Ditch the Details: Tell Me A Story
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One of the strongest recommendations for virtually all radio stations is to drop the news. Instead, we recommend they ditch the details to tell more stories.
The number of listeners tuning in to be updated on news is finite. It’s incredibly small. Those that are seeking news have a place to get that fix. Great stories, however, never run out of ears. And when those stories are on topics relevant to your listener’s lives today, they resonate.
So what does that mean to you, the personality or programmer? Or news presenter? Or air personality? Or storyteller?
Ditch the details. Facts and figures make for horrible stories. They are simply where your story starts. As a storyteller, your job is to interpret the details, putting it into an interesting context.
How to Ditch The Details
It’s all about context, and this is where content curation comes into play.
The facts: Petrol prices are expected to rise by 15% in the next two weeks, as the school hoildays get into full swing.
The story: So it turns out that the family holiday is going to cost about $300 more than expected. We were planning to drive to the beach. We had it planned down to exactly how many times we’d need to fill the tank, and now it’s going to cost about $8 a tank more. This morning’s report says to expect an increase by about 15%! Someone needs to come up with a way to pre-purchase petrol at current prices.
Notice how the mundane, boring statistics-based report becomes personal, relevant and useful? The information is relevant, but it comes alive when put into a context.
Reference the report, the statistics, the details, the information Data often contains good content, but rarely makes for great entertainment, unless it’s interpreted.