There's a tried and true axiom in music radio, "just play the hits". Sure, back in the day, deep cuts and B-sides were great but people dialed in to hear the popular songs. You know who knows how to play the hits? Garth Brooks and Top Gun.
My last weekend was a spectacular one for 46 year-old-me. It started Friday night with a trip to the theater to see Top Gun: Maverick. Blown away. The cinematography is spectacular, the sound is off the charts, the '80s cheese is spot on. A perfect summer film for a child of the decade that wore Jams, Hypercolor shirts and Parachute Pants. And Zubaz, remember those? They were the loudest, tackiest sports apparel ever created and mine were Dolphins themed. Imagine the worst clothing you can, now make it aqua and orange.
Top Gun: Maverick deserves praise for many things, not the least of which being the fact they absolutely knew their audience and played right to them. "Too much cheese," some say. That's like saying The Godfather had too much Sicilian with subtitles or Gone with the Wind had too much Civil War. Come on, man, it was the '80s. We bathed in cheese.
No sir, Top Gun: Maverick gave us what we shelled out a portion of our kid's college fund to go see. It gave us Captain Pete Mitchell refusing to bend to the Navy's rules. It gave us the admirals who wanted to throw him overboard, superbly played by Ed Harris and Jon Hamm. It gave us a Maverick love interest, incidentally, far less steamy than the original Top Gun - I'll say it for a generation of 40-somethings: thank you, Kelly McGillis. It gave us aircraft carriers, dog fights, impossible maneuvers and Great Balls of Fire. Just play the hits.
Garth Brooks plays the hits. Granted, it is pretty easy for him. The man has sold more albums than anyone other than the Beatles. He is the human embodiment of the Christopher Walken character in the famous "More Cowbell" skit from Saturday Night Live: "Easy, guys.. I put my pants on just like the rest of you, one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I make gold records."
Saturday night I saw Brooks in Birmingham's Protective Stadium as part of his World Stadium Tour. A Garth Brooks concert is an incredible event. The man never stops moving, takes zero intermissions and sings the hits. In addition to his seemingly endless supply of popular songs, he included covers of Randy Travis, Keith Whitley, George Strait, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Billy Joel, Don McLean and included a Lynyrd Skynyrd four song medley. It was Birmingham, of course he played Lynyrd Skynyrd. Alabama State Troopers would've escorted him to the Georgia state line had he not.
Tom Cruise and Garth Brooks know something those of us in the sports talk industry should embrace: If your audience is expecting the obvious, give them the obvious. Play the hits. This is something one would think wouldn't have to be said but I am afraid our industry sometimes outsmarts themselves.
If a topic you know is of great interest to your audience is a topic "everyone else" is talking about, maybe there is a good reason. Your audience listens to your show for a number of reasons, not the least of which is, they care about your opinion on the stories important to them. Play the hits.
There is an art in knowing when a topic has been thoroughly covered. If your show is caller-driven, the callers will dictate the topic is no longer of interest. If you are less caller-driven, there is no exact formula but you have to develop a feel for your audience that allows you know when it is time to move on.
Some topics never die. Our show is based in Birmingham but we have listeners nationwide. We know those listeners have one love in common, college football. We do, roughly, 250 shows in a year. All 250 shows will have some college football content included. In some cases, it is the entirety of the show. Do we end up sometimes repeating ourselves? There is no doubt.
That leads me to another truth in our industry: very few of your listeners are there for the entirety of your show every day. Most listeners are in and out as their schedules allow. To assume they've heard your thoughts on any given topic is not a safe assumption. Perhaps a different delivery of that thought is necessary but we should never assume every listener hears everything we say on every show. Play the hits.
In addition, that select group of listeners that are there when the show open rolls and stick around until you say goodbye, you will have to work to run that person off. They are there because your show entertains them immensely. A couple of times around the same topic, if it is still entertaining, won't be the breaking point that forces that person to give you up forever.
I can't give a higher recommendation than the one I'd give to a Garth Brooks concert. Top Gun is a fun summer movie that appeals to the feelings my generation had in the 1980s. Garth is next level. The man is one of the greatest entertainers of our lifetime and should be commended for never mailing one in.
Garth knows his fans, he knows what they want, he gives it to them night after night. We aren't playing to packed stadiums like Garth Brooks but the one thing we have in common with him is this: we are entertainers. Our form of entertainment really has a simple formula, just play the hits.
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