0281 – Emma’s Story

Get A Better Broadcast, Podcast and Voice-Over Voice

2021.10.08 – 0281 – Emma’s Story

If you understand the sense of the story, why it is relevant and interesting, then you stand a better chance of making it compelling when you read it.

Put yourself in the place where the story happened, see it as you read it to add to your conviction… – like Emma, the travel reporter…

I was called in by the manager of a radio station to train his travel news presenter, let’s call her Emma Leven. He was at a loss to know what to do. She had a great voice and personality on air, but when it came to reading the travel news script, she just didn’t sound right.

I met with her and listened to an off-air recording and immediately I understood what her boss had meant: the news of traffic and travel, congestion and diversions were fluently-read but without any ‘spark’ that she’d previously shown when talking with the main presenters.

Within a few seconds I thought I knew what the root cause of the issue was. “You’re new to the area, aren’t you?” I said. “Yes”, Emma replied. “I used to work at another station, so I know radio, but I moved here just a couple of weeks ago”.

I was at the station for a couple of days, seeing and coaching several people on their voice and presentation style, so I gave Emma some homework.

“Are you free this afternoon? If so I want you to go to places in the area that over the last few days you keep mentioning on the travel news – the hot spots, the pinch points, the road works. First drive through the area, and then park and walk around for a few minutes. See where the hold ups are, work out why they are caused (it may be that three lanes go to two lanes either side of some lights, there’s a school nearby, a bus in a stop blocks a line of sight for example), and then see what else is around. Soak it up. Experience it. Takes some pictures. Then go to another hot spot and do the same thing.”

The next day I arrived at the station for day two of the coaching and the manager greeted me. “What did you say to Emma? She’s so much better this morning!” he smiled.

The difference was that Emma now understood the situation as well as the script. Previously she was just repeating the words, but now she could picture in her mind exactly where the problem was, and its significance. She was not only able to present the travel news with a more relevant tone, but she was also including more relatable information such as “the traffic’s now backing up to the supermarket there”, or “it’s a nasty junction just by the pub…” and so on.

Audio recording script and show notes (c) 2021 Peter Stewart

Through these around-5-minute episodes, you can build your confidence and competence with advice on breathing and reading, inflection and

projection, the roles played by better scripting and better sitting, mic techniques and voice care tips... with exercises and anecdotes from a career

spent in TV and radio studios. If you're wondering about how to start a podcast, or have had one for a while - download every episode!

And as themes develop over the weeks (that is, they are not random topics day-by-day), this is a free, course to help you GET A BETTER

BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE.

Look out for more details of the book during 2021.

Contacts: https://linktr.ee/Peter_Stewart

Peter has been around voice and audio all his working life and has trained hundreds of broadcasters in all styles of radio from pop music stations such as Capital FM and BBC Radio 1 to Heart FM, the classical music station BBC Radio 3 and regional BBC stations. He’s trained news presenters on regional TV, the BBC News Channel and on flagship programmes such as the BBC’s Panorama. Other trainees have been music presenters, breakfast show hosts, travel news presenters and voice-over artists.

He has written a number of books on audio and video presentation and production (“Essential Radio Journalism”, “JournoLists”, two editions of “Essential Radio Skills” and three editions of “Broadcast Journalism”) and has written on voice and presentation skills in the BBC’s in-house newspaper “Ariel”.

Peter has presented hundreds of radio shows (you may have heard him on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, Virgin Radio or Kiss, as well as BBC regional radio) with formats as diverse as music-presentation, interview shows, ‘special’ programmes for elections and budgets, live outside broadcasts and commentaries and even the occasional sports, gardening and dedication programmes. He has read several thousand news bulletins, and hosted nearly 2,000 podcast episodes, and is a vocal image consultant advising in all aspects of voice and speech training for presenters on radio and TV, podcasts and YouTube, voiceovers and videocalls.

The podcast title refers to those who may wish to change their speaking voice in some way. It is not a suggestion that anyone should, or be pressured into needing to. We love accents and dialects, and are well aware that how we speak changes over time. The key is: is your voice successfully communicating your message, so it is being understood (and potentially being acted upon) by your target audience?

This podcast is London-based and examples are spoken in the RP (Received Pronunciation) / standard-English / BBC English pronunciation, although invariably applicable to other languages, accents and dialects.

Music credits:

"Bleeping Demo" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

"Beauty Flow" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5025-beauty-flow

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

"Envision" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4706-envision

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

"Limit 70" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5710-limit-70

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

"Rising Tide" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5027-rising-tide

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

"Wholesome" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5050-wholesome

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

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