(By Buzz Knight) The radio business faces tremendous challenges as we turn the calendar toward 2021. Among the biggest priorities to tackle is the finding, training, and nurturing of new young on-air talent.
In the past, radio stations would utilize non-prime dayparts to develop the next stars. The 7-to-midnight show or the overnight show was the breeding ground for the future. There was no risk and only reward in leaving those dayparts for development and incubation.
But that ship has generally sailed, due to the budget constraints. We have short-circuited our future, and we need to revisit this decision wherever possible.
If you were in a major market, another place to find talent would be smaller feeder markets adjacent to the big cities. If you were a Boston programmer, you could look to Worcester or New Hampshire for the next big talent. That has all but disappeared as well — because of those same budget constraints.
So how does the business confront this conundrum?
For an outsider perspective, I asked Ryan Hawk, author of Welcome to Management and host of the great podcast The Learning Leader Show, how the industry can attack the challenge.
“Listen to podcasts,” he advises. “You’ll find a number of compelling communicators.”
He’s spot on, and if you are in the content business, you need to commit the time and energy to this development process.
For another perspective, that of a semi-outsider, I asked my friend Phil Dowse for his views. Phil is a brilliant international media consultant based in Australia with a track record of innovation and excellence, and he clearly knows the importance of talent. Phil monitors up to 50 or 60 shows a week worldwide (UK, Europe, Australia, U.S., Africa).
“Right now there is a lot of bad, lazy radio, and much of it can be heard between 6 and 9 a.m. Bad and lazy because many morning shows believe in being ‘organic’ or ‘winging it’,” said Dowse. “In many countries the time is now to look at diversification. Like it or not, plenty of management meetings include discussions asking the question ‘Can we increase our audience by broadening the base of the presenter team?’”
By diversifying the voices and taking our business-as-usual blinders off, we add talent options and ultimately can add creative spark to a station lineup. Dowse has some other specific ways to find and recruit new talent:
- YouTube: “I trawl YouTube for ideas for talent and especially for content from potential new talent.”
- Podcasts: “Listen for new talent — people who have unique skills, great storytellers, and of course new ideas.”
- Influencers: “Identify them — especially the local ones. Train them and hire them.”
Phil also noted he is not afraid to try some “old school” methods to find and recruit talent, like looking within the comedy world or among sports personalities or musicians.
The key to the equation is having your sensors up all the time, looking for and identifying talent. Heck, you never know if that waiter or waitress you interact with could be the next big talent as well.
Talent recruitment and development should be an ongoing R&D project for brand managers, with the ultimate goal of creating a strong talent lineup for years to come.
Buzz Knight is the CEO of Buzz Knight Media and can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]
