Reaching Your Radio Audience

A young minister walked into our studio not long ago, and before long we began chatting about radio-speaking techniques.

By W. FLETCHES TARR, Professor of Radio and Speech, Washington Missionary College

A young minister walked into our studio not long ago, and before long we began chatting about radio-speaking techniques. He said that he had had experience in broadcast­ing, and rather enjoyed it. He commented that it was much simpler and easier to give a radio address than to stand behind the pulpit and preach. "Why, you don't have to worry about notes or memorizing or gestures or anything like that. All you've got to do is write out your speech and then read it."

I've never heard that young man on the air, but I sincerely hope, for the benefit of the con­ference that sponsors his program, that he does more than just read his speech.

Actually, preparation of the talk to be aired requires more careful planning than the pulpit address, for the speaker who sees and is seen by his audience has certain. advantages over the unseen radio speaker. In the pulpit the speaker often depends upon the politeness of his congregation to guarantee him an audience until his discourse is finished. Convention more or less prevents people from leaving the hall during the address. In the pulpit the speaker has his very presence as an "attention getter." He uses a variety, of gestures and facial expres­sions to enforce his ideas and hold the attention of his audience. But behind the microphone the speaker must do everything with his voice and with his words. Thus, armed with the Spirit and with these two weapons, the broadcaster sets out to capture and convert an audience.

All this is bound up with what we may call radio personality. Some of the finest speakers have failed to hold a radio audience because they lacked this quality. Others with relatively poor voices and poor platform technique have succeeded in front of the microphone. Gener­ally, however, men who have succeeded as radio speakers have also been successful on the public platform.

What, then, is this thing called radio person­ality? First of all, let us say it is partly the voice, or rather the voice as it conveys the im­pression of self-reliance, sympathy, sincerity, and vitality. It is also partly the language—the words, the phraseology, the original thinking, and the individual touch of the apt figure of speech. The mode of delivery plays its part too, whether conversational, oratorical, dramatic, or simply a bland, insipid reading of a dull manuscript.

These are the principal components of the radio personality. Although they are more or less inseparable and interdependent, we shall deal with them one at a time.

In the htiman voice God has given man an instrument of tremendous possibilities, and it is man's duty to make the best use of it. It is no exaggeration to say that all normal, healthy voices can be made as agreeable as those of the best broadcasters. This is not intended to be a textbook on voice culture, but there are a few brief and very practical hints on how to over­come two of the most common defects of speech.

Overcoming Speech Defects

It has been our observation that many broad­casters fail to speak out. Somehow the vocal sounds become lodged in the back of the mouth, and do not find their way forward enough to be properly modulated by the tongue, teeth, and lips. The result is a hollow tone. Often, too, because the sound must somehow find its way out, it slides farther back and escapes through the nose. This helps to produce the ob­jectionable nasality common to many speakers.

It is a good thing to speak as if every sound were being formed on the very outside edges of the lips. For practice, it is even better to imagine that it is being made three or four inches in front of the lips. Hold your hand about that distance from your mouth, and try, as it were, to reach it with your lips and teeth while reading or speaking. This will help your voice to come "out." And it will accomplish even more. It will make the lips more mobile and elastic, and will in this way improve the enunciation. We have used this exercise re­peatedly on students, and have found that grad­ually their tones will project themselves for­ward.

The tone that is inclined to be harsh and raspy may be so because the speaker either breathes improperly or tenses the muscles of the throat. Diaphragmatic breathing relieves the larynx of much of the work it must otherwise do, and thus a clearer tone is possible. Obvi­ously, if the harshness comes from a tenseness of the laryngeal muscles, relaxation is the cure. Slacken the neck muscles, breathe deeply and low, and then say such words as one, run, and bun very quietly, prolonging them almost to a singing tone. Work at this until your tone is clear and free of all breathiness. Then gradu­ally increase the volume until you can produce a strong tone without huskiness.

Personality Behind the Voice

But these are merely the mechanics of the voice. As we suggested earlier in this article, the personality behind the voice is far more im­portant. Self-confidence, born of a rich back­ground of experience and a thorough knowl­edge of one's subject, gives the voice a quality which immediately arouses attention. It is dif­ferent from the voice of one who is relying largely on hearsay, the experience. and anec­dotes of others, or quotations from books and digest magazines.

"Bookishness" is easily detected by the audi­ence and quite heartily disliked. When we use the thoughts of others, we should have made them so much a part of our own thinking that they "flow" as spontaneously as those ideas we have given birth to, nurtured, and reared. But the ideas that we have wrestled with, the illus­trations that come fresh from the springs of our experience, the figures of speech that we ourselves have formed, make for self-confi­dence. This helps to produce a natural rich­ness of tone and a contagious enthusiasm which can be acquired in no other way. Hearing it, the audience will say, "That man speaks with authority. I'll listen to him."

We are likely to confuse the speech arising from self-confidence with that objectionable trait, dogmatism. I believe, however, that if we keep in mind that the speaker should maintain the personal touch, such a danger will be averted. The broadcaster should try to project himself into the home of the listener, and should imagine that he is seated in the living room with the man or woman to whom he is speak­ing. Then he should think of what he is saying as merely one part of a dialogue, the listener being a silent participant. If this is done, the speaker will create a sympathetic understand­ing, and make the auditor feel that he person­ally is being taken into consideration. The earnestness of the tone which comes from a sincere, heart-to-heart method enhances the quality of the voice and polishes one more facet of the radio personality. It is always superior to the oratorical or declamatory style affected by a rapidly dwindling number of broadcasters.

The broadcaster is often inclined to imagine an audience of several hundreds or thousands. He thinks in terms of the great whole, instead of little units which make up the whole ; and he, therefore, pitches his voice and phrases his sentences accordingly. Actually his audience consists of the immediate members of the fam­ily in each home, so he should speak in terms that will appeal to each individual.

Furthermore, the broadcaster who is also a minister will be inclined to place his radio au­dience on the same intellectual level as his pa­rishioners, but it is hardly likely that the two wild be equal. The mental age of the average radio listener in the United States is only twelve or thirteen, or one who has finished the sixth grade.

Although the radio speaker chooses his audi­ence, to a certain extent, he should try to reach as many as possible. So he should keep in mind that the "twenty-dollar word," the flowery speech, and the so-called language of oratory have no place in the radio talk. Colloquial, everyday language is always preferred. It is what people want, and it is what most of them understand best. When we talk with people on their own level Without "talking down" we be­come one of them, and we have taken one more step toward the development of a desirable radio personality.

We have all heard speakers who, even though they have something worthwhile to say, will drone on almost interminably. We have also heard speakers who perhaps have less-im­portant things to say, but who have stimulated us by the freshness and vigor of their delivery. It is because they have what we might call dramatic quality. The dramatist secures imme­diate attention. He provides situations of com­parison and contrast to build up approval for his thesis. And then by means of variety and suspense, he retains the attention of his audi­ence until the climax, where he leaves them stirred intellectually and emotionally. He is not satisfied with routine discourse, trite homilies, or dry exposition. His speech sparkles with vivid illustrations, word pictures, and lively dialogue. He takes commonplace happenings and converts them into novel situations.

As a people, we have the most important message in the world to proclaim. It is a mes­sage which everyone ought to listen to. But the importance of it is not enough to make people listen. There should be an element of the dra­matic in all our speaking. We must give our message with vitality.

More and more preachers are gaining ac­cess to the air waves, and thus competition is much keener than ever before. In order to find and hold an audience, we must do all we can to develop those good qualities which distin­guish us, which at once make our programs easy to listen to and truly evangelistic in char­acter.

By W. FLETCHES TARR, Professor of Radio and Speech, Washington Missionary College

November 1948

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