How to Write For Radio
- Nov 20, 2016
- 1 min read
The first thing you need to remember when writing for radio is “Time is Money.” Stories should be no longer than 60 seconds.
Stories without extra sound should be less than 30 seconds long. The best way to time you radio broadcast is to read loud and slow.
Capture the most important part of sound bites and should be 15 words or less. Convey all messages quickly and with as few of words as possible.
News releases on the radio are not advertisements it is journalism. Be sure to not sounds like you are promoting the content. You need to just inform your audience of the event or product in the new release.
Releases should not use legal speak, and be easily understood. You should speak in a conversational tone and punctuate clearly.
The listeners of radio do not have long attention spans so keep the releases short. Then after writing the release try and shorten each sentence more.
You will lose your listeners if you start your story with a name. The audience will ignore the sentences after and try to figure out who the person is instead.
Guideline for how long news release stories should be.
2 lines = 10 seconds (about 25 words)
5 lines = 20 seconds (about 50 words)
8 lines = 30 seconds (about 75 words)
16 lines = 60 seconds (about 150 words)
Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques eighth edition, a textbook by Dennis L. Wilcox and Bryan H. Reber was consulted during the making of this blog post.
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