In much of my radio career, a lot of the topics I talked about were chosen not just to get listeners’ attention, but interaction, too.
In that job, there were few things as stressful as starting a segment that was scheduled to last fifteen or more minutes, offering my opinion on whatever the issue was, then swallowing hard because no one was calling to participate.
In my first year of doing a solo show — after fifteen years of working with an ensemble — there were times when, while I was talking, I was also staring at the phone bank, trying to will the lines to light up. Fortunately, I developed the skills to avoid those flop-sweat-inducing moments. But not entirely. Every once in a while, I’d feel that tension rising in my chest for a few seconds until I said something, whatever it was, that convinced people to be part of the show.
When Larry King was doing his overnight show on Mutual Radio, the last hour or two were devoted to “open phones,” in which anyone could ask him anything or just rant about something. King was once asked what he would do if no one called. He said, “I would say that, when it comes to pets, dogs are so much better than cats. And that would solve the problem instantly.”
It’s always hardest to entice listeners to call in the early stages of a new gig, because the audience doesn’t know the host yet, and isn’t sure if their input would be welcome. I know plenty of hosts who don’t make it clear they want listeners to call — they don’t say the phone number enough. Or they cover every possible angle in their monologue, leaving nothing for anyone else to say. Or they treat callers like dirt, and who would volunteer for that?
If you’re doing a call-in show, it’s vital to put as many listeners on the air as possible, because that serves as a signal to the rest that they’re welcome to be part of the conversation, too. But there’s one major caveat: you’re going to have to turn away the ones who call every day and don’t really have anything to say.
This requires tact, since you don’t want them dissuaded from listening, but gently nudged away from trying to get on the air over and over again. I did it by telling the person who was screening calls (in order to provide me with names and towns) to tell those obvious repeat callers I wasn’t going to have time for them today.
What amused me was that these people never figured out that, in order to get around the screener, all they had to do was give a different name. I had one regular, Dave From Overland, who called every day, sometimes more than once per show. Fortunately, my screener recognized the name and politely brushed him aside.
If Dave had thought of it, he could have claimed to be Bob from Fairview Heights one day, then Mark from Festus another day, then Jimmy from Valley Park the next. I’m sure I would have recognized his voice — and his lack of anything intelligent to say — and kept the conversation with him very short. But at least he would have gotten through.
Many of those folks were people who spent their entire day at home for one reason or another, with radio personalities as the only ones they could connect to. So they would call me, or the person who followed me, or the one after that. Once I got to know those constant-callers’ names, I always rolled my eyes when other hosts gave them access to the airwaves over and over again.
They were the talk radio equivalent of music radio’s contest pigs — the people who tie up the lines trying to win anything being given away at any time on any station. The modern version of this is the amazingly large number of people who feel the need to comment on every single thing they see, read, or hear on the internet.
My gut tells me a lot of those comments originate in Overland.