Let's Talk About Guests

Working in News/Talk and Sports/Talk, the question always comes up: How many guests should be on? Okay, think about this; most talk hosts are on two to four hours a day. That works out to an average of three sets an hour, around 12 to 16 minutes a set. That leaves you an average of, on the high end, say, 44 minutes of actual talk time (in most cases, this would be a lot less with promos, news and weather). For the sake of argument, let's say that you have 44 minutes. The station hired you for those 44 minutes because you are opinionated, local and can talk on key topics and generate lots of calls. Remember, they hired you!

So why would you want to book a lightweight guest to take up your valuable air time, when the station is trying to make you a star?

I hear so many talk hosts in both News/Talk and Sports/Talk welcoming lightweight guests, like Bob Nobody from whocares.com. The listeners want your opinion. The station hired you, not Bob Nobody.

Now let's talk about booking a guest. Ask yourself these questions:

• Is this a superstar guest?
• Can this guest add the following to my show?
  • Entertainment (someone funny and can make us laugh).
  • Educate us (tell us something we did not know, like a rule change in sports, or a new voting district in a state).
  • Information: "Now here is Chuck Jones, the play-by-play guy for the Red Wings with the injury update on Dan Cleary."

The first rule is, if you need more than 15 seconds to introduce the guest, FORGET IT. Remember, it's about you. Jay Leno, David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel can all do 90 minutes without a guest. The second rule: Who says you have to talk to them for longer than two minutes? I use the example of "The Today Show." Their philosophy is, no matter who the guest is, Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney, the Pope ... no matter who it is, they give them two minutes or less.