Lecture Four: ‘Sounds’ good to me

I’ll be honest, I was pretty happy that the fourth lecture was an online sound clip. After two weeks of waking at dawn to cheer on the world’s best athletes, I was grateful for the opportunity to catch up on sleep. I trudged down to the computer in my pyjamas and did my best to listen without getting distracted.

I did retain some information. It turns out the sound or radio medium is completely different to television and far more intimate. T.V you can watch from a distance whereas radio is often combined with eating or driving. Including the listener in the conversation is the key to a successful radio program. You can’t just talk to the person you’re interviewing without thinking of the listeners. Apparently it’s not that difficult to get listeners to ring up and voice their opinion either. All it takes is a simple open ended question which they can easily respond.

For the interviewee it is important that they feel comfortable. Pre-interviews are ideal and will hopefully help them open up more. There’s nothing worse than someone who tells a story they’ve told 10 million times and avoids answering truthfully. Throw in a couple of teasing remarks to the interviewee and you’ll probably be fine. Remember this is their arena and you should allow them space and time to explain themselves. Sometimes it pays to shut up.

Radio is not as simple as you might first think. There’s a real art to an interesting interview . There are no visuals to distract the listener, it’s what you say that draws them in. Contrary to what certain pop songs may say, there is still hope for the radio star. In fact, thanks to today’s time poor society, you’ll find that radio just keeps building its audience.