Those allow him to look ahead, figure out where in a radio show he is, and scribble things as he presents to include later in his show.
Stephanie Hirst (Host at Hits Radio) does the same. There’s nothing better than prep. At Hits, she can look at the logs weeks ahead and even pick the songs she wants to play. Sitting at home with a 40-inch monitor, she picks what she wants to play and really architects a show.
There are certainly things that music presenters can to highlight timelines and presence. There are definitely different presentation styles according to the time of day too.
Nik Goodman (Director at Bounce) highlights that authenticity is a key part of any good presenting style. It’s important to share a bit of yourself. Stephanie started her career in music radio before transitioning to speech radio and back to music radio. Music radio is a challenge but can allow you to convey your personality more so than all-speech radio; the challenge lies in doing so in a handful of seconds.
Using production as a crutch is vital too. By downloading stems of a Fleetwood Mac hit, Stephanie teases ahead to music coming up by playing a game, slowly building sound from the individual instruments. Both Nik and Ben agree that feeling as if you’re in the ‘groove of the music’ is one of the most important things for music radio presenters.
Caring is the difference. Will a listener notice? Potentially not – but they definitely will if you don’t!