More of this Feature • Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Chapter 9 • Chapter 10 • Chapter 11 • Chapter 12 • Chapter 13 • Chapter 14

• Join the Discussion Discuss in the Forum

Related Resources •  Want To Work On The Radio? •  Back On The Air - And Now It's Personal •  Radio Morning Man Terminology •  So, You Wanna Work In Radio? •  Confessions of a Morning DJ •  The Radio DJ FAQ •  How Do I Break Into Radio? •  You Don't Have To Be On The Air To Be In Radio •  Be A DJ: Radio Jobs Available

One more Example from “The Daily Sentinel”, Grand Junction, CO:

 An intense fire destroyed the crematory at Callahan-Edfast Mortuary on Monday, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and reducing a portion of one of Mesa County's oldest businesses to a blackened heap.

 The fire broke out at about 1:45 p.m. in the attic of the crematory and grew quickly, leaving a group of 20 firefighters scrambling to keep it from spreading to the main facility, located at 2515 Patterson Road.

 A motorist on Patterson Road spotted flames coming from a vent on the north side of the building and called 911, said Grand Junction Fire Department spokesman Jeff Brown.

 Amazingly, human remains inside the crematory were not damaged or burned by the fire, according to Nikki Blackburn, who with her husband, Mike, owns Callahan-Edfast.

And now, my rewrite:

Here's a weird story out of Colorado: An intense fire destroyed a crematory on Monday, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and reducing a portion of one of Mesa County's oldest businesses to a blackened heap. Oddly enough, human remains inside the crematory were not damaged or burned by the fire.

Do you really miss the irrelevant details? I don't think so.

Recorded Content

What else constitutes your showprep style? Do you use recorded parodies, comedy bits and material like that? If so, the question you must ask yourself - and you need to be absolutely honest - is simply “Is the material worth running?” When you have one or more comedy services, it's fairly easy to become lazy and indiscriminate. We sometimes make the mistake of assuming that the people who write and produce recorded comedy services are really funny.

The fact of the matter is, the comedy service they send you is their job and they're under the gun to produce a certain amount of cuts each week whether they're feeling funny or not. Comedy services consistently use old formats and trite tricks for concocting bits. Things I hate the most about services:

1. Parody songs set to a recent hit with lyrics that just are not very funny. Comedy services make the mistake of assuming the music of the hit will carry the bit when sometimes the (cont.)

Next Page > Chapter 2 - Page 4