Radio Lessons From The Real World – #17 James Bond

James Bond movies start with a bang.

They don’t begin with 007’s alarm going off, him grumbling and fumbling for the snooze button, farting and rolling over for 7 more minutes of shut eye before reluctantly getting up. They don’t show him staggering to the bathroom for a morning constitutional while checking his iPhone for Facebook likes from Moneypenny and M’s encrypted email with a photo of the latest megalomaniac narcissist he has to throw off a mountain by mid afternoon.

They capture the audience’s attention instantly – an exotic location, a chase, a girl, a fight with a bad guy – all before they even bother to roll the open credits and officially start the film with the necessary housekeeping of title, stars, director, writers and mandatory haunting theme song.

Now other movies are starting to adapt the same formula and it works. Why?

The world is simply, busier. As humans, demand for our time and attention is stretched to the edge of its elasticity and we require instant gratification. It is no longer a Millennial Generation thing – we are all the same.

Story telling in 2016 and beyond has to be done this way. Listen to the last  break on your show or station and put it through the filter of the James Bond Rule.

Lose the superfluous setup stuff and get to the meat. Treat your audience with time respect and the will return the favour with loyalty.

About Ronnie Stanton

Aussie kid living in Canada. His office job is VP – National Brands and Programming for Corus Entertainment . Ronnie also consults radio stations and coaches morning shows all over the world. He can be reached at [email protected]