How to develop an on-air presence
- ksizzle00009
- Apr 21, 2021
- 2 min read
In this week’s COMM 415 lecture we talked all about developing an on-air presence. In one part there were 5 tips of advice for developing an on-air presence and they were:
1. Be yourself.
2. Use passive and active moments.
3. Write your own material.
4. Be a friend to the audience.
5. Rehearse frequently.
For my blog this week I want to go a little in-depth for all five of these helpful tips.
1. Be yourself
In any aspect of life, you always want to be yourself. This is especially true on air. If you are not yourself, many of the viewers will recognize that, and who wants to watch someone they feel is phony? The answer is not many. Obviously, if you are on-air there will be some nerves associated with it, so maybe you won’t be the same as if you were at home hanging out with people, but you just need to be you.
2. Use passive and active moments
As Mr. Vareberg mentioned in the lecture, you want there to be some highs and lows. In many aspects of life, it is good to be even keel but on-air you want some flair and excitement. You want the good moments and the bad moments because these are what will attract your listeners to your show.
3. Write your own material
Writing your own material has a few major benefits for your on-air presence. First, you will know the content better because you created it, leading to a more authentic and efficient on-air presence. Secondly, you are able to have more control over what your material looks like. Both of these are reasons that you should try and write your own material. This is a piece of advice that takes up time but will definitely pay off for anyone looking to get on the air and become the next Bob Costas.
4. Be a friend to the audience
For many, this will be something that will be a struggle. It is hard to look at a camera as if it were a person. I think using some visualization is good training for this. You want to envision the person driving in their car, drinking coffee while they listen to your show. Think of the person listening through their earbuds as they play their show on your phone while they workout. Thinking of things like this can help you envision your audience and be able to treat a camera/microphone as if it were a person.
5. Rehearse frequently
Just like anything else in life, you must practice, practice, and keep practicing. If you want to develop a memorable on-air presence, you need to practice. Make sure that you keep an open mind and try and learn from your mistakes. At a basketball camp a coach once told me, “practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect”. You want to continue to learn and implement it into your practice, so you can start to have “perfect practices”.
To conclude…
As I wrap up my blog, hopefully, you all can find something that you can implement when trying to develop your on-air voice. My question to you all this week is, out of these 5 tips, which one do you feel is the most important, and why?
I think that being yourself and rehearsing are the two most important pieces of advice here. It's important to be natural as possible, as audience might be appreciate that, as every single one of us is unique. Second, we are not perfect and might lack some skills — this is where practicing comes in and helps us to get better.
I think that being yourself and rehearsing are the two most important pieces of advice here. It's important to be natural as possible, as audience might be appreciate that, as every single one of us is unique. Second, we are not perfect and might lack some skills — this is where practicing comes in and helps us to get better.
The most critical takeaway from this week's lesson is to practice regularly, and if I'm on live tv and making a report. And I don't get any of my own stuff, so I don't know what to say. That is to say, I didn't practice my script enough just to know how to respond or do. As a result, the best advice for newcomers to the broadcast industry is to practice regularly.
The most important tip from the lecture this week is rehearse frequently, because if I'm on live television and is doing a broadcast on the weather outside today. And I don't have my own material, which leds to me not doing what to say. Which means I didn't rehearse my script frequently enough to know what to say or do. So the best tip for people beginning the broadcast job is rehearse frequently.