Radio Speaking

1. Radio Speaking Writings and Presenting Scripts

2. Your Mission • You are a DJ and radio broadcaster on a local St. Louis radio station. The station assigns you the morning news, which is a five-minute radio segment. Most of your audience is made up of people commuting to work. • Your job is to take a number of unrelated stories and weave them into a coherent, logical five-minute presentation.

3. Writing Your Script Developing Good Content

4. Script Outline • Your five-minute script must include : • Sign-on (Introduction) [10 sec.] • News • International [60 sec.] • National [60 sec.] • Local [60 sec.] • Commercial break [30 sec.] • Sports [5o sec.] • Weather [20 sec.] • Sign-off [10 sec.]

5. Broadcast Style • Differs from print style! • Shorter sentences • Active voice • Titles before names • Shorter leads • Umbrella leads • Remember: people cannot re-listen to your story the way they can re-read a newspaper sentence or paragraph. It must be easy to listen to. • Practice re-writing print stories into broadcast style as often as possible.

6. Thematic Coherence • You should try to have your call letters, commercial, sign-on, and sign-off all fit together. • For example, if your station is KORN, the country-western voice of St. Louis, you might do a commercial for an upcoming country concert or a down-home restaurant. • Thematic unity is one of the big differences between good broadcasts and great ones! • Once you develop a good theme, you can use it and re-use it for just about any radio script.

7. Sign-on • About 10 seconds • Name • Station • Headlines “Today in the news, more atrocities in Syria, Congress re-opens the government, and Saint Louis University gets a new dean. I’m James Frazier, and this is KSTL Headline News.”

8. More about Sign-ons • This is the place to start to give your station a coherence. • If, for example, yours is a classical music station, then be sure that your style of delivery, the products you advertise, and even your call letters or station name all fit together.

9. News Stories • About 20 seconds for each story. • Need three stories for each area: International, National, and Local. • Must have been first reported in the news within 24 hours of the time of your performance. • Must have been reported in a reputable news source. • Ex. AP, Reuters, NPR, BBC, CNN, NYT • Must be in rewritten in a broadcast style. • For your class assignment, you must print the original news articles and provide full bibliographic information for each. These will be submitted with your script.

10. Sources for News Stories • Rewrite from the newspaper, news magazine, or reputable web site. • Broadcast style • Video news stories • Be sure to re-write for the radio. Remember listeners don’t have the pictures that viewers see. • Audio news stories • You can draw on the professionals’ style and transitions as well.

11. Organization of News Stories • Divide stories into a logical order by applying defensible criteria for placement: • Importance • Similarities or common themes • Geography (proximity) • Balance or counterpoint • Try to connect the stories by finding similar elements among them or adding appropriate transitional phrases.

12. Commercial Breaks • May not be more than 30 seconds long. • Should advertise a well-known product or service. May be original or from an actual commercial. • May be inserted at any point in the segment. • Commercials MUST be in good taste and sound professional.

13. Guidance for Commercials • Note that this is the one part of your piece that you can prepare ahead of time because it’s not time-sensitive. Write two or three commercials and try them out at different competitions. • Vary your voice or your approach with the commercial. It should stand out from the rest of the broadcast. • If you’re going to try for funny, make sure it’s truly funny. Unless you are really good at comic delivery, you should avoid attempts to be funny.

14. Sports • About 50 seconds long • Include any major league sports currently in season. • Include major league sports whose season is approaching. • Include major trades, team moves, coaching personnel changes, etc. • Scores are NOT enough to have a good sports segment!

15. Weather • About 20 seconds long • Notable weather from the past day or so • Current weather • Forecast

16. Sign-off • About 10 seconds long • Restate your name and station call letters. • Tell your audience what they should stay tuned for… “This has been Taylor Student, with KSTL Headline News. Stay tuned for more news and information from your one and only information station, KSTL.”

17. Transitions • Practice using transition phrases in your writing. • Clever, apt transitions make the difference between the adequate performer and the truly exceptional one. • The ability to write clever, apt transitions is one of the most important things you can learn. It will make the difference between “C” papers and “A” papers in college, for example.

18. Practice Ahead of Time • Radio speaking is often called the “procrastinator’s event” because you can’t write your copy until the day before. • But you can practice coming up with themes, crafting transitions, and writing in broadcast style on any and every day! • Design a system for putting together a broadcast. Know where you will go for your news sources. Have a general outline you always stick to.

19. Delivering Your Script Preparing to Give Your Best Performance When It Counts

20. Set-up • You will present your segment in the front of the class, with your back to your audience AND with the audience’s back to you. • Some competitions have you record your presentation before-hand and submit it as an MP3 or on CD. For class, we will perform it live.

21. Always Practice as Though It’s Game Time • You will be seated in a desk for your performance. Practice in a seated position. • Use a timer for every practice run. Record every practice run.

22. Record Yourself! • Then go back and listen to it again and again. Learn your own voice, what works, what doesn’t, where you tend to stumble, where you sound your best. • Take notes on places where you stumbled or sounded less than professional. Try to re-do those parts.

23. Get Help from Others • Experiment with new voice patterns and have someone evaluate your experiments objectively. Be ready to take constructive criticism. • Practice those characteristics that you and others have identified as your best. Practice until they are firmly etched into your vocal pattern—until they become habit.

24. Listen to the Professionals • NPR • 90.7 FM • This is the best radio news—perhaps the best news, period—in the St. Louis area. • BBC • This is available daily as a podcast. These folks are also very good at what they do. • Also a great source for international news stories.

25. Good Radio Program Models • NPR • Programs • Times, podcasts • BBC • Programs • Times, podcasts

26. Five Minutes • Use a timer during your performance (and practices). • In advance, plan an “escape route” and a “filler story” (e.g., some kind of human interest story) to use in case you are running too long or too short. • Have two or three different weather reports of varying length. When you get to the weather, check your time, and choose the best one to use. • As you practice, have everyone there time you, then compare times at the end of your presentation.

27. Use Your Own Voice • The quality of your voice is what separates it from others’ voices. • Use your own voice. Do not affect a “radio” voice! • Develop a voice that works for you. If you like a particular announcer or broadcaster, try to adapt their style to yours. Imitation is a time-honored way to learn to master any activity.

28. Use a Natural Rhythm • Speak conversationally, without being too familiar or informal. • Avoid the repetitive, roller-coaster rhythmic delivery. • Avoid a sing-songy rhythm. • Listen to the rhythms used by the professionals on NPR or BBC.

29. Learn Proper Pronunciations • Look up any words you aren’t absolutely certain how to pronounce properly. • Pay particular attention to names of places and people. • Practice saying each word clearly. • Look up pronunciation in a dictionary or online. Many online sites will “say” the word for you so you can hear how it’s supposed to be pronounced. • Ask others how to pronounce the names. Look for sports fans, news watchers, etc. They’ll be able to help you out.

30. Show Dynamic Range • A wide range of pitch is desirable for radio speakers. • Avoid monotonous speaking!

31. Force of Voice • Force is the amount of energy with which one speaks. The amount of air that flows from the lungs determines the force of your voice. • The same word or phrase can be uttered with little or lots of force. • Experiment and find the right force for the line you are reading.

32. Emphasize Important Words and Phrases • Emphasis is giving importance to certain words by using your voice. Speak naturally, and put emphases where they naturally belong. • Pay attention to the meaning of what you’re saying, and to how you would say the words in a normal conversation.

33. Evaluation How You Will Be Evaluated by Your Teacher or Judge

34. Evaluation Rubric

35. Time • Timing is an important element of competition. You are penalized heavily if your segment is under 4:55 or over 5:05. • Anything outside of the 5-second grace period will keep your score below half the possible points. • At some competitions, violations of the time limit require you to be ranked last. At others, exceeding the time limit will drop you one or more places in the round.

36. Script • Stories must be rewritten for the radio and there must be transitions between the stories. • Is the organization of the material logical? Are transitions smooth? • Is there excessive filler?

37. Voice • No slurring, stumbling, etc. You are allowed one—after that you lose points for each mistake. • Is the speaker’s voice clear, pleasant, confident? • Is the rate understandable and varied? • Are the news items separated by pauses and changes in pitch? • Does the speaker use correct emphasis and phrasing of thought? • Was the voice, including quality, pitch, volume, and rate used to good advantage? • Was the voice well modulated?

38. Word Knowledge • Any words pronounced incorrectly will result in a deduction. • If you choose stories that contain difficult-to-pronounce words, and you pronounce them correctly, you can really impress some judges.

39. Story Selection • Each required area must be covered. • Stories must be appropriate for your audience. • Are significant news items selected? • Are stories representative of the “news of the day”? • Is the selection of stories balanced and fair? • Are the stories well developed and interesting?

40. Other Evaluation Criteria More Ways to Evaluate a Radio Presentation

41. Phrasing • Did the phrasing bring out the meaning of the news? • Did it allow for the proper breathing? • Did it provide smooth continuity to the material read? • Were the inflections varied, flexible, and meaningful? • Did they fit the context of the material read? • Do pauses and changes in pitch separate the news items? • Does the student use correct emphasis and phrasing of thought?

42. Enunciation and Pronunciation • Was the reading clearly articulated? • Was pronunciation accurate? • Was enunciation distinct and appropriate to the speaker?

43. Microphone Technique • Did the speaker maintain proper distance from the microphone? • Was breathing audible? • Did the speaker eliminate script noise?

44. Competition Rules and Guidelines Getting Good Enough to Win Some Awards

45. Why Compete in Radio Speaking? • Procrastinator’s event! • Interested in a career in media? • You get to avoid eye contact with an audience. • You get to deliver your presentation from a seated position!

46. Competition Structure • You will perform your piece as one of a group of six performers. The judge(s) will then rank all six in order from 1 (best) to 6 (last). • The piece is read from the script, not memorized. • Some competitions do not allow commercials. Check the rules for each competition beforehand.

47. Miscellaneous • You may not say anything that would allow a listener to identify your school.