Prosper wants to know how long a demo should be and what skills he should showcase. Intro, backlink, live read, close a show etc.
ShabZi explains the requirements for submitting a demo to the South African Radio Awards and suggests that Prosper use a similar model while giving tips on content he could use.
If you’re a presenter, you should be working on your demos. You should have a product that’s ready because somebody is going to reply to that email and ask you to send your demo. You can’t scramble to assemble the demo when people are prepared for you.
Everything you think someone with your opportunity would ask should be ready before you request the opportunity.
Prosper: According to your industry knowledge, how long should my demo be? What are the skills I should be showcasing?
ShabZi: It should be six minutes. First, showcase your strengths, then include a live read. Do you know how to do an intro link? Greet the people, throw forward into the show, what’s coming up. Then get into a topic or react to something in current affairs.
But remember, if you’re going to do a link that involves your opinion, you need to be very captivating. You need to be very interesting for me to care about your opinion on hip hop.
The longer I’m in the industry, the more I realise why some people might not have given me the time of day. It’s because I didn’t have the experience. Today, if I speak out about Hip Hop, people care because of my experience and the leg work I’ve done in the actual game.
You’re somebody that I don’t know so I don’t know if I care about your opinion. I’d maybe shy away from very opinionated links and maybe focus on a feature that you’d like to present if you had to have that show. Maybe one of the features that you’d have could be a game. How would that game go? Do an example of that game.
Then if you want to showcase that you do touch on current affairs, maybe just do a throw forward link of you saying, “Coming up next we touch on voting and we’re going to be speaking to Dr Whoever about What”, and you’re out. See, you never exerted your opinion but you did highlight that you're in touch with what’s happening right now. And you’re aware that we need to speak to professionals regarding that subject.
I hope you found this helpful. If you're interested in broadcasting and would like some one-on-one guidance on how to navigate this challenging space, book a session below.
As always, until next time,
DalliRated!
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