How to make your radio program a success!

Sick and tired of no one listening to your radio program? Feel as if you’re holding yourself to personal standards of decency that are just too high? Is ABC NewsRadio somehow beating you in your timeslot? You may need to change the way you conduct yourself on air, and that’s where this guide comes in!

Step 1: Open the talkback lines

Everyone loves to be heard on radio, but not everyone went to radio school. That’s where the talkback line comes in. Talkback callers can help your program in three ways: It gives you heaps of material to work with, it pads the program, and makes listeners feel that their opinion matters.

As we all know, in today’s digital world, we are seriously lacking in ways for us to give out opinion about topics: We only have every single social networking website in existence, and incredibly tolerant friends. People who listen to talk radio know this only too well, which is why they love the opportunity to give their opinion on topics over the airwaves by dialing the number for their local talkback station.

So, open the talkback lines, especially late at night, because that’s when the more “interesting” members of society will most likely call in.

Step 2: Be outrageous

Residents of Adelaide may remember Bob Francis, the host of the city’s most popular talkback radio program. Bob Francis worked at FIVEaa for 57 years. His show had a strong conservative bias, and he had a habit of having an outbursts at callers who disagreed with him. This was predictably exploited by comedians like The Chaser in 2010 when they called the station about migration:

So take a leaf out of Bob’s book: call your callers “dickbrains”, be as opinionated as possible, and appear on Media Watch as much as possible. Alan Jones is a regular, his station (2GB) has the best ratings in Sydney.

Step 3: Race to the bottom

In the media landscape, the best way to get ratings is to participate in a so-called “race to the bottom”. This is when you stoop so low, and offend standards of decency so badly that your show attracts large amounts of controversy that it actually increases ratings.

Back in 2009, 2Day FM ran a segment where they strapped a girl to a lie detector, and her mother asked her questions about drugs, sex, alcohol etc. After being asked if she had ever had sex, the girl broke down and said that she had been raped at age 12. This is the story that ABC’s Media Watch ran on the stunt.

In that same year, the same program on the same station ran a segment called “Home or Away”, where they brought in Saveth Chorn (known on air as Sally because Saveth was deemed as too complicated for their listeners by the producer) and asked her who she would like to be able to meet. Saveth said that she’d like to see her niece Dana, and the hosts said that they could make it happen.

But here’s the twist: They added a twist. Dana would be behind a piece of soundproof glass, behind a door. Next to her were two other doors. If Saveth picked the wrong door, Dana would be flown back to her home in America without any meeting.

It’s this kind of emotional exploitation that makes 2Day FM respected greatly by the general community, and by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.