15 YEAR-OLD JOCK QUESTION FOR DAN O’DAY: Hi Dan! I'm 15-years-old and doing 6-7AM on Saturday mornings on a local radio station. It's weird because we play songs that were around before we were born - oldies. Any "tips" for going about that -- kids/teens playing oldies? In Personality Principles you say to limit each break to one thought. Question: We "promote promote promote," and when we get to that bit we start off by promoting the next bit, like this: "Coming up in just a little while we'll be playing some True or False, but right now we've got some signs you're bored at work..." Is that okay? Also, after I do the weather my partner always has a one-liner or intro's the song as a request. Is this okay? Doing the show is great because there's no format clock or anything. All they tell us to do is commercials at 20 and 40 past ... so I get to program the station for an hour. I've got the Programming Operations Manual, but do you have any "tips" for placement of elements? I think I have an "announcerish" type voice when I go on the air, but for some reason, I'm just scared to stop doing it. It's not too bad, but ... I don't know. I my voice might be different because I also am into doing voice-overs and those books say to smile while reading. DAN REPLIES: >Any "tips" for going about that -- kids/teens playing oldies? Learn as much as you can about the songs & artists. There are books filled with such info. Some readily available, others out-of-print. >We promote promote promote and when we get to that bit we start off by promoing the next bit, like this: "Coming up in just a little while we'll be playing some True or False, but right now we've got some signs you're bored at work..." Is that okay? Sure. Makes a lot of sense. >Also, after I do the weather my partner always has a one-liner or intro's the song as a request. Is this okay? Sure. The weather doesn't qualify as a "thought." By "thought" I mean the one thing only you (or your partner) could have said at that very moment: comment, remark, jokes, etc. >Do you have any "tips" for placement of elements? Your best bet, rather than a book, is to listen to a variety of successful stations in the format you want to emulate. (I realize you're playing oldies, but in your head you might be doing a CHR show.) You can construct your own Hot Clocks for each station, just by listening for a couple of hours and noting what they place and where. >I think I have an "announcerish" type voice when I go on the air, but for some reason, I'm just scared to stop doing it. It's not too bad, but ... I don't know. I think it (my voice) might be different because I also am into doing voice-overs and those books say to smile while reading. Just relax and don't worry about it. At 15, you're allowed to make all kinds of mistakes; that's all part of the learning process. Once you've gained a bit more confidence, one day you'll decide to drop the "announcer" voice and just TALK directly to your audience. Smiling while on-air actually is very helpful for a jock, because some of the "friendliness" of the average human voice diminishes over the airwaves. But smiling doesn't prevent you from speaking naturally. Good luck!