Anyone who has ever cracked a microphone on a station’s behalf has secretly fantasized about being blatantly honest with their listeners. Dropping the façade and having their Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty moment.

Clearly, we don’t want to go to that extreme. But, the truth is most on-air talent could improve their performance by dropping some of the professional broadcaster schtick and letting more of their authentic personality come out on the air. For Radio Influencers this week I interviewed podcasting expert Dan Bobkoff and he talked about how the intimacy of podcasting has helped fuel that industry’s recent boom. Lots of YouTubers and social influencers also attribute their success to sharing personal details about their life and the bond that forms with their fans. I’m a proponent of all radio on-air talent doing that, as long as it’s done strategically in a way that fits within their own personality profile and the station’s overall brand.

What I’m not a proponent of is on-air talent who share details about the inner workings of their company, similar to Jim Carrey’s character in that clip. Sadly, I’ve seen first-hand far too many examples of personalities talking on-air about how talent and music decisions are made, why and how a contest or promotion was chosen and a wide variety of other things discussed in behind closed-door meetings with owners, upper management or a consultant. Obviously, this is problematic because it’s harmful to the company and the station, but it’s also boring. The vast majority of listeners don’t care about the granular details of our work so we shouldn’t waste their time with it. I understand why talent do this, they disagree with a decision that’s been made and they want to make sure listeners know it wasn’t their decision. In other words they’re putting their brand ahead of the station and company’s brand. What I don’t understand is why that behavior is ever tolerated or allowed to continue.

In recent years there’s been a big push for shows to become ‘reality on the radio’ and I somewhat agree with that approach. Drama is interesting, it keeps people listening, gets them talking and is clickable and shareable. But, we all know that reality shows aren’t actual reality. Like reality TV, radio is show business and therefore our main goal is to entertain. So, we should all be exaggerating and embellishing and at the same time leaving out boring and unnecessary details. The key to striking the right balance is this. When we let listeners behind the curtain, we should only show them what we want them to see and most importantly what the people paying our paychecks want them to see.

What do you think? How much behind the scenes info do you share with your listeners? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.

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