T R E V O R  S H A N D

Trevor Shand is promo producer at KROQFM
Los Angeles. He may be reached by
e-mail at trevor@kroq.com
Once upon a time

Courtesy of Broadcast Dialogue
April 1st, 2008


Hey fellow studio-rats, what’s the latest?

This month we’re gonna discuss reimaging your station for 2008. A project that I am sure you have living in the back of your head somewhere amidst seas of commercial scripts and promos. An exotic island waiting to be discovered. That’s what I’ve been up to for the past week or so.

Re-imaging can mean a lot of things. Swapping out new production pieces with the old to keep things fresh. Changing up your imaging voice. Changing the way you write or produce promos, for example. All these things can create a dramatic impact on the sound of your station and affect what else is going on in your market. The listener is sucked right into the magic, too. Sometimes I’ve heard stations adopt the phrase “the all new” Blitz FM, for instance, to bring an added air of excitement of a station that has been going through the motions for a long time. Blitz FM would be a cool name for a radio station, but I digress. Spending time doing all new sweepers is awesome, don’t get me wrong…

BUT, you might also want to consider re-IMAGINING your station. This can be a bit more involved than re-imaging, and will definitely inspire you, the jocks at your station and even … (maybe if you are lucky) your PD!Much like all those movie remakes, re-imagining your station is the re-telling of the story that has been told for years.

This time, you are going to address how the story is told and update it for this year’s audience. You are going to be thinking not only about new versions of old production that is running, you are going to be thinking of new elements entirely.

You have to view the new production as tools to tell this story. This oughta get the creative juices flowing. Think about an hour of programming at your station. Start at the top. What does your legal ID sound like?
Have you thought of going outside the box and maybe using a whole new imaging voice JUST for your legal?
A change like that can breathe life into what some stations throw away as a rushed piece of prod required by broadcast regulations. This legal ID is a missed opportunity for some.

Maybe it should be huge, loud and proud to identify your new story. It’s the title page. What do you have running in between
the songs? Build new categories of sweepers. Maybe you have artist-specific production featuring bits of their classic songs
mixed in with your call letters before your station’s biggest bands. Call them Artist Stagers, get a list from your music director
and do ’em up! A twist like this in your station’s story will sound awesome!

Build new categories using only phone calls, or movie drops, whatever. You get to narrate the story. That’s the awesome part.
What’s happening when the jocks turn on the microphone? Are they talking over music beds? Did they pick them? Maybe you should pick them and have them prescheduled so that the pacing matches the tone of your tale. How are they getting into their talk breaks? Do they play a piece of production? What happens when they launch into a stopset? All questions to think about when deciding how to tell the story.

Are your promos too long and drawn out with millions of client mentions? Try forcing a time limit on these creations. Keep’em to no longer than 60 or 30 seconds. Get a new promo voice. Maybe you only want your voice person reading your promos and kids and phone calls to voice the rest of your imaging. Your call. Change the way you present and promote new music on your station. You can have a stand-alone music promo featuring the hooks of your newest tunes, you can build mini-VH1-style artist profiles going into new bands, you can produce them going into new songs, the choice is yours.

Hopefully you are pumped, I know I am! As producers, the world is our oyster when it comes to our radio stations. Think about all that you’ve heard and all that you’ve loved from other stations, TV, movies and build a story your listeners will never wanna put down. And they all lived happily ever after.

Note: Broadcast Dialogue is free of charge for members of the Canadian broadcasting industry and its affiliated sectors.
Contact Ingrid Christensen
ingrid@broadcastdialogue.com

http://www.BroadcastDialoque.com

from
VancouverBroadcasters.com

Trevor Shand  
    
Broadcast graduate Algonquin College Ottawa 1998; Splashdown guitarist/bassist (Capitol Records) Boston MA 1998-2000; commercial producer CHUM Radio Group Ottawa 2000; morning show producer/swing CISS-FM Toronto 2001-03; imaging producer/weekend jock/morning show swing/host of xtraloud CKVX-FM Vancouver 2003-04; imaging producer/host Vancouver Chills CKCL-FM Vancouver 2004-05; production director/writer/voice overs KROQ-FM Los Angeles 2005-current  

http://members.shaw.ca/vancouverbroadcasters/

Trevor single handedly put The Beat over the top. Prior to the changes The Beat sounded like sxxt ! Had he not told the story to the world his best kept secrets could of made him a pile of cash in the consulting world. Great story Trevor lets hope stations clean up there act.

And "beefcake", to boot.

Quoted from Gotobreak

Trevor single handedly put The Beat over the top.

Sure buddy  

Quoted from Gotobreak

Had he not told the story to the world his best kept secrets could of made him a pile of cash in the consulting world.

sorry if this is to much of a tangent but I never understood "the consulting world" shouldnt the only people you consult with be your audience? maybe to a lesser extent your staff, I mean they have their finger on the pulse, no? thats why you hired them, right?

addendum..
this ties into the thread about the fix for radio..seems to me the problem is arrogance..high ups thinking they know more then the people they are trying to court and get BBM results from...hmmm enough ranting for the day...i feel better! hahaha

I like Trevor... I read his bits in the Broadcaster when I can.

Our imaging guy (Crystal award winning ***cough cough***) recently sent out an email to all the jocks asking us to describe our station in four words.  He was trying to find out what the people that work here think of the station and what our perception is of the brand.  Kind of a fun exercise.

to Fox Hunter... Consultants can be very useful.  What they do (for us anyways) is make sure that we DO think about what the BBM loving public wants.  Sometimes, as broadcasters, we get caught up in our own imaginations and crazy ideas and ... well snobbery, and the consultants help us by saying, "hmmm, maybe you should play that super duper mainstream hit even if the DJs think it sucks." or "can your promo budget really afford the lawsuit that will come with the 'fight a Polar Bear to See Avril' contest."

in another thread, people were talking about the old guys wrecking radio... and that it will be better in a couple years when the young guys take over.  At my factory... the young guys HAVE taken over (for most the day-to-day stuff), so the consultants offer us perspective.  They can say that, "this has historically worked" and vise versa.  We'll come up with what we think is this unique idea and they'll say, "oh, something like that was done on a station we consult in Texas and it bombed... but here is what we learned from that..."

They can say that, "this has historically worked" and vise versa.  

Flamethrower is right... consultants can tell you what has worked, and that can be important. But they can't tell you what the next original idea might be.  There's a place for locals to go crazy and do something orginal that my be the next great craze.

Quoted from Dudley Do Not So Right

There's a place for locals to go crazy and do something orginal that my be the next great craze.

of course.  Johnny Radiostar reading PSR is the local that dreams up the ideas.  The consultants don't run the station, they just help focus the ideas.

A lot of people on here are "rawr rawr rawr I hate consultants."  But I am not one of them.

for the sake of clarity there's no rawr rawr-ing here.. just didnt get it..kinda still dont, tho I respect your opinion and the consulting profession

What might not work in Texas,  might work in your town. Stations today all sound the same. When was the last hot radio contest  that ran in your area eveyrone was talking about? I put that out to all of you.

It's the weekend, Robbie Dupree - Towing the Line, up next !