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Your show...

You've got two hours of airtime to fill... where do you begin?

There is general agreement that the most creative people in the media are those who make adverts. They have to deliver a message to as wide a number of people within a certain category within a very short time span and lots of rules and legalities to take into consideration. Creativity isn't being given a blank piece of paper and told to draw something… it's having to make a product within a number of criteria, time-limits and other restrictions. The end product is something that has to be original and enjoyed by many.

In terms of radio, this means that being given two free hours and told to fill them with whatever you like isn't exactly creative. What is, is the ability to work round the various stipulations and time-specific items and still produce a show that is appealing, interesting and original.

Radio 1 is a good example of this. Chris Moyles, Jo Whiley, Colin and Edithand Scott Mills all have very different presentational styles, and yet they all create good radio using the same basic time-structure, playlist, promos and jingles. They all have to do a phone-in competition, they all have to talk-up various Radio 1 events or campaigns and they all have abide by the BBC guidelines. And yet, all the shows sound different to each other and yet they all fit together on the station.

If you can create a station that contains different styles of programming, but fits together into one continuous stream, and that encompasses an overall station sound, you are well on your way to creating the near perfect station.

Often the hardest part of creating a radio show is having two hours of dead-air to fill, and finding the material to keep it fresh and interesting.

Depending on the type of station you are at will determine the amount of control that you have on your own show - some hospital radio stations are very broad-minded and will allow pretty much anything to be done; others have a much tighter remit. I'll argue that the latter are the better stations, but because of their very nature of being voluntarily managed, many good intentions are lost with the lack of time.

So let's say you are working on a local community RSL station which is playing pretty much chart-based hits and aiming for a 16-30 year age group. You have the two hour Sunday afternoon slot from 2-4pm. Two hours of dead-air to fill, so how do you go about doing it?

The first thing to do is divide it down into bit size chunks. Most stations will probably take an hourly summary and so your first split is the 3pm news. Even two lots of sixty minutes is a long time to fill, so you can sub-divide the show still further. A general rule is that a listener will tune in for twenty minutes before deciding they are bored of the station, so dividing each hour into three 20 minute sections will now give you more manageable chunks that also allow you to keep your listeners for longer.

If we assume that each track lasts 3½ minutes, then you can fit roughly five tracks into each 20 minute segment (The average number of songs in an hours should be about fourteen, assuming you take the news and some form of commercials/promos). In each twenty minute segment, you should aim to do something that keeps the listener interested (ie a feature, competition etc) and two or three other links. Suddenly it seems much more manageable.

If you work with the rule that you only trail music and features coming up in the next slot, it ensures that your show always has a reason to keep tuned to. Don't think that trailing the fact you'll be running a competition in an hour and a half will keep people listening for that amount of time - it probably won't; if they've got bored they'll switch over or off. Tell them only when it's in twenty minutes time and they'll probably think "hmm, that's only another couple of songs" and stayed tuned. If, in twenty minutes time you then trail another feature in twenty minutes, they'll repeat the process, and if you're good you'll keep them hooked until the end of the show.

It's the same with music. Telling people the key tracks coming up is a good way to keep them listening, but again keep it down to the next few songs. If you trail a Snow Patrol song, and then don't play it for half an hour, your listeners will assume you've forgotten and switch off.

Where you place your features is obviously important too. I'd opt to do the bigger features in the second and third chunks of the hour - the first 20 minutes of a show should be establishing the presenter. However there is no hard and fast rules about where you put them.

Bear in mind the mechanics of the feature. If it's a competition, and you've got to take the calls, you don't want to run it straight before you've got to do a difficult ad-break or live link. Equally, if you're doing a live interview or putting callers on-air, don't do it two minutes before the hourly news. Think about where other competitions and features are on other shows and make sure yours is well spaced out. For example, if the previous presenter did a competition in the last twenty minutes of his or her show, but the presenter after you doesn't do a competition at all, your competition should be in the last chunk of your show.

What you want to end up with is a show that is well-balanced and always has something in the next twenty minutes to look forward to.