Television Commercials vs. Radio Commercials

Television commercials always have background music that intensifies throughout the commercial.  Also television commercials can draw their audience in by offering a lot of emotion and visuals whereas radio must draw a picture in words.  Visuals from television commercials include a lot of graphic overlays that keep your attention.  Depending on the product, the commercial on television can make more of an impact by playing on the emotions of the viewer.  For instance, a chanel perfume commercial was very sensual with romantic music to create an environment that we desire and thus temp you to buy the product.  Another commercial for McDonald's chicken nuggets focused on a group of young people feasting on the nuggets and as one of them was talking the others ate all of the nuggets, and it was a situation most young people could relate to - a fun loving time with humor.  Radio doesn't have the luxury of enticing us with all the visuals.  The commercial on radio was more exaggerated audio with background sound effects and music.

Interviews

Even though I have done many interviews in several of my Broadcasting classes, I still have picked up on many different techniques that will make for a better interview.  After going to a conference last week I realized how much the speaker or the person doing the interview plays a large role in the interest of the audience.  There are many details to consider when either doing an interview or speech.  The way you project your voice and your facial expressions, hand gestures, and especially your tone and dynamics in your voice.  Smiling and responding to your guests' responses makes for a much better interview. 

I experienced different speakers last week at a conference.  The morning started out with dynamic speakers that really kept your attention.  They had a lot of emotion and expressions.  However, that afternoon speakers began like a slow moving train.  The first speaker after lunch had a very soft spoken voice and didn't have the emotions as the morning speakers.  The next speaker was very low key, kind of monotone, and it was very difficult to stay focused, especially after you had just returned from lunch, which is when your body tries to tell you it wants a nap.  That would be a much better time to have a dynamic speaker. 

In public speaking when we were trying to choose our topics for our speeches, we were told not to worry about getting material the audience will be interested in, that there no boring topics, just boring speakers.
This puts it in perspective.  You as the host or speaker have the responsibility to connect with your audience.
I know there are many more opportunites to learn different techniques and I look forward to moving forward and applying these.

Newscast

Brigida Mack is news anchor for WBTV-TV.  She was nominated for an emmy in 2004 and has won many awards in Creative Loafing magazine under "Best of Charlotte" section. She came from WSOC.  Brigida enjoys watching Tar Heel basketball, working out, traveling and spending time with family and friends.

On Tuesday I watched the news on WBTV with Brigida Mack.  Her presentation is always very professional but at times she talks with too many pauses in my opinion. Sentences come across as poor pausing techniques. I guess this is a good thing because it allows her to have inflection in her voice by taking her time and paying attention to her speech.  Her tone was not as dramatic as most news anchors.  She comes across to me as just a normal news anchor, whereas, so many add color to their newscast to draw you into the stories.  I would much rather have her professionalism than the news anchors that try to be humerous and get so dramatic.  For instance, Eric Thomas, when he does the weather.  He is definitely one that adds color to his presentations.  He has a lot of inflection and use of tone, a very dramatic presentation, especially when there is exciting weather like tornadoes, hurricanes, etc that he gets to use his new technology.  Interesting point about someone that adds the dramatic aspect, will always be remembered more than the anchor that tends to sway more to the monotone area.