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PD's: What makes a short "feature" good enough to air?

blue67ccm

blue67ccm

And what kinds are you looking for in today's marketplace to appeal to your listeners?

There's a gazillion syndicators out there with sports, entertainment, "This Day In History" features.....but what kinds and which ones would you really look at the DOS and say, "Yes, we'd love to air it!"?

And are there any possible features you'd love to have that, right now, no one is producing?

Like to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
 
I have yet to find any to take the place of good, honest prep work done by our in-house people. I'm a PD for a Hot AC format...thought it would be worth mentioning for perspective.
 
To me, the only good reason for running pre-produced features is to fill avail time on a satellite format. Network has a 5:00 top of the hour mandatory? Run a 2 minute newscast, a 2:30 feature, and a :30 sponsorship. Of course, you wouldn't do this every hour, but I think having these kinds of short form programs help keep the station fresh.

Another moderately good reason: an especially famous host. Paul Harvey's News and Comments was a good example of this.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
To me, the only good reason for running pre-produced features is to fill avail time on a satellite format. Network has a 5:00 top of the hour mandatory? Run a 2 minute newscast, a 2:30 feature, and a :30 sponsorship. Of course, you wouldn't do this every hour, but I think having these kinds of short form programs help keep the station fresh.
Click to expand...

As the former PD of a little AM ESPN Radio affiliate that gives you 20 minutes an hour or so to fill, features were what filled those 5 minute avails...I even signed a contract with ABC to air their 3 minute newscasts just to fill time
 
Most of these programs don't make the grade but as a smooth jazz PD, I use to run one called "The Wine Experience" which worked like a charm. Good sixty second presentation, the barter spot did not run next to the program but in the day part, and sales love it. Had clients lined up for sponsorship. Few and far between but they are there. The better way is to produce your own. There was a Hot AC in town that did a new music feature, produced and voiced by the night guy, that was very good. made bucks and got a ton of hits on their website. Either find something that fits perfectly or make something yourself that reaches the demo and bottom line. The best stuff usually comes from your house.
 
The "Short Feature Program" once enjoyed a place in broadcasting, but it was never a giant, overwhelming part of the business. Hometown radio stations were like baseball's "farm teams". New talent started in small stations and moved up the food chain if they had marketable talent. Thus hometown stations sometimes lacked the glamour and polish of the large market winners. (Large market second tier stations were another issue.)

The "Short Feature Program" did two things for the small market station: (1) An added bit of glamour, particularly if some national celebrity hosted the short feature. (2) An illusion of stability in the programming. Homer Hopeful and Bobby Bigdreams would join the staff as newbies and within a year or so move on to a better opportunity. But that five minute Paul Harvey feature, or the Earl Nightingale program was there season after season, year after year, assuring the nervous home town advertising customers that the station was not just an itinerate carnival at the fairgrounds.

I'm sure there were some higher priced short features used by the major market folks but I didn't experience those first-hand.

I sense in the original post the curiosity of someone who would like to produce short program features and is trying to flesh out a plan, a dream. I have thought about it at times.

There is no place in the Bible where it says: "Thou shall inject short feature programs into your schedule for it is good." Before you can design your short feature program, you need to define a purpose for the program. What need does it fill? Does the listener have a need? Does the station have a need? Is there a potential sponsor/underwriter who has a need? If a station ran your short program for awhile.... 18 months for example, and then discontinued it, would ANYBODY miss your program? Would there be a hole in anybody's life in the programs absence? Is your idea so compelling to the listener that upon being discontinued, some of them would actually contact to station to ask what happened? When is it coming back?

When you can go down my checklist and you can say "Yup, yup, yup, uh-huh!" then you are ready to go big time. The person who makes it to the finish line will probably start before being able to meet ALL the criteria, but will continue the thought process and use early programs as experiments to find the other answers.

I look forward to hearing your programs on a station in my area. Will it be soon? :)
 
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