My radio hero and former boss Walt “Baby” Love wasn’t just a master of “hitting the post”—talking exactly to the last second of a song’s intro on the radio before the lyric started. He also told me how to do the “whooo!” That was the moment when, having hit the post, the DJ somehow found a place to emit that little whoop that somehow slipped seamlessly between the first and second line of the song. It was the equivalent of the end-zone dance for air personalities.
For the last six decades, “hitting the post,” or even talking over song intros at all, has been an ongoing debate, disdained even by a lot of radio people. The listener who doesn’t like it has been represented in focus groups for as long as radio has done them. By the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, one of ‘70s Album Rock’s calling cards was not talking over the music. That led to a lot of now-mostly-forgotten ‘70s/early ‘80s Top 40 stations that tried to “respect the music” as well.
But in 1981, Jim Ryan, now of Audacy New York launched WJXQ (Q106) Lansing, Mich., as an AOR with a very CHR presentation. Q106 was the coolest station for 70 miles in each direction, and hitting the post didn’t seem to be a problem. Later that year, WCAU-FM Philadelphia debuted. Mike Joseph’s “Hot Hits” format only talked the intros occasionally. Most breaks were over a song’s fade, followed by extensive jingles. But after five years of Top 40 trying to be Album Rock or Adult Contemporary, it was a decided victory for a presentation that even I thought was hokey at first.
In 2023, hitting the post is a talisman of “old radio” again. At the recent Windsor, Ontario, tribute to CKLW MD Rosalie Trombley, one again heard the story of how former PD Bill Gable once talked the entire 1:55 intro to “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” But Amazon’s soon-to-shutter AMP doesn’t allow users to talk over music, even the pros who want to. Around the same time as AMP launched last year, Sirius XM’s 70s on 7 channel made a move to jock breaks that might still be over-the-music, but without any trace of old-school “forward momentum” of the sort that characterized ‘70s radio.
Recently a reader, Clarke Davis, tagged me on Facebook on behalf of his Top Shelf Oldies Saturday Night Oldies Show, Back to the Hop. “Hitting the post is not part of this deal. The music rules, not an ego-tripping DJ.” Davis’ show is all about deeper oldies. Davis’ show is chock full of oldies discovery. Even for many of my readers, I’m guessing that’s more of a draw than pure DJ athletics.
Even if you wanted to hit the post, it’s harder now in a time of songs with cold intros, although Super Hi-Fi’s MagicStitch tool will create an intro for you on the fly, eliminating the need to send somebody into the “prod room” to create one. Top 40 also has a lot of stately ballads right now. “Daylight” by David Kushner has a :20 intro. But it doesn’t exactly lend itself to screaming about “doing the dirty boogie” the way that Walt Love would.
Against all of this, even I wonder what case I can make for hitting the post that you’ll accept. “When it’s done right, it’s kind of a rush” is only a radio geek argument. Even 30 years ago, it didn’t stand up to “please don’t talk over this song, I’m taping” for pre-Napster listeners. I can also say that I’m against padding a break to fill the post. Please don’t throw in “here’s Fleetwood Mac, ‘Dreams,’ on Classic Hits 100.9,” just to use up a few more seconds.
But here’s why it’s OK to talk over the intros:
I don’t like sterile radio. Making Top 40 radio deliberately unexciting didn’t save AM Top 40 in 1978. It’s not doing much to help FM CHR today. Top 40’s excitement is missing in a lot of places, including the contesting (or lack thereof) and the music itself. WCAU-FM debuted at the peak of yacht rock and made even “Here I Am (Just When I Thought I Was Over You)” by Air Supply sound better, until the music improved. I don’t agree that radio can’t compete with streaming for music discovery. I do agree that we will never be as “pure music” as streaming. Except that Spotify is trying to have DJs.
I don’t like sloppy radio. Radio’s pacing has been made worse by voice-tracking and its tendency toward meandering blocks of content that might fit over an intro or might, just as often, stop the music for no particular reason. That change wasn’t always a choice, just a function of an air-talent who had seven stations to do without the luxury of fitting some old notion of “forward momentum.” Some indie movies are meant to look unartful. What we have now is the equivalent of a boom mic sneaking into the frame in an action blockbuster—the one that goes straight to streaming.
Radio needs to engage with the music. Connecting to the music doesn’t have to happen over the intro. On Triple-A radio, still doing an excellent job of music advocacy, it usually isn’t. But in this world of random content blocks, selling or even being funny about the song you’re playing now is a listener connection that we’re mostly missing. Even after the eight-month journey of “What It Is (Block Boy)” from R&B to the CHR top five, I don’t know anything about Doechii that I didn’t learn from Wikipedia. Perhaps this is why pop radio seems to be a format without stars now?
Radio needs to reconnect to the moment. Nobody wants the DJ at a club or a party to stop the music to converse for 20 seconds about yesterday’s celebrity trivia. We’re fine with them blowing an airhorn over it, too. We accept it as being in the moment and connecting the audience to the music. Random breaks at random intervals aren’t getting it done for radio now. We need a sense of real time and relating to the song that’s playing now is part of that. At this point, even time checks—once the most gratuitous of jock crutches—are proof that host and listener are sharing a moment.
The real discussion is about personality and show-biz. I couldn’t tell you without listening whether the hosts on Canada’s “join the conversation” stations ever actually talk over an intro. (They don’t talk over fades, but let imaging ID the station.) It doesn’t matter because those are forefront radio stations. If radio was excitingly produced and marketed with brief personality, it wouldn’t matter how precisely the breaks were timed to the vocal. But where else are we trying to create excitement and energy now?
The essence of good air personality has always been delivering the most content in the most efficient way. There have only been a few Howard Stern-like exceptions, and even among our morning hosts, there is nobody whose meanderings are always as good as they think they are. Having a post to hit always gave music radio people a chance to come up with the right content and challenged them to write it effectively. That 20-second celebrity news bit sounds pretty turgid over dead air between songs, but it doesn’t sound much better jammed in over a nine second intro either.
Being “in the music” is only one part of the debate about making radio more compelling again. But sometimes talking about the song you’re playing now is a spotlight, not a distraction. Even without the “whooo” for punctuation (okay, particularly without it), sometimes it’s actually the best way to respect the music.
Always a great article Sean and yes, I remember John DeBella and Howard Eskin iin Philly “hitting the post” on John Mellencamp’s “I Need A Lover” with that long info. (That was back when they did their disastrous “sports rock” format. But Alan Freed at his best could not save that horrid Air Supply song.
I agree with your final paragraph Sean… Often being “in” the music is the best way to respect it. A jock can compliment the music and, if his/her pacing, tone and “volume” is commensurate with the intro, It can enhance the listening experience. I currently voice track on a station where 1) we talk over intros, 2) we never front or back sell the music (we play all gold, so there’s no reason to do so), and 3) we work hard to be topical, fun, and creative in every break. While we do use some station positioning and key benefit phrases, it’s not even obvious- We let the imaging do the majority of that heavy lifting (although our imaging is also very creative and compelling). The “intimacy with energy” aesthetic is a skill radio seems to have lost, maybe because so few new air talents understand how to do it, not because it’s outdated.
Living in Chicago, we have been graced with great talented jocks, but the absolute best example of hitting the post I ever heard was when Charlie Van Dyke was at WLS and he played Timmy Thomas’ Why Don’t We Live Together. Charlie pontificated for 1:34 and then hit it exactly as “Tell me more tell me more…” was sung.
“The real discussion is about personality and show-biz.” And talking up records, hitting the post without revving up or padding, filling that intro as masterfully as a 78 rpm-era jazz virtuoso could fill his eight solo bars with pure eloquence, was part of the craft of jockery and the art of radio,
But in a voicetracked world, where a jock can’t surf the music in real time, when warmed-over celebrity gossip over a music bed can pass for personality, these skills might seem about as relevant as flawlessly intoning “This is the National Broadcasting Company.” Maybe talking up the entirety of “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” was an indulgence only a fellow jock could appreciate, and it’s something no tyro should ever try. But that forward momentum truly enhanced a station’s sound, if only subliminally.
(And as for cold opens, there was always the “inverted segue” over an outro into the next record.)
Maybe it’s time to reconsider these values, especially at stations that still have live, real-time air staffers. Just as it might be time to reconsider things like time and temperature or local sports scores as added-value elements within those talkups. (No need to look at your watch or phone! We’ll save you the trouble!) But it’s an art that a new generation may have to work at learning and practicing.
This: “time and temperature or local sports scores as added-value elements within those talkups. (No need to look at your watch or phone!”
Radio needs to rediscover the small things that add the sense of time and place. Sure, listeners can look at their phone or go to the web. But why send them away? Be useful! Radio can’t be the best uninterrupted jukebox, so be informative and useful! Be invaluable!
As for talking over intros, it’s like pitching up records, making really really tight segues, etc. It’s all showmanship. It’s our art. Great radio ain’t a museum!
Another kind of added value element occurs to me: News headlines, only one story, over an intro with a cross-plug for the cluster’s news-talk station.if you want to know more. They’ll return to you if they’re in it for the music. Keep people tuned in SOMEWHERE.
I’m not sure people today knows what it means to engage with the music. That’s something you heard all the time during the WLS/WCFL airchecks that we heard several weeks ago. It’s not just what you say, but how you say it, reacting to the excitement of the music. It’s showing emotion. It’s now a lost art.
Lots to be said over this whole concept, Sean-pacing is one thing. There are (were) certain jocks who apparently couldn’t hear the song they were playing because they were shouting too loud. There are (were) certain jocks who will use a :15 intro to tell me the latest Taylor Swift news-and it’s not a Taylor Swift song. Voicetracking these days doesn’t give the jock a lot of control over the music level and that can be problematic. Brother Bill Gable was a master at talkovers, that is true. As is the great “Big Jim Davis” -and many of the CKLW masters. If the music is the reason for the station, it should be used as a tool for accentuating the “feel” of the station and what the listener can expect. Do it right, and those talkovers are one of the best atmosphere tools the world has ever known. Just remember a song with a long intro even has a “musical” post that can be hit and you’ve proven that you respect the music, while using it as a forward momentum tool.
We’re still the coolest station for 70 miles in any direction. 😉
As requested, Sean… my comment from Facebook: Todd McLaren
Mike Joseph didn’t want us talking over the intros because “that’s where they put all the most important production, maan..” So unless the record was some wimpy, soft love song, we only talked over the fade.
That accomplished a couple of things. 1) people got to hear the entire record they loved, 2) it gave us room to say what we had to say, and 3) it eliminated listeners confusion over “what was the name of that song?”, because we ID’d it at the end.
Sure, hitting the post was a skill, but remember that it started during the ’50s and ’60s when a lot of the hit music had :08, :10, or :12 second intros. By the time the intros reached :25 – :45 seconds…well, normally jocks were just talking to hear themselves talk.
Dan Ingram, say, was a master of timing, and never failed to be entertaining, but on a longer intro even *he* tended to bail at the first musical sting that made sense.”
What Dave Mason said!!!
Would add at AND of a song, please don’t talk over the last words and the “cold” ending! Please!!!
Tends to be a big issue particularly in Country Radio.
Hearing it all the time.
Country songs are more often stories, with the point of the story driven home by the last few words and/or a guitar strum.
The unawareness of the music from many jocks may come from a lack of coaching – or the issue that when breaks are tracked, and even when done live, the talent and the music live in two separate worlds – but they shouldn’t. Mood matching and guiding transition is a critical role of the talent.
When a “tonally-challenged” jock comes out of a song that’s just told an amazing and moving story and barks over the “punchline” and strum, it destroys the experience.
Happens a LOT!
Coach the coaches, so they may coach the talent…
Of course, that is, IF there are coaches!
Respect the music. Respect the listener.
What Dave Mason said!!!
I would add – at the END of a song, please don’t talk over the last words and the “cold” ending! Please!!! Tends to be a big issue particularly in Country Radio. Hearing it all the time.
Country songs are more often stories, with the point of the story driven home by the last few words and/or a guitar strum. The unawareness of the music from many jocks may come from a lack of coaching – or the issue that when breaks are tracked, and even when done live, the talent and the music live in two separate worlds – but they shouldn’t. Mood matching and guiding transition is a critical role of the talent.
When a “tonally-challenged” jock comes out of a song that’s just told an amazing and moving story and just barks over the “punchline” of the story and the strum as an exclamation point, it destroys the experience. Happens a LOT!
Coach the coaches, so they may coach the talent… Of course, that is, IF there are coaches!
Respect the music. Respect the listener.
What TOM said!! Adding to that–examples. “Bohemian Rhapsody” -one of the most played in Classic Hits these days- please don’t jump in at the “gong”. “Taxi” by Harry Chapin. He goes flying high when he’s stoned -and it’s followed by 7-8 seconds of music. Let it play, please. He’s spent SIX minutes setting a mood, telling a story. Jerry Jock can jump in and ruin the mood in a heartbeat. Mike Joseph was partly right when he said “That’s where they put the production”. Not always. “Go All The Way” -yup. “In The Air Tonight” – nope. “My Sharona”- nope. “I Love Rock “n Roll” – yup.
Every song has its own essence, and smart radio people can sense and utilize it all the way to #1. Our good buddy Greaseman had a knack of talking up “Stairway To Heaven” -or “Theme From ‘Shaft'” – always telling a story. A great entertaining story. Anyone else trying to do that is stealing from the master. I know. I tried. The results were horrendous.
If you’re gonna talk over it, tell me a story. Tie it into the music. You’re smart to know that the Red Cross PSA -while important, shouldn’t be part of your intro to “Papa Don’t Preach”.
Tom:
Excellent points — particularly with respect to those deeply emotional country ballads.
Just to clarify the old Mike Joseph formats: He agreed with you. There was never any talking allowed over any song that ended “cold”, whether it was a vocal, or just a really nicely produced musical sting. In those cases, we just rolled into the next jingle.
It was always all about respecting the music, and — more importantly — the listener.
His stations sounded great, because he knew how to work WITH the music, while respecting it!
Dr. Don Rose, ( who could cover any technical problem and still always hit the post…making it seem effortless), Skinny Bobby Harper, Humble Harve, Don Steel, Robert W. Morgan, Gary McDowell, Tony Taylor, Gary Granger, Bill Drake (even back when he was at WAKE) and a host of others made radio real……even with the help of the infamous Graylab timer. (Google it). Radio wasn’t just a jukebox….it was companionship, entertaining, local, full of energy and always fun!
Spoken like a true caring radio veteran, Jim. That’s why the GOOD jocks exist.
Talking over the intro of a song always makes for a fun, energetic-sounding radio station. It’s one of those intangibles that help make a station feel the way it does to a listener. Combine that with a jock actually engaging with the music and you’ve got the makings of a good radio station.
And if you want to hear the ultimate music jock go back and listen to Steve Lundy who worked at KILT, KFRC, KHJ, WLS, WXYZ, WNBC, KROQ . He felt the music so much he almost became part of the melody and had an automatic transmission in his voice not only over the intros but the putrid and then transitioning to his next element in his break whether a live ad , weather a station liner or anything ! I only wish I could have met him to study directly under him while at KILT but I think he had died by then . RIP Steve Lundy !
John Volpe
WTIX New Orleans
Couldn’t have said it better, Steve.
What a thrill it was to hear JoJo “Cookin'” Kincaide FIND posts in songs you didn’t even know were there, and HIT them. This was on Kiss 108 circa 1985.
Hitting the post was fun, but listeners didn’t care or even really notice, the way the jocks did, anyway. But there was a short-lived CHR in Reno in the mid-’80s that had the jocks talk over the ends of songs, instead of the intros, to leave the intros alone. But that meant talking long before the fades began, so listeners still missed a good chunk of each song.