RESOURCES

From an article originally published in Current, January 28, 2002 written by Ken Mills and Steve Martin, 11 actionable tips for keeping the focus on the listeners.

KPBS-FM in San Diego has posted an excellent guide for callers on its page for These Days, their excellent local program. These tips are nicely written and very comprehensive. High recommended.

Holland Cooke is one of the brightest commercial radio talk consultants. He works as an independent contractor with McVay Media. His tips for screeners, with a bit of editing for the "public radio sensibility," are good for new screener training.

Cooke bases his operation on Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island. There he runs bed-and-breakfast (his "constantly changing focus group') and keeps track of talk programming by radio, satellite TV and on-line listening. He digests it all and provides frequent updates on his web site.

Available to people at NPR member stations, research resulting from a series of focus groups in four cities to assess the NPR News/Talk Programs, including The Diane Rehm Show, Fresh Air, Public Interest, and Talk of the Nation.

Available to PRPD members, a field test of tools developed from PRPD's ongoing Core Values Project. The test includes quarterly reports on Case Studies of talk shows on three regional networks using evaluation tools developed by a joint PRPD/PRNDI working group.

TALKERS magazine is the leading trade publication for the commercial radio talk industry. It calls itself "The Bible of Talk Radio" which may be particularly appropriate because the magazine's extensive coverage of conservative and religious talk programs and hosts. The web site features research and perspective about the growing world of commercial talk radio.