Everyone loves dessert. That sweet little treat we reward ourselves with at the end of a meal whether we’ve saved room for it or not. Ironically, growing up I wasn’t much of a dessert person because I’m one of those annoying calorie counters. But I married into a dessert loving family who have taught me to enjoy the occasional delicious indulgence. Lately I’ve noticed podcasters whose shows are built around serious topics making a concerted effort to add what they call ‘a little dessert’ to the end of every show in the form of a fun, lighthearted topic. Which I think is a smart move and, as I’ve said before, podcasters have been stealing ideas from radio people for years now so we might as well steal a few back. Here’s how radio on-air talent can apply the dessert rule to every on-air shift.

Because radio tends to be too risk averse, most on-air talent avoid anything that could potentially offend listeners or advertisers. So, most radio shows aren’t filled with serious and heavy topics. However, to pay the bills we have all filled them with long stopsets, too many service elements and tons of station and sales promo that bog all of our shows down. Making them feel information heavy and entertainment light. Then some talent make that problem worse by just ripping and reading information from a prep service or the internet without adding anything to it to make it their own or entertaining to the listener. The best way to remedy that info overload is to eliminate some of it all-together, trim the rest of it down and then balance that information out with a little dessert for the listeners every hour.

So, what does that dessert look like? Something we can goof around about, riff on for a bit either with our partners on a team show or to engage with the audience with on solo shows. Something silly, weird or outrageous. Whether that comes from show prep, and may or may not fit our format perfectly, or something from our lives we can make fun of ourselves for in a way our audience can relate to. Shows that add dessert at least once per hour massively increase their value to the audience and therefore to the station and its advertisers.

Can a show have too much dessert? Yes, we’ve all heard shows that are all dessert and no meal. They have no heart, no emotion they’re willing to share, can’t switch gears and change their tone to be serious, so they make a joke out of everything. That’s not healthy either. For a show to truly appeal to the masses, regardless of market or format, they’ve got to have something hearty and filling as well. Hence why I entitled this article some dessert and not all dessert.

What do you think? What are some examples of ways you’ve added the right amount of dessert to a show? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.