Dave Ryan, Off Mic: Part Two
Dave Ryan reveals what type of content drives his show’s ratings success, and the value of serial content.
Randy
Randy: It’s called “The Dave Ryan Show,” but how did you arrive at your strategy of highlighting an ensemble cast?
DR: I don’t care if someone has a bigger part of the show than me. As long as we’re all doing well, we all win. I don’t care if people love Falen more than me, as long as we win. I really need them to be a big part of the show.
Randy: How much emphasis do you put on relationship content and relationship drama?
DR: So much of what we do is focused on relationships, probably more than anything else.
For example, we had a woman on our show who dated this guy and then decided he wasn’t for her. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and for three months he would send her flowers, leave notes on her car, and she kept saying, “I told you; I’m not interested.” She came up with a plan to get rid of him. And that’s where we ended the story on day one.
On day two she told us that she told him, “What I really want you to do is help me kill my ex-boyfriend.” She never heard from the guy again.
And people LOVED that story because so many women could relate to that relationship. People still talk about it. In fact, we have a follow up story on it next week.
Randy: Does a lot of your content go over more than one day, with story lines and serial content like that last example?
DR: I’ll be honest with you. I wish we could do better at having a story line that starts today and finishes tomorrow, or we have part of it today, and part of it next Friday. It’s a harder thing to find story lines like that when nobody on our show is pregnant, engaged or getting divorced, but we’re working it because it’s very important.
Randy: Well, that’s one of the ways that you get more PPM tune-ins, which is what drives that ratings system.
DR: Yep, and I learned that from you, Randy. I think you called it parallel teasing, or something like that.
Randy: Horizontal teasing. Big interviews are a great opportunity for a horizontal tease. If the interview is tomorrow at 8:00, today at 8:00 you can do a horizontal tease because people listen at the same time every day, based on their schedule.
DR: Right. We’ve been great with character development, content, and great with presentation and reliability. But, we’re working on those story lines that can be teased into the same time tomorrow.
Randy: How important is video to your show?
DR: Our show takes chances, which I think is very important if you want to stand out. We had a problem with our studio chairs. They were old and had been beaten to death. But management refused to get new ones. So we took them to the top of the nine story parking garage, and got video throwing them off the roof. We actually got written up for damaging company property. A few weeks later when that video set records on our website, the same guy who wrote us up got praised by the company for having a record-setting video on our station website. It was maddening, but we all laugh about it now.
