5 tips to get you on air with your local radio station.

Hello and welcome to this episode of Speak PR. This is the podcast for business owners and managers who have got things they want to say about their company if they can just find the right ways to do it. And on this program, we talk about the tools and the technologies and some of the case studies of how it can be done by companies big and small without really having a budget at all. And I'm Jim James. I've been running my own public relations company since 1995. I've also run multiple businesses across Asia and the UK. So the experience I'm sharing here is from my own companies, but also from helping over 500 clients. And today we're going to talk about radio because listening to radio is still one of those great joys. And as the CEO of Heart Radio said, radio is about keeping you company whilst on-demand music is about escaping. From everybody else. Now, I was reminded about the power of radio today as I was driving my daughter and her friend home through the countryside of Somerset at sunset, in fact. And on the radio was an older man speaking about how he had been an accidental author. He had been working in a print company for his whole adult life, and when he'd retired, taking care of his grandchildren, he'd been Telling them stories, but he never got to finish the stories, and the children didn't want to go home until they'd had their grandpa finish the stories. And in the end, he decided that he would write them down whilst he was on a cruise with his wife and had lots of time on his hands. He got home, and the grandson took it to school, and the teacher loved the stories, and the rest, to some degree, is history. He now has books, and he has coloring in, and has a Facebook, active Facebook account. And my children and I in the car stopped talking and just listened to this older man talking about how he'd connected with his own grandchildren through the power of story. But it was the story, but it was also the medium. Radio is beautiful because, as the CEO of iHeartMedia had said, Robert Pittman, radio is about keeping you company. You know, so when we're driving or working or, you know, going for a run, many of us will listen to podcasts and that's kind of just intimate one-on-one and that kind of feels exclusive really and quite private, but radio is shared. Radio is something we do together and this idea that radio has this ability to bring us together. In a way that, say, podcasts do not. So we've got radio as an old medium, of course, you know, predates TV. And in America, where of course the statistics are always so well kept, 93% of Americans are still tuning into radio versus some only 3 to 5% on podcasts. So whilst we think about the you know, the beauty and the prevalence of new platforms like podcasting and video like TikTok, actually more people are listening to more radio around the world than any other medium. Now, with radio, the big growth, of course, has become the move to digital, and there's now an infinite number of programs on radio dedicated to topics both large and small, and digital radio technologies have enabled broadcasters big and small to start to narrowcast. Now, there's a slogan of a community radio station in Mongolia, and it says that your radio is listening. Now, I actually owned a property in Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia. It's a beautiful place. Lots of open grasslands, and I stayed in a yurt and actually rode a Mongolian pony around where Genghis Khan's camp was. It was a massive, a massive and wonderful experience. So this idea that across these grasslands of Mongolia that radio is listening is for me a wonderful and connected view of the power of this medium. So radio is really about the horizontal exchange of information. It's much more participatory between communities and the radio station, certainly when I grew up, and now we see, for example, the different channels here in the UK, or we have town radios in the UK, and of course all over the world we have radio stations really at community levels, even for example at universities or in hospitals. Have radio, because the medium itself is, is still relatively cheap and relatively easy to manage compared to, say, video. And because ultimately we can listen to the radio when we're doing something else. You know, if we need video, you can't drive a car, you can't operate a machine. But radio and the conversation between the, the DJ or the host and the guests on a program is inclusive. It's a dialogue at a time when you can't necessarily have a conversation with somebody. So radio, there's obviously the music aspect of radio, but talk radio, and obviously in America that's been popularized, but talk radio in places like Africa, for example, where the technology, say, of cellular communications has not caught up as rapidly, where maybe Wi-Fi and internet are not as widespread, is becoming, or has become, a lifeline for many people in rural areas. As one person in a report writing actually about radio in Africa said, that radio is like a vaccine capable of reducing preventable diseases. Community radio is a simple and effective solution to achieve development goals. To prevent fragile states from becoming failed states, and also to help people celebrate their own culture. So radio still has a role. It has an important role to play just because it is still in people's lives. But we're listening to it maybe on different devices. For example, we may not be listening to it on old transistors like my grandparents did, but we may be, for example, listening to it on our iPads or through our phones. But one of the radio advertising trends as far back as 2018 was that radio is still reaching over 90% of the population versus, for example, 15% for Pandora or 5% for Spotify. 67% of millennials are still listening to the radio, but they're only 3% listening to Pandora or 2% for Spotify, for example. So Radio is still a medium all over the world for us to communicate through advertising, but also through our public relations. And because radio tends to be local, with a few exceptions, we have some national radio stations like in England, for example, BBC Radio 4, but because it's local, the radio lends itself really well to local stories. Another trend in radio is that there is increasing diversity in, in advertising due to the impact of digital radio channels. In the same way that the internet remembers what people have listened to and starts to send them more information that they find of interest, the same is true with digital radio, starting to send people more of what they're listening to. So personalized content or channelization, which is a form of streaming, is on our radio now more and more. And for example, I listen to the Apple Radio and it starts to select audio for me. So it's streaming audio. But there are people, for example, like Elton John doing programming on Apple Radio. So radio is still big business in America. This group called SiriusXM had a revenue of $5 billion. It was 4 years ago, but $5 billion for radio, that may be something that we, we never would have imagined. But of course, that's still bigger, for example, than TikTok. So radio advertising is still big business. Now, radio broadcasts can provide real-time information. It can be broadcast 24 hours a day with real or with pre-programmed content. Stations have the ability to reach across borders in a way that perhaps mobile phones and cellular may not be. For example, living in China where the access to the internet was blocked. But also radio broadcasts, as we've seen, for example, with the BBC World Service, can unite people globally by, for example, by language. And we're seeing that now with the Chinese global radio services, and of course countries like Germany and France. So Farm Radio International, which is a charitable organization which operates rural radio broadcasters in 39 African countries, says that radio is still the best communication for the rural poor. It's ideal for populations where, for example, they may not have very many devices, maybe no computers, and where maybe one family shares one device, and where maybe electricity consumption of a TV may put radio higher up the availability ranking. Also, radio is great for people that are not literate. You know, the internet is great, but you have to be literate and you have to have a screen. But where illiteracy rates are high, radio can make a great difference in things like campaigns for fresh water or for healthcare. So let's just think about radio and PR. Now, a little while ago, I was on the BBC Radio Bristol for an initiative. Now that I've come back and been away for 25 years from England, the radio was interested in the in the life and the businesses that I started overseas, and I went for an interview with them really to talk about entrepreneurship. Now, a couple of things that I'd like to share with you about preparation for radio. Now, radio is a cheaper medium than TV, and so the segments can be longer. So even what may be a relatively low-level story about an Englishman who's lived in China and comes back to the UK after 25 years, was a half an hour slot with the DJ because we had, we had some conversation about China and then a record. Then we had more conversation about entrepreneurship and then a record and so on. So in a way that that sort of production time with TV could never have been allowed. So TV on the whole has very short slots. I've just done an interview now with a client for a video slot, and it's only 10 minutes. So radio tends to be longer as a medium. Now, secondly, is the person on the radio, as it is on the TV, that matters. So if you were to do public relations, for example, with a print publication, often the Q&A is sent back and forwards, and quite possibly someone other than the company writes the article for the client. So the PR firm comes in its own there. So the implication therefore is that the spokesperson can be authentic, but they must be prepared. When I did the BBC Bristol interview, I knew what I was going to be talking about is about my own life, so relatively straightforward. But I did go on and listen to the presenters radio show in advance, and I looked for them online because they, they have an archive online to see what kind of, what kind of stories, what kind of style that the journalist had, because I want to be relaxed in the studio. Now, you might do a pre-recorded radio interview, which is, which is fine and a little less stressful, but if it's live, the briefing notes both for the spokesperson and for the journalist must be thorough and complete. If you think about it, the journalist is there and they're on air looking at notes, and we've all seen them on the TV with their notes, and they've got an audience. They don't really want to wait around, and what they don't want to do is to have a bland interview where there are no facts or figures. So to remember 2 or 3 key figures that, that make a point, because without those figures or those facts, then as we say in our Speak PR program, we don't have any proof points, we don't have any validation, we're just rendering an opinion. So to sum that up, we need to do our research and listen to the programs in advance. We know the radio show, but we need to just look at the external audience. How far is that reaching? For example, by geography, what's the demographic? Is it old or young? Is it men or women? Is it people have different kinds of work experiences. We need to organize all of the information upfront before going into the studio or being live at home online, as we often are now. And we need to make sure that we're the right spokesperson. As I mentioned today, the, the old man who was talking about his storytelling and his becoming an accidental author, he was just the right person because it was all about him. If you've got someone talking about your organization, who is it that's the most appropriate and most authentic? And the final point is to have some prepared audio available. The studio may not have the time to prepare, for example, an outtake of something that you're doing, maybe something you've sung, or maybe it's something to do with an animal, so could you pre-record the animal, or maybe Maybe it's customers who are happy in the restaurant or whatever it is. Have some high-quality audio in MP3 file format ready to share so that they can slot that in. It's like with the print, it's all about making life easier for the journalist. So radio is often, if you like, considered as almost the poor person of the media world. People like to see themselves in print because they see the picture. They like to see themselves on TV because then they feel like a movie star. Radio's often, in fact almost always, the one where people can't see themselves, uh, and they can't show other people. But actually, from a penetration point of view, 93% of people are listening to the radio some of the time. So that means that from a penetration point of view, it's higher than both TV and print. It just maybe suffers from perhaps a lower impact and a lower reach, but for some applications, especially for community and education-based public relations programs, radio is a real winner. And because there is so much airtime 24 hours a day, and because it's relatively cheap to produce, radio stations are always looking for good content and good people and good guests. To come on the show. In fact, if they'll take a grandfather who's writing stories about children's wizards, and if they'll take an Englishman who's been away for 25 years to talk about entrepreneurship, then they'll have definitely time for your story. Now there's an old song by the Buggles who's saying that video killed the radio star. What I like to propose to you is that it hasn't killed the radio star; it's still glimmering. Thank you for listening to this episode of Speak PR. My name is Jim James. If you like this, please do subscribe. If you'd like more information about what we do, come and check us out at eastwestpr.com. I run a mastermind for business owners and marketing managers that would like to use the tools and technologies that big companies and agencies use for their own businesses, but without all the costs and would like to keep the control. So until we meet again, or until I hear from you, I wish you the best of health. I wish you a profitable business and that you keep on tuning into the radio. Thank you.