by pave » Mon Sep 20, 2010 10:18 am
At the risk I may not be talking only to myself, allow me to flesh this concept out a bit more.
Now, I realise everyone who is involved in Radio understands that an audience is made up of individuals and that these individuals are experiencing the radio as... single individuals.
The distinction I am presenting, however, is the one in which our tradition insists on speaking directly to that individual - as if they were the only one listening.
This strategy presumes an intimacy that does not exist other than in the deluded mind of an occasional listener. ("Oh! It's like you are talking only to me!" Really?... Medic!) The premise, I suggest, also continues as part of the philosophies of wayyyy too many broadcasters.
I recall being engaged by a station that was mired in the basement and walking into the CR for the first time. On the wall in front of the board was a large, framed poster of a woman in her late 20's - mid 30's posing in a business suit (very fetching) beside her Beemer. Under the poster was the title: "Our Audience."
I had to check myself for a pulse.
The station management had inadvertently or by design - limited the scope of the Talents' communication to that which was presumed to be consistent with what they fantasised would be appealing to this one woman.
And it sounded just that way. The on-air staff projected like they were in an intimate, but still one-way conversation with their newest, bestest forever girlfriend. Had I been compelled to participate in this way I would have, within only a couple of shifts, been vomiting Splenda.
Now, I'm willing to grant: the station had this person, and a few others, possibly in similar circumstances, in their audience. But, that was all!
The price they paid for implementing this strategy was: the disenfranchising of... everybody else.
Further, there is no evidence that this strategy was what was appealing to "Our Audience", but that's all that showed up in The Books.
So, was presuming this one-to-one premise effective....?
No. I submit it was disastrous.