How To Shine in a Radio Interview
“I am going to spell it out for the listeners,” said Kemi Badenoch in the 8.10 slot on the Today programme this week.
I thought that was a bold line to take; treating the audience like they are idiots isn’t always the best way to get voters onside.
But she meant it very literally. Live from the Tory Party conference in Manchester, Mrs Badenoch actually spelt out her new immigration policy. It’s an acrostic: B-O-A-R-D-E-R-S.
Sadly, we never really found out what each letter means, because eight letters with a line of policy hanging off each is hard for listeners to grasp.
O might have been for ‘out’, D stood for ‘deport’. Confusingly, E seemed to be about ‘judicial review’. Politics aside, even if she had been more fluent, this was the wrong messaging tool for radio.
The Today audience is probably in the car heading to work, not holding a pen and paper, ready to decipher a kind of conservative crossword puzzle.
So, the presenter moved on and asked her, “Will you get better?”
Ouch.
So how can you ensure your message lands in a radio interview?
For many years, I presented programmes on the BBC World Service and interviewed a diverse bunch of people. I noticed that the most impactful guests, whether they were FTSE 100 CEOs, politicians, campaigners or academics, all had the same things in common.
In my post-BBC years, I’ve used some of their techniques to prep clients for media interviews.
Here are some of my top tips:
1) Be authentic and act naturally. Radio is intimate; connect with your audience on a human level. Explain why your message or story should matter to them. Avoid lots of jargon or technical language
2) Know your stuff. Make sure you prepare, rehearse your lines to take (if appropriate), and always have the right stats in front of you
3) Create some colour. Have an anecdote up your sleeve and bring your interview to life by telling a story. Paint a picture with words for your audience. It makes you memorable and helps land a message
4) ABCs. If you don’t know the answer to a question (and we have all been there) acknowledge the question, bridge to an area you are more comfortable with, and then continue
5) Think of the editor. The joy of radio is that, in the UK at least, you aren’t restricted to short 10-30 second soundbites. With longer time slots, you can form an argument or draw out a point. But, and I say this as someone who has produced hundreds of hours of radio, think of the audio editor! Remember to pause for breath, try not to give long, meandering answers, and wind your thoughts up when the presenter starts to nod very vigorously! That way, you might just be invited back.