0653 – When your Insert Goes Down

2022.10.15 – 0653 – When your Insert Goes Down

In a radio or podcast studio, confusing the audience with technical jargon can compound the problem, like: “I’m sorry, but that insert seems to have gone down”. Or, “We don’t seem to have that package”.’ A package to most people is what they get from Amazon. Practise what you are going to say when something goes wrong until it becomes almost a reflex action.[1]

When that report does eventually arrive, the audience will have forgotten what it is about and the presenter should re-introduce it by re-reading or paraphrasing the cue.

Where you stumble over a word or phrase, you should judge quickly whether to repeat it. If the sense of the item has been lost, by saying, for instance, “Beecham pleaded guilty to the murder”, when he pleaded not guilty, then the sentence should be said again, correctly. Avoid the cliché, “I’m sorry, I’ll read that again”– “I’m sorry” will do. If the mistake is a minor one, let it go. Chances are the audience will quickly forget it, whereas drawing attention to it with an apology might only make it worse.

Think what you can do so you not get in the situation again:

·        Preparation and double-checking scripts and tech

·        Rehearse the words

·        Be comfortable with the read and the room, the script and the studio

·        Relaxation and breathing exercises to calm you down so you can think clearly in a live studio situation.

[1] In 2017 a technical fault temporarily halted the BBC News at Ten, leaving presenter Huw Edwards sitting in silence in the studio but live on air for four minutes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40350006

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