stay close to the talent’s reality, and can go a long way toward helping a show with several characters bond, whether it’s a morning show or not. Here it is:

Gather the talent, Program Director, producer and anyone else who knows the talent well (including wives, close friends, etc.) in a room. Make a complete list of all the attributes of each person on the show, one person at a time. Write everything down. Is he/she: honest? A good cook? Afraid of spiders? Keep digging for more information.

When you’ve exhausted the list for each person, take a careful look at all of them. You’ll find tons of opportunities to create character depth. For example, did one person grow up in a small town and another in a big city? Maybe you have your own “Green Acres.”

Is one a hypochondriac, and the other the daughter of a doctor (this actually occurred at a station)? That’s another natural dynamic to accentuate. Keep looking for characteristics, attitudes, behaviors, history and beliefs that can be fun if exaggerated and promoted, or played against the traits of others on the show.

Select those traits that are the most fun, and different, and which be the most entertaining to your target…and which your talent is most enthusiastic about. Get everyone’s agreement as to what their character role is. Write it down. It then becomes their job to stay consistent and true to that persona, and your job to help them.

It also helps to assign someone, usually the producer, the task of being the show’s watchdog. Their job is to never let members of the show drift out of character.

For more great ideas on how to Get Your Own Radio Show, contact Burke Allen at Allen Media Strategies at (703) 589-8960 or burke@allenmediastrategies.com.