Radio/Podcast Archives - Outdoor Writers Association of America

Capturing sound worth listening to

OWAA Developer — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 16:51:43 +0000

BY TAYLOR WYLLIE
On a recent episode of National Public Radio’s Radiolab, Anne Fernald, a psychology professor at Stanford, described sound as touch at a distance. You hear it because vibrations from sound waves hit the tiny hair cells in your inner ear, and you feel it, or feel something, when you really listen.
That feeling is one reason Jennifer Jerrett said she dedicated her life to sound as the science editor and media producer through Montana State University in Yellowstone National Park.
The sound professional spoke at OWAA’s annual conference held this year in July in Billings, Montana. She talked about sound’s intimacy, the importance of using the proper recording equipment and advice for recording in the field.
Don’t worry if you missed her presentation. Here are some of her top tips to keep in mind when you head into the field:

Signal-to-noise
This tip is as straightforward as they come. Make sure your recorder is close to your subject.
Composition
Think like a photographer and pay attention to your foreground and background. Think about what sound is in front of and behind your subject. When recording in the field, try and get multiple kinds of recordings. Go in close and get that specific bird call, then pull back and record the sounds of the entire ecosystem. This will add variety and context to your piece.
Ambience
Record the sounds of your space. If you go from an outside setting to an interview indoors, record a few seconds of the room before your interview begins. The ambient noise of a computer buzzing, or the air conditioning blowing, create a sense of place and a new scene. It will smooth out your transitions and it is easier on the ears.
Fashion
Wear quiet clothing and stand as still as possible. A recorder can pick up everything from your jacket fluttering in the wind, to the sound of your pants rubbing together. In order to have a clear, solid recording, minimize the extra noise and be aware of what you are wearing. Be wary of others’ fashion choices as well.
Grit
It can be easy to be discouraged in this field. You will have to make a lot of recordings that you hate, before you finally get one that you love.
Luck
Sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time. Other times not so much. Try setting up a recorder on a timer in active areas to increase your chances of recording something new and exciting.
Action
Record sound that tells a story. Try and capture interaction between animals, different species and the movement of entire ecosystems.
Safety
Recording in the field can bring you to remote places during times when predators are most active. Plus, you need to be quiet in order to get the best recordings. So be careful. Try to bring a partner with you into the field, carry bear spray and if it’s a dangerous situation, set up a recorder and record remotely.
Check out the National Park Service sound library (https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/photosmultimedia/soundlibrary.htm) to hear some of Jerrett’s recordings.

— Taylor Wyllie was an OWAA intern and is a student at the University of Montana, studying journalism and environmental studies. She’s worked for the independent student newspaper, The Montana Kaimin and her work has appeared on Montana PBS, Montana Public Radio and in the Missoulian.

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Promote your work through radio

OWAA Developer — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 20:14:31 +0000

BY JOHN KRUSE
Your book just came out in print. Your photo essay just appeared in a major national magazine. Your article just received an Excellence in Craft award. Your company is rolling out a new initiative. In all of these cases, you want to share this news with the world. But how do you go about doing it?
You can speak to service clubs. You can share the news on your Facebook page, website or blog. You can even send out a press release. All of these will help, but you probably won’t reach a very large audience. So consider promoting it on the radio.
As the host and producer of two weekly outdoors radio shows, I’m always hunting for guests who are experts in a certain field or have an interesting story to share.
Let’s say you wrote a book about fishing destinations in Oregon or hiking in Colorado or where to paddle a kayak or canoe in Maine. Don’t you think audiences throughout the state you featured and the region would be interested in knowing “the best places” you described in your book? Radio show hosts like myself would be, and you’ll get free exposure reaching hundreds to thousands of listeners, which is a lot more than you’ll likely see at local bookstore signings.
To land a spot on a radio show, you’ll need to market yourself. Let’s say you specialize in wildlife photography. You can market yourself as an expert on wildlife behavior as it relates to getting memorable photos, photography equipment or simply creating better wildlife photos.
You can work with a public relations firm to contact radio show hosts and producers. I am contacted all the time by public relation firms hoping to get their clients on the air, but of the 50 or more pitches that hit my inbox, maybe one has a topic relevant to the outdoors. It’s easy for hosts and producers to overlook public relations company pitches when they are swamped with work, but when I am contacted directly by an individual I tend to pay attention. You just have to convince me it’s something my listeners will want to hear on the air.
Sending a review copy of your book or a sample of your product helps. Consider offering the same as a giveaway on the show, too. Every time the host or station promotes the giveaway, it’s more publicity for you.
Once you book your interview, figure out if it’s going to be in-studio or over the phone. If it’s a phone interview, remember landline phones work best. Only use a cell phone in places with excellent reception and no background noise.
Ask the host ahead of time what the conversation will cover and how long you have to chat. This can help you craft your message to an appropriate length. There’s a big difference between a 30-minute interview where you can speak in-depth and one that is only five minutes long where you have time to cover only one or two points.
No matter the length, make sure you plug where listeners can find out more information about you after the show. Phone numbers are easily forgotten and not everyone uses Facebook, so give your website and try to repeat it if you can.
Radio is a great way to get your message out to a wide audience and do so for little to no cost. Take advantage of it and become the guest every host wants on their show.
— John Kruse is the host and producer of two syndicated shows, Northwestern Outdoors Radio, www.northwesternoutdoors.com and America Outdoors Radio, www.americaoutdoorsradio.com.

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Get engaging interviews

OWAA Developer — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 05:15:03 +0000

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BY DAN SMALL
Unless you have a scintillating personality, can wax eloquently on a wide range of topics, or know more about a particular subject than just about anyone, the best way to ensure your radio show will attract and hold listeners is to choose good guests and get them to share their expertise, secrets and amazing stories.

To accomplish this, some outdoor radio hosts choose celebrity guests — pro football players who also hunt, country music stars who are bass-fishing nuts, or NASCAR drivers who do just about anything. This is not a bad idea, but lining up these high demand guests takes a lot of work, and you run the risk of a celebrity backing out at the last minute because his agent got him a bigger gig. I’ve found you can create good radio with local and regional talent. With a little research, you can find folks who are every bit as knowledgeable, funny and fascinating as the celebs. A guy who trains dogs to find shed antlers and recover wounded deer will strike a chord with anyone who has an interest in antlers or who has ever lost a deer. A small-town police officer who coaches the statechampion scholastic pistol team will keep listeners glued to their radio, especially when they learn more than half of his star shooters are girls. The author of a series of whodunits with titles like “The Nail Knot,” “The Clinch Knot” and “The Blood Knot” will intrigue mystery fans and trout anglers alike.

Not every dog trainer, shooting coach, novelist or even celebrity, will give you a good interview. Here’s a few ways you can help your guest make your show look (and sound) good. Try to qualify a guest before you schedule him or her. Talking with someone in person is the best way, but you can get a pretty good idea in a brief phone conversation whether a potential guest has what it takes for a lively interview. If you can’t talk to the guest beforehand, look for an online video or ask someone who knows the person.

Once you have a guest scheduled, do the same kind of background research you would for a magazine or newspaper feature. Where did he grow up, how did she learn the skills in question, how does this guest’s approach differ from that of other trainers, coaches, authors? The five basic journalistic questions (who, what, when, where, how) are a good place to start, but don’t overlook the why, as well. And for goodness sake, read the guy’s book, visit her website and run an online search for more information.

Let your guest know in advance if the interview will be live or recorded and how long you expect the segment to run. If your show is recorded, tell your guest you resist stop-and-restart interviews, which almost always turn out worse than a live interview, but that you can tweak a little if you have to.

In an hour-long interview, you can delve into the guest’s background and elicit a few anecdotes. In a ten-minute interview, there is still time for at least one story, which is often the best part of the interview. So always ask questions like, “What’s the craziest — or most unexpected, funniest, most embarrassing, etc. — thing that happened to you in the course of your work?” or “What do you hope listeners will take away from this interview?” or “What is the most important piece of gear you forgot to take on your three-week canoe trip?”

Make a list of questions for your guest, but be prepared to ditch it if the interview goes off in a more interesting direction than the one you planned. Listen to your guest’s answers and ask follow-up questions when the guest says something you didn’t expect or had not heard before. Show genuine interest in what your guest is saying – the guest and your listeners can tell if you are engaged in the conversation or just moving down a list of humdrum questions. Offer anecdotes from your own life only if they add to the interview, but avoid the temptation to share a story just because the guest’s comments made you think of it. Unless your show’s format is confrontational, you’ll get better interviews by empathizing with a guest’s position, but don’t be afraid to challenge someone to support a point of view with hard facts.

When time permits, I like to ask a guest if there’s anything I forgot to cover. Sometimes this elicits an unexpected gem that is the highlight of the interview.
On rare occasions, a 10-minute interview will be rolling along so well that I’ll want to keep it going. In that case, I’ll find a stopping point and announce a break, then continue recording the interview and either run the second half right after the break or say something like, “We’ll hear more from [Dazzling Guest] next week.” This might mean shuffling another scheduled guest to a different time slot or a later show altogether, but it’s usually worth the trouble. Use run-on interviews sparingly, however. I’ve found it’s best to leave listeners wanting more than to give them a longer interview than they are prepared to stay with.

When you find yourself mired in an interview that’s going nowhere or with a guest who is too nervous, dull, inarticulate or otherwise terrible, thank the guest, cut the interview short and fill the time with a news item or story of your own. It’s your show, after all, and ultimately you are the one responsible for making it interesting to listeners.
Dan Small is host/producer of Outdoors Radio, which airs on 16 stations throughout Wisconsin and about a dozen podcasts. Since 2007, Small and his on-air partner, Jeff Kelm, have won a total of 86 first, second and third place awards in OWAA’s Excellence in Craft contests in radio/podcast categories.
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Natural Noise: Using sound to tell compelling stories

OWAA Developer — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 05:31:56 +0000

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BY BRAD ZAHAR

Sometimes you need more than images, when you are trying to showcase nature’s beauty.
As someone with a TV and video background it’s always been about visuals, but as I’ve learned in my young career, a good piece of audio can enhance the story you’re trying to tell.
Using natural sound is a way to let your audience hear something other than the narration or music. While music can be dramatic, natural sound takes your viewer to the scene. Every hunter knows few sounds get your heart racing faster than hearing the leaves crunch as that 150-class buck moves in toward your stand. Wouldn’t it be awesome to hear those crunching leaves while sitting on your couch while watching a hunting show?
When fishing a mountain stream for trout or a running riffle of water for steelhead, you want to hear the water and the birds chirp — we associate those sounds with our love of the outdoors.
Yes, you have to paint visuals, but bringing video and audio together is what gives television a different perspective from other media only it can achieve.
As cliché as this sounds, when it comes to narration, less is more. The story is not about you.
Growing up in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, I was a rare kid who hunted, fished and hiked. Telling people about my adventures and even showing them photos didn’t engage my peers.
When I got into television news I knew I had to find a way to make people care about what story I was telling. Other than having great visuals, the easiest thing I could control was the audio. The key to creating a compelling story is balancing the music, narration and natural sound.
I first got the opportunity to tell an outdoor story for television in February of 2014 when a local professional bass fisherman was gearing up for the Bassmaster Classic. It’s one thing to sit and narrate for two minutes about your subject and use a few quotes from him about the event and his expectations. But it’s a whole different ball game when you have video of him on the water with the sounds of the fish fighting and the fisherman talking to the fish as he battles him and celebrating when he lands the prize.
Standing on a boat next to a fisherman, shooting is as real as it gets. Add in the right mixture of audio and you have created a piece that not only captures emotion, but brings the viewer at home onto the boat.
Good audio though, too often becomes overlooked in pursuit of finding the perfect shot of video.
Pay attention the next time you watch a hunting show this fall. Are you actually engaged in it? Do you feel like you’re there? I know there are some that I feel like I’m in the stand with the hunter. Other times the shows are just a lot of talking with a nice shot of buck walking toward a stand.
What kind of story do you want to tell? The one that keeps the viewer glued to the screen in anticipation, or the one that’s easily forgotten?
– Brad Zahar spent the last four years as a TV journalist. Now he writes and shoot video for several publications across the Great Lakes region. He can be found on Twitter @Brad_Zahar for all things fly-fishing, hunting and Cleveland, Ohio.
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Making money in radio: It is possible if you know how to sell

OWAA Developer — Sat, 04 Apr 2015 20:51:14 +0000

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BY DAN SMALL

My good friend and mentor, the late Tony Dean, often said that his little three-minute radio show earned him more money than anything else he did. After a 20-year career in Public Television, I decided to try commercial radio myself.
My show is now in its 10th season, and while I can’t yet make Tony’s claim, I have found there are many ways to make money with a commercial radio show, and they all begin and end with selling.
A consummate salesman, Tony was the first to admit he learned to sell the hard way, one “No, thanks” at a time. I was lucky enough to make a sale to the first person I called when I decided to launch my show: A friend who owns a personal injury law firm and who loves to hunt. Dozens of calls later, I still had only one sponsor.
My success rate improved considerably after I sought the council of Bobby White-head, who taught me there are four steps to every sale. Bobby said they always happen in the same order and if you leave one out, you won’t make the sale. Each step might take a few minutes or a few years, but each is critical to completing the transaction.
Step One: Establish rapport.
Your prospective sponsor must feel comfortable with you and your program. I’m actually pretty good at this step, maybe because I like schmoozing and I listen to people’s stories. I think I made my first sale to my attorney friend because he and I hunted together and he was already a staunch supporter of my TV show. I lost him as a sponsor when he hired a new marketing director, which brings me to step No. 2.
Step Two: Determine need.
Your prospect must need what you are offering, or at least perceive that he or she needs it, or you’ll lose the sale. My attorney friend told me he did not get any referrals from the outdoor market (translation: he didn’t need what I had to sell). Maybe my listeners don’t get into motorcycle accidents. (Or, maybe I don’t have enough listeners?) At any rate, he now buys time on Milwaukee Brewers broadcasts. I hope he’s happy, but I do intend to ask how that’s working out for him. Sponsors’ needs change, so don’t hesitate to revisit a prospect every quarter or so, to see how his business is doing.
Step Three: Make your pitch.
Once you have determined that your sponsor might indeed need what you are offering, then and only then, should you make your pitch. Sponsor need should determine the duration, elements and cost of your proposed package.I sold a commercial roofing company a three-month package back in 2008 because they were hiring when other businesses were laying people off. They got lots of calls from their ads and hired some good people. In fact, the ads worked so well they didn’t need to run them anymore. They stayed with me, however, because we wrote new ads aimed at solving summer roof problems during a hot, dry season and winter roof problems during a heavy snow season. Then they hired a new marketing director, and now we’re back to step No. 2 with them.
Step Four: Close.
Closing is simply asking for the sale and sealing the deal, but it’s the hardest step in the process and where many people fail. I like to think that if you and I get along fine, if I understand what you need and if I make you a reasonable offer, you should automatically buy what I am selling. But more often than not it doesn’t work out that way. Some prospects might hesitate at the price, or they might want other features than what you are offering. In those cases, you might need to back up to steps No. 2 and No. 3 and start again.
Tony Dean was a master at closing the deal. If his prospect agreed the offer was fair and he needed it, Tony immediately asked, “Well, can you sign this agreement so we can get started?” What can you sell? Your show length and frequency will dictate to a certain extent what you can sell. Tony Dean’s three-minute show was typical of short-form programs. He sold two 30-second spots embedded within the show, but he could also sell spots adjacent to his show.
My show runs for 50 minutes on 11 broadcast stations and at least that many podcasts. Most of the broadcast stations I work with keep six minutes at the top of the hour for news, weather and maybe a couple of spot ads. They also have four minutes of spot ad time after the second break. The rest of the 50 minutes are mine to fill with content or ads. All ads also run in my podcasts, so my sponsors get online as well as broadcast listeners.
Obvious inventory items include the standard 30-second or one minute spot ad and the presenting sponsorship. If a sponsor doesn’t have spots already produced, you can charge them to write or record them, or you might want to offer producing the spots at no charge as a “value added” service.
You may also be able to sell 10-second or 15-second spot ads, live reads (essentially ads or announcements that you read during the content portion of the show), promotional announcements, show segments, sponsored interviews, space on your e-newsletter or website, giveaways, live remote broadcasts and more. We sell the opportunity to sponsor a segment of our choosing for one price and an interview with a sponsor’s spokesperson at a higher price.
If your broadcast station gives you promotional announcements (15 or 30-second spots that run at other times during the week to promote your show), you can sell those. Ask the station sales manager what he sells them for, then price yours accordingly. A typical 15-second promo might sound like this: “This week on Outdoors Radio, we’ll hear about winter outdoor programs for women and talk to Bass Pro’s Brent Chapman and Ott Defoe about the upcoming Bassmaster Classic. Brought to you by the Lake Home & Cabin Show, Jan. 23-25 at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison. Lakehomeandcabinshow.com.”
You can sell naming rights to show segments: the “Rapala Fishing Report,” ”Coleman Cooking Corner,” or “Toyota Tundra Destination of the Week,” for instance.
We even sold our phone line for a year and a half to a sponsor who didn’t want anything else. Every time we called a guest, we said, “Joining us on the (name of sponsor) Call of the Wild Hotline is charter captain Joe Guest.” It might sound a little corny, but every time we made a call (three or four times per broadcast), our sponsor got mentioned. You can probably think of more items to sell, but you won’t sell them unless a sponsor trusts you, has a need you can meet at a reasonable price and of course — you are able to close the deal.
– Dan Small has been host and producer of Milwaukee Public Television’s “Outdoor Wisconsin” since its premiere in November 1984. He also produces and hosts a weekly radio show, “Outdoors Radio with Dan Small,” which airs on broadcast stations throughout Wisconsin and on numerous websites
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Radio isn't just radio anymore

OWAA Developer — Sat, 04 Apr 2015 20:14:05 +0000

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BY TY STOCKTON

The first music video ever broad-cast on MTV was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. It ushered in a new era for music that valued what we saw as much as what we heard.
Though there was no single prophetic event to herald a new age for terrestrial radio stations, times have certainly changed. Very few radio stations survive on the content they broadcast over the FM or AM airwaves. They augment their income with ads placed on Internet-based “stations” and app-driven broadcasts available to smartphone users. These forums allow for both audio and video content.
The staff of those traditional radio stations are expected to keep up with it all. They produce their daily talk shows or provide some local flair between songs, and they write blogs, post videos and add to the online content in their spare moments. Many of those people are desperate for help.
Unfortunately, the stations don’t often have much — if any —money for freelance budgets. If you’re lucky, you can find a station that needs help and has some extra cash to share in exchange for regular, engaging content. Come up with an idea for a blog, provide some 30-second to one-minute videos, or illustrate your blog with photos, and you’ll have a better chance at a long-term gig. You might be able to parlay that into voice-over work for ads for the products and services that relate to your blog, too.
If you can’t score a paying deal with a radio station, you can still make it worthwhile if you approach this new market from an old-fashioned angle.
Radio stations may not have money to spare for content, but very few will turn down a partnership that brings them extra money. Some still barter for time on their on-air broadcasts. This is the process by which you produce a show (generally a talk show), find a few sponsors and give the show to the station to broadcast when they have time for it. You get the money from the sponsors (or pay some of the sponsorship money to the station for the time your show runs), and the station gets to sell ads before and after the program.
Bartering for time has largely become a thing of the past on the airwaves, but it’s still alive and well on the Internet side of radio. If you can produce a regular, engaging blog on say, archery, and convince your local archery shop to sponsor it for a few hundred bucks a month, you can take the idea to the local radio station and get them to host it for you. You and the sponsor will get more traffic than you’d likely get if you were hosting it on your own, because the station probably has a built-in audience that will see your posts. The station can also publicize your content and drive even more readers to you.
It’s certainly not going to make you independently wealthy overnight, but if you’re willing to put some work into it, you can make a little money, increase your exposure, experiment with new skills like video, audio and photography and have a little fun.

Ty Stockton produces a daily two-minute radio show for the Cowboy State News Network from his home in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He began his journalism career in print media, knowing he had a face for radio, but a voice for newspaper.
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Create compelling radio

OWAA Developer — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 02:40:33 +0000

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BY JOHN KRUSE
Do you remember Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story?” It was a staple of daytime radio on news talk stations across the country. I was one of many who stayed inside my car after reaching my destination, ear glued to the radio, to hear Harvey’s daily broadcast about the people and events that shaped life in America and around the world.
Harvey was an incredible storyteller, and many of his on-air vignettes were masterpieces. Contrast that with talk radio. Infomercials infamously fall into this category, as do all too many local radio shows where hosts come into the studio and “wing it” for an hour on the air. The result is often uninteresting content, haphazard interviews filled with lots of “uuuuuhhhhs,” stilted silence, unanswered questions or worse — bombastic, know-it-all hosts who try to carry the hour through the force of their own personalities. Two things happen here. First, listeners change the channel or turn off the radio. Second, these hosts don’t stay on the air too long.
So, how does one create compelling radio, especially if you work in the field of outdoor radio? Here are a few suggestions for you whether you produce a short, 90-second feature or host a multi-hour program.
Show prep is everything
How much time you put into preparing your show usually determines how good your finished product will be. Jim and Travis Ferguson, hosts of the nationally syndicated show “The Revolution with Jim and Trav,” are very good at this. Each weekly broadcast has a clear theme, the broadcast moves along at a fast clip and the production quality is outstanding with lots of thought put into each themed broadcast.
Get on a topic
You should always be trolling for information you can share on your show. Look for stories that inspire emotions. Whether it is anger, laughter or, in the case of a record fish or buck, envy; they all make for great material to share on the air. Controversial topics are also a good choice. Think about wolves, for example, an animal that inspires polarizing points of view like no other, particularly when it comes to how they should be managed. Bringing a couple of experts with opposing views to the airwaves is one way to engage the listeners, especially if you are able to take calls on the air.
Don’t forget the details
Consider using music beds that fit the guest or theme of the show. It helps set the stage as you lead into a topic and leave it at the end. If you pre-record your show, edit out those “uuuuhhs” and “ummmms” that can distract from what you or your guest is trying to say. Likewise, if you are prone to taking a deep breath between sentences, cut out that sound of inhaled air which in excess, can also be distracting. Be sure to use good recording equipment and to pay attention to the quality of your audio. Guests cutting in and out with a bad cell phone signal are as frustrating to the listener as they are to the host.
Keep up the pace
Follow your program clocks and make sure the show is tight and fast paced. Have a boring guest on for too long, or even a decent guest with a five minute message you keep on for the entire hour, and you will lose listeners.
Guest prep helps too
Let your guests know in advance what you are going to be talking about. Consider giving them a list of questions you will be asking, but make it clear you may deviate from that list with follow up questions for some of their answers. For example, let’s say you have a pro-wolf/anti-hunting guest on your show who says ranchers are not doing enough to protect their livestock and if they did, wolves that attack them wouldn’t have to be killed. As a host you can come back with, “What do you mean when you say ranchers should do more to protect their livestock from wolves? What, exactly should they do?” Follow that up with another question. “What if these measures don’t work? At what point is it okay to kill a wolf preying on livestock or pets?”
Go with the flow
Don’t be the host who sticks to the script come hell or high water. Nothing sounds as scripted as an interview where questions are asked and obvious follow-up questions are not. It shows the interviewer is not listening to the guest but is instead just waiting to ask their next question. If you as the interviewer don’t sound interested in what the guest is saying, how can you expect your listener to be?
Get out of the studio and into the field
Phone interviews and in-studio guests are the bread and butter for most shows, but you can get unique and compelling audio for your show by getting out of the studio and into the field or on the water. There is nothing better than having to stop in the middle of of an interview with a guide about waterfowl hunting because ducks are coming in. Even better is when the shotguns go off and you can report on the results. Likewise, being interrupted mid-sentence by the take-down of a rod and then giving the blow-by-blow on the air as the angler fights the fish also makes for fun radio your listeners will want to hear.
Go beyond the hook-and-bullet
Don’t be afraid to go beyond fishing and hunting during your show. The fact of the matter is, a good number of radio listeners are not anglers or hunters and may well change the channel when your show comes on. Give them something beyond that, such as hiking, camping, rafting, kayaking, horseback riding, wildlife watching and other non-consumptive pursuits, and you start spreading a net across the airwaves that will catch listeners beyond the hook-
and-bullet crowd. Throw in destination ideas, cooking segments, outdoor news or upcoming events of interest to the general outdoors enthusiast, and you’ll have something just about everyone can love.
Keep working to better your show
Last but not least, no matter how good you think your show is, don’t rest on your laurels. Always strive to improve the production value of your show and the content you provide. Look for new guests and topics instead of trotting out the same ones over and over again. Listen to other outdoor radio shows with the idea of bettering your own. Ask for feedback from professionals in the radio industry and listen to it.
If you do all of these things, you will take your outdoors radio show, whether long or short, from something people listen to in the background to content that will leave your listeners sitting in their cars long after they’ve arrived home.
—John Kruse is the host and producer of Northwestern Outdoors Radio, which is heard on more than 50 stations in four states. Go to www.northwesternoutdoors.com for details.
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Expanding markets: Crossing over to radio

OWAA staff — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 18:35:54 +0000

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BY CHARLIE BURCHFIELD
I’d never worked in radio when a local station approached me in 1981 about hosting an outdoor show on the air.
The proposed program would run 15 minutes each week leading up to the fall hunting seasons. I wrote a weekly outdoor column for the newspaper and I, like so many outdoor communicators, hadn’t considered expanding beyond the medium I knew best.
More than 30 years later, my show is still on the air.
Radio is a medium often overlooked by outdoor communicators, but it’s the perfect outlet to expand into new markets.
My outdoor column, which had run consistently for more than a year and on-and-off in years before, gave me credibility venturing into the new medium.
As a selling tool I used a tentative schedule of 12 shows — subject to change of course. By presenting a programing schedule the station manager could see I was serious about the endeavor and it gave the station sales staff something to sell.
Depending on your contract, you might be asked to help sell advertisements for your show. I prefer to avoid this and allow the radio station’s sales staff to do the selling. Not only are they experienced, they often work on commission and selling for your show gives them a vested interest in the program’s success.
Another approach is to purchase air time from the station. This is a way to make more money, but not without more work. You can sell the advertising yourself — but keep in mind commercials need to be recorded, which is an added expense and time commitment. I’ve never gone this route, opting instead for a slightly smaller paycheck — I’m paid a standard amount per show — and more time to devote to my show.
Once the contract is decided, it’s time to start recording.
All of my programs are pre-recorded either in the field or from the living room of my home. Recording in comfortable surroundings puts the subjects I interview at ease.
I use a Sony voice quality MP3 recorder and then download interviews onto a laptop. A good voice quality recorder does require an investment — they run $125 to $250 — and it should include a sound management program for use on your laptop. Programs can be sent to the station electronically by Dropbox or delivered to them on a burned CD. (Check with the station engineer about what format they prefer.)
Former OWAA member Tom Fegely gave me advice years ago when I first started in radio.
“Know your listener,” he said. “Although you may key in on hook-and-bullet subjects, there are many subjects that will be of interest to your audience. Subjects can vary from bird watching and wildflowers to falconry and tree farming, along with hunting and fishing. Offering a wide range of topics will expand your base of listeners and appeal for your program.”
That was good advice then and it’s just as good today.
My first radio program was a 15-minute long format. This meant taping two seven and a half minute segments of talk time. The show began with an introduction, talk time and a voice break — which ends a segment of the program allowing the station to add commercials, then a re-introduction naming my guest, the show and the topic again and a close. The station then inserts commercials.
I tape a whole show in a single session. Once I push the record button, that’s it. No stopping. It keeps the show flowing and the guest focused on the topic.
That means you have to be prepared for your interview.

Discuss with your guest beforehand the direction you’d like to see the program go. Ask your guest for suggestions. They might share additional details or provide more insight on the topic. Also ask about subjects or questions they’d prefer to avoid discussing.
Use an outline as a guide to the questions you’ll ask. The flow of the interview keeps the show moving. Let your guest help develop the outline. It puts the guest at ease, giving them confidence there won’t be any trick or embarrassing questions unexpectedly thrown their way.
Remember to listen. An answer might lead you to an unplanned question. Your outline is just a guide. You don’t want to leave listeners feeling something is missing or was held back.
Smile and engage your guest. It will ignite a spark that will grow, and while not seen, it will be felt by your listeners.

My program, Gateway Outdoors Radio, launched in 1981 and grew from a 15-minute show to an hour. It’s still on the air today as well as streamed and archived on the Internet.
As an added plus, my radio show provides additional material for my print column. I meet a wide variety of people through the show who I engage in in-depth conversation about outdoor-related topics that provide quotes and more-focused story ideas for print.
My newspaper column “Gateway Outdoors” still prints once a week, as it has since 1980.
— Charlie Burchfield is a past president and life member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association and an active member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. He’s been an award-winning outdoor communicator since 1981. Contact Gateway Outdoors at GWOutdoors@comcast.net. GATEWAY OUTDOORS RADIO airs at 6 p.m. Mondays on WCED 1420 AM, 107.9 FM and 96.7 FM, and can be live streamed on the Internet. The program can be heard the following day archived on the WCED Talk Radio web site. www.newstalkradiowced.com.
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Making it personal

OWAA staff — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:48:52 +0000

BY TY STOCKTON
One of the most important rules for both broadcasting and writing is to make your material resonate with your audience. It has to strike a chord for every individual who is listening or reading. If it doesn’t, channels will change or magazines will be put down.
(For the sake of simplicity, please note that the following relates both to writing for newspapers and magazines and to speaking on the airwaves. I’ll focus on the broadcast side, but the same principles apply to writing, as well.)
No matter what you’re talking about, you have to find a way to phrase it so it becomes personal to each individual listener. For some stories, that’s easier. In a story about an increase in hunting license fees, you can explain how many fewer boxes of shells a hunter could buy if the increase goes into effect. A story about the population of wolves in northwestern Wyoming could focus on trends showing a decrease in hunter success for elk, or it could talk about an increase in tourism spending and the resulting benefits for business owners in Jackson and Cody.
You might have more difficulty making other stories interesting to your listeners, especially if you don’t have good guests or interviews for your week’s shows. All of us have experiences of our own we think might be of interest to our listeners, but they have to be more than just an unrelatable anecdote, at least from the listener’s perspective. And more importantly, you really don’t want to come off as a know-it-all blow-hard.
The easiest way to avoid that is to allow an expert to do the talking. Any radio show, whether it’s a two-minute segment or a full four-hour program, benefits from good, engaging guests. The guest is the expert on the topic at hand; he or she can speak about the issue or the activity, and your job is simply to guide the conversation to areas that will be particularly interesting to your listeners.
But what if your topic or your program doesn’t lend itself to guest interviews? Or what if your guest turns out to be a dud? In some situations, you may be called on to do the bulk of the talking. If so, there are a number of techniques you can use.
HUMOR: Injecting a little comedy into a topic works wonders to help you hold a listener’s attention. Even the driest subjects can hold some humor, if you know where to look. The great Patrick F. McManus mentions in his writing guide, “The Deer on a Bicycle,” that even in his days covering straight news stories, he tried to find humorous angles to keep the reader reading.
One of my favorite types of humor is self-deprecation. When you have to be the one talking about a topic but can’t find an expert to be the voice for the topic, you can easily sound like the self-appointed expert. To avoid this, poke a little fun at yourself. Everyone has failed at something, and outdoor pursuits like camping, hunting and fishing are more apt to produce these failures than many other activities. Instead of telling my listeners how to make the perfect fly-cast, I tend to explain why the back of my neck is scarred from a lifetime of waiting too long to transfer from the back-cast to the fore-cast. While this is a good technique to avoid sounding like a know-it-all, you need to avoid damaging your credibility. Don’t overdo it. You don’t want to be known as the bumbling idiot of the outdoor world.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: There are times when you might be the best source for the topic you’re talking about. Don’t be afraid to use your personal experiences in your show. Tell about how you built your snow cave. Talk about the sneak you put on that pronghorn buck, and the challenges you ran into as you belly-crawled the last 100 yards. When you do, make sure it doesn’t become a brag session. Use some humorous or self-deprecating techniques, if possible.
Be sure to speak about those experiences in a way the listener can understand — and more importantly, identify with. Find balance between the details of the story as it related to you and the broad, less individualized, topic you’re discussing. Meet it in the middle, where both you and your listeners live. ◊
A member since 2001, Ty Stockton has also served on the OWAA board of directors. Stockton hails from Cheyenne, Wyo. A boyhood living a stone’s throw from the Wind River in central Wyoming ruined him for any productive, meaningful indoor occupations. He is a freelance writer, photographer and radio host. Contact him at stockyty@ gmail.com.

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Photos on the Radio?

OWAA staff — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:58:17 +0000

BY TY STOCKTON
I got my start in writing by way of the newspaper business because I was told more than once that I had a face for radio but a voice for newspaper.
But these days, radio isn’t simply an aural medium. Most radio stations now have an Internet-based component, and the more you can provide for that side of the business, the more valuable you’ll be to the people who pay the bills.
Even if you’re not working for a station with a website, you can jazz up your offerings simply by posting your shows on your own website, along with adding photos to give your visitors more reasons to come back and see you again.
If you use a blog editor like WordPress, it’s easy to include both sound files and photos in your posts. I write a short teaser on my blog post to get the readers interested in hearing the radio program each day. I then hyperlink the audio file to the words “today’s show” in the teaser, so a reader can easily click and listen to the show. My show’s only two minutes long, so it doesn’t keep visitors chained to their computers for a long time. If you have a longer show, consider several teasers that draw readers in to short segments from your show.
Once in a while, I add a photo to spice things up. I really should add a photo for every post, but I don’t have enough good photos to do that without putting up substandard images. I think it’s important to use high-quality pictures that illustrate, rather than decorate. If you don’t have a good picture that truly fits the subject of your post, don’t use one at all.
Other radio bloggers use videos in their posts, and that can be even more compelling. If you have a good webcam and record in a clean, orderly room or studio, you might even consider videoing yourself recording your show and using pieces of that video in your webcast. You can mix video of yourself (and your guests) talking into the microphones with B-roll of whatever you’re talking about.
For instance, I do auto reviews a couple times a month. I started recording footage from the front seat of the four-wheel-drives I test, as I take them over the forest road I use as a test track. I also have a coworker record from the outside of the vehicle as I take it over particularly nasty patches of that forest road. I haven’t perfected the format yet, but I plan to mix this footage with a few still shots of the vehicle in front of scenic backdrops. This will give website visitors a virtual tour of the vehicle while I’m telling them about the strengths and weaknesses of the vehicles I test.
Again, adding video to Web posts is easy if you’re using WordPress or a similar content management system. All you need to do is click the “Add Media” button and then drag and drop the file into the post.
It takes far longer to tech the photos or edit the video than it does to add the media, once it’s been edited, to the site. I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop to process my photos, and I’m learning how to use Adobe Premier Pro to edit the video.
If you, like me, are somewhat lacking in photo editing skills, pick up “The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book for Digital Photographers” by Scott Kelby, available at KelbyTraining.com. For Photoshop and Premier, the books in the Adobe Revealed series — “Adobe Photoshop CS5 Revealed” by Elizabeth Eisner Reding and “The Video Collection Revealed: Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Soundbooth and Encore CS5” by Debra Keller — are excellent tutorials and references.
There’s a bit of a learning curve with any photo or video editing, but the added content you’ll give website visitors will make the effort well worth your while. Besides, you’ll eventually give yourself another marketable skill. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I think my photos are worthy of posting, and someday I might feel as confident with my videos.
Good luck, and if you get stuck, don’t be afraid to reach out to other OWAA members who already have the skills you’re trying to master. ◊

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