Monday, January 13, 2014

Should You Have Your Own Radio Show?


Do you think you’re the next Imus, Rush Limbaugh, or Howard Stern?  Do you want your own radio show?

I’ve been asked at least a few times over the years about how to get a radio show.  Authors want to promote their brand and views, and radio is one of the best mediums to do both.  The path to having your own radio show is a much easier one than having your own TV show. 

Radio has a lot of opportunity.  There are thousands of stations with 168 hours of weekly programming to fill.  Many stations carry syndicated content for a big chunk of the day.  There are also plenty of local radio shows.

How does an author get his or her own show?

Path 1:  Be interviewed by radio stations (as an author for your book) and send the audio tapes or mp3 files to your local stations and let these interviews serve as a means to get a try-out.  Be prepared to demonstrate what your show would be about, why you are qualified to launch it, and how you’ll help deliver advertising to the station.  They may give you a monthly or weekly segment or time slot, and then determine if they should expand, reduce or cease production.  If all goes well, you may go from being a 2-, 5-, 10-minute segment to a daily show.  If the local show goes well, you may be able to get it syndicated.

Path 2:  Buy ad time from a local station, create your own show, and either sell ad time or sell your own books, products or services to recoup your expenses.  Again, use the show as a try-out for a bigger stage or a paid opportunity. 

Other options are to do a podcast and use that to build a following.  Hopefully you can impress a radio show producer and get your own show.

Things to think about:
·         Would you have guests?
·         Would someone interview you on your show?
·         What demographic will you appeal to?
·         Which days/times are optimal for your show?
·         Will the show be personality-driven or content-driven?
·         What will the show’s primary theme be?
·         How will you use social media to promote the show?
·         Do you have a voice for radio?
·         Should you co-host it?
·         What’s missing from radio today that you can do?

Radio is certainly more challenging (or a different type of challenge) than writing.  Authors may find it refreshing or taxing depending on how they feel about speaking.  A key factor in how well a show goes is whether it is live or taped.  Find your way through this maze and you may just decide that radio helps expand your base and brand, or that the printed word is your natural habitat.

Starting your own radio show is certainly something worth exploring, especially if you hope to capitalize on a strong writing brand.

Written In 1998
I am feeling an overload of material around me.  I get anxiety attacks when all of this unread, untouched, unlived knowledge confronts me.  I am dwarfed by all of the offerings of this store.  And this store is but a sampling of all the books in the public domain.  And of all the books out there, what percentage of existing knowledge do they reflect?  And what of all the undiscovered, unrecorded, unknown knowledge-to-be?  I’d hate to think of what a bookstore in 2019 will look like.  It’ll either be the size of a mall – or the size of a kiosk, where a computer file of millions of downloadable books awaits a credit card swipe for browsing.

There is too much to learn and not enough time to absorb it all.  The value of knowledge today is wildly deflated, the equivalent of a financial depression.  Knowing something – anything – was worth more 20 years ago, for there was less to know then and less was required.  Now we are aware so much more exists, so that everything we know is now just a tiny fraction of what could be known.  Yesterday’s genius is today’s underachieving self-intellect.  The idea of being an expert in anything today almost seems impossible.  Even in a narrowed study or very specific field of knowledge, I suspect no one can truly grasp it all. 

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014.

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