0468 – Intimate Audio

2022.04.13 – 0468 – Intimate Audio

To sound credibly intimate, and less like ‘an announcer’, you need to convince yourself that you are talking to one single person. That way each listener will fantasise that that person is them. Direct your comments to this person, and in doing so you’ll become more ‘real’; communicating on a one-to-one basis with someone that you know and with whom you feel at ease. You will feel freer to express real emotions, and so become more relatable and believable.

Radio is intimate and personal in a way that television is not. People often listen to the radio alone – in the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen or in the car and it is the skill of talking to people singly while actually speaking to an audience of thousands that the presenter has to master.

‘TV at its best is an amazing medium of pizzazz and excitement. But radio is fantastically intimate: one person a microphone and a relationship.’[1]

Talking to everyone, one at a time, is something that many newcomers to radio have trouble grasping – especially those who have previously been television presenters where the style is different. You’re still broadcasting, so you would think it natural to refer to listeners as a group, a crowd. But where most TV viewers tend to watch in a group, most radio listening is done alone.

 ‘In broadcasting your audience is conjectural, but it is an audience of one. Millions may be listening, but each is listening alone, or as a member of a small group, and each has (or ought to have) the feeling that you are speaking to him individually’[2]

So, part of being conversational is imagining you are having a conversation with someone you know, who is interested in what you are talking with them about.

[1] Roger Mosey, Head of BBC Sport, ex-Controller BBC Radio Five Live, Radio Academy event, November 2005

[2] George Orwell, author, March 1945

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