I pitched my radio show idea and there are mixed reviews.

Canada
October 25, 2011 6:11pm CST
My previous discussion about pitching my idea touched upon what my idea was about. So I contacted a former morning show host on a large radio station and pitched my idea to him. I was ready for a totally negative response, but it was met with mixed reviews. Here is what he said to me: "No music station would touch that because they want music all the time. The news/talk stations are generally formatted to get on as many listeners as possible. Most stations use 10 to 12 minutes segments so giving each person 5 minutes would eat up a tremendous amount of time and cut back on the time for the host who is the star of the show. Another reason it would be hard to execute would be getting callers who can go on that long. There is a 7 second delay on all talk shows and also a dump button where you can cut a caller off. You would be breaking the traditional talk format with something like this. I think this is something that could be experimented with in a smaller market out side of the Toronto are to see how it flies. I might also work on internet radio which is growing in popularity as people move away from main stream radio to pick and choose the type of radio they want to listen to. The beauty of internet radio is that right now there are no rules (the CRTC hasn't taken control yet) and you can literally listen to any internet station anywhere in the world. Bringing in new ideas to a station or a radio company can be difficult because they play people (general managers, consultants and program directors) to come up with ideas like this. Could it work? I would try it out on an all night show to test the water then move it to late night and then possible into midday. I don't think it would work in the morning or in drive home because there are too many other elements the station has to get on the air. Let me know your thoughts." What I'm reading from his post to me is that this could be possible, but only on internet radio or smaller stations at first. There's no way it would be picked up by larger stations at first due to the different nature of the idea. I never thought about having a show during the day, it would be far too difficult, and the topics being discussed wouldn't do well during the day. But a late night audience would probably be more receptive to something like this. So now I'm waiting to hear back from him about what my options are, since I don't know of any internet radio stations, nor do I know any of the smaller stations in the area. But getting his approval could help me get my foot in the door somewhere, and that's all that matters right now. The fact that it could be possible fuels my passion for pursuing this idea further and I'm going to explore options to try to get this going.
2 people like this
2 responses
@GardenGerty (157027)
• United States
26 Oct 11
Good luck, Kris. You seem to have some connection and I am sure that could go far. Hope you can get what you want out of this. Does that mean no forklift school?
@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
26 Oct 11
Oooo,I think that's encouraging! And I think he's right on with the idea of internet radio, and/or local stations. I see his point about the music stations though. Their music is pretty much their bread and butter. Try some of the local stations. I do know that a lot of our local stations in my area have 'talk' type segments that are longer (sometimes up to almost an hour.) I would think that if a caller called in and was discussing something, that other callers would be invited to call in and respond to them. Idea: maybe if the sponsoring radio station had Twitter, or a place where the discussion could be responded to on their web-site, they might go for that too. I know some of the morning shows I listen to have polls on ideas that are brought in by Twitter, and one show has emails that flood in on the topic (and certain parts of them are read over the air.) The reason I mention Twitter and emails is because it lets someone who's listening at work send a short response when they don't have time to call in. Hey, maybe YOU could do that job, collating the info from Twitter (or emails) for them...just an idea lol. Good luck! I think it's super that you got a response from one of them so fast! You GO girl!!!
• Canada
26 Oct 11
Thanks. I'm hoping that I can find a station that would pick it up, so then I'd have to plan it very carefully in order to have it picked up somewhere.