How to get on a radio talk show

If you've tried calling your favorite local radio talk show and found yourself ending up on hold and never getting on the air, there are lots of things you can do to improve your chances. By the way, this will also apply to national talk shows as well. The first thing that you need to know, is that these talk shows consider themselves entertainment, not informational, political, instructional or otherwise. So you have to be sure that your demeanor fits their description of entertainment. This is actually very easy to do. As a sidenote, and this will apply to this thesis on getting on talk shows; have you noticed the the "winners" of radio contests are always women or girls and never men or boys? How is it that a woman is always the 98th caller for those concert tickets or CDs? Well, it's because women are generally more animated on the phone and will act more excited than a man when winning a CD or a pair of movie tickets. And that's what radio stations want to hear. The don't want to hear a Jackie Vernon sound alike on the air. The same rules apply to getting on a talk show, but what you say to the call screener is more important than sounding animated. Before we get into what to tell the call screener, let me tell you about that person's functions. A call screener may be called "technical director," "producer," or other lofty titles, but the call screener is usually a low paid employee who answers the phone and who may or may not run the studio control board silmultaneouly. You must get past the call screener in order to get on the air. The screener is looking for people who don't know what the subject matter is or who sound confused. If the talk show host is talking about the Iraq war and you call and say you want to discuss abortion, you're out of there. Also, bear in mind that the call screener generally will not hang up on you even if you sound confused and off topic. He or she will just indicate that you'll get on the air when they get to you, and he'll just put you on hold, where you'll remain for hours if you don't hang up. They have enough phone lines coming into the studio to be able to do this. If you find that the call screener starts coaching you by telling you to not say "thank you for taking my call," or he tells you not to mention any brand names and so on, then you can be sure you passed their test and you won't be put on hold indefinitely. When you get on the air, there's nothing to stop you from changing the subject to something other than what you told the call screener. The screener will put a brief summary of your topic on the host's computer screen, but once you're on the air, you're on. Keep in mind that the show is on a 15 second delay, so if you decide to curse or challenge the host in an aggressive way, they'll get rid of you before your comments make it on the air. Changing the subject from your stated one when you get on the air is an effective way of getting your point across because it will catch the talk show host off guard and this will usually prevent him from talking over you or cutting your off early. The notion that the airwaves belong to the public and that you'll be allowed to rebut an editorial opinion is quaint. Just try to do that on your local station and see how far you get. So the best way to get your message heard is to call a talk show, be sure that your subject is the same as the one they're on, and talk away when you get on. Using this method, you should have no trouble getting your local yokel talk show host to take your call. You'll should also be able to get on national talk shows as well, if you have the time an/or desire to wait on hold for an hour just to talk to a gassbag for a few seconds.