Somewhere along the way in the evolution of radio, many on-air personalities lost the ability to successfully tease across breaks. Maybe it’s because they were never coached on how to tease or maybe they no longer think teasing is necessary, which it absolutely is. One of the main things that determines the value of an on-air personality to a radio station is whether they can keep people listening a few minutes longer than they intended to and that hinges on their ability to tease. So, being great at teasing can absolutely impact an air talent’s paycheck and the likelihood of getting bigger and better jobs. Because of that, here are some of the ways I coach on-air talent on crafting great teases.

If it’s worth talking about on the air, it’s worth teasing. If we’re on the fence about whether content is strong enough to tease, then we’re choosing the wrong content. When that’s happening frequently, we need to raise our bar for what content makes it to air. Because not everything we prepare has to make it on-air. Some of it should be saved for later, when we have a slow prep day (which will happen). Some of it should be left on the cutting room floor. No matter how much we think we’ve perfected our prep process, if we’re talking about everything we’ve prepped, then we’re talking too much or not prepping enough. Choose the best of the best content and then tease to all of that content.

A few keys to creating a great content tease. Start by identifying the hook of the content itself, the turn up the radio statement that gets us into a topic. Craft the tease to that hook, not the key detail or worse the out. Make the tease vague enough to keep the listener guessing, but with enough of a hint to get their wheels turning. Be very specific on the time (next if it’s the very next element after what we’re going into, less than X minutes if it’s 15 minutes or less away, anything over that time stamp it).

Other teasing tricks include using multiple choice teases to turn teasing into a game (doesn’t have to have a prize). Contest teases can be further out as long as it’s proportional to the size of the prize. IE don’t tease something we’re giving away that’s worth twenty-five bucks an hour or more out and also watch teasing the chance to win a chance to win something big way in advance. Content teases work best the break prior to the content. It’s unrealistic to think someone’s going to stick around for thirty minutes to an hour to hear a content break in an age where everyone can look up whatever we teased on their phones immediately. That’s also why I’m not a fan of talent teasing the weather. Tease to the fun, contests and content, not information like traffic or the weather. It’s fine to tease to the news if the news is being done in an entertaining way, which it should be.

Talent that struggle with teasing shouldn’t be too hard on themselves. Teasing is a tough skill to learn and it’s nearly impossible to master. But it’s worth working on because there are huge benefits to getting good at teasing. As aforementioned it keeps people listening and drives TSL, it translates well to social media and on-site events allowing us to drive new cume by setting listener appointments on social or during on-stage intros in front of large crowds.

Here are a few examples of teases using social reels to drive traffic to on-air or the station website.

What do you think? How important is teasing and what are some of the ways you effectively tease on the air? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.