These are often like a bed for the presenter to talk over however they tend to build up and are followed by a piece of production at the end as a perfect transition into a song that has no intro for the presenter to talk over. The reason it is called a doughnut is because there is production at the start and the end, and a bed in the middle for the presenter to talk in, doughnuts can be hard to use if you are not used to the duration of speech you can fit in the middle. This means working out what needs to be done to ensure the presenter hits the clock start on time, doing this could involve doing a link (see below) for a specific amount of time or fading songs.Ī link is a fancy word for chatting on air, its basically linking the content either side, a link could be between two songs or into an ad break.Ī bed is something you lie in to sleep….And bizarrely it is also a radio term for a piece of music or production that can play while the presenter is doing a lengthy link or interview.Ī doughnut could be seen as a cross between a jingle and a bed, some doughnuts are produced to incorporate sung production.
Most pieces of professional playout software will allow you to create the segue and ‘save it’ so it will play the segue itself.ĭead Air is something all presenters hate, this is when nothing is going out on air which means listeners are likely to switch off or change station.īacktiming is mainly used within commercial radio when something has to be hit at a specific time, such as satellite news. Presenters/DJ’s will want to make these sound as professional as they can, without anything being played over each other in a way that clashes or without gaps. The transition between any two pieces of audio within radio is known as a Segue. Sweepers are often played between two songs during the segue (see below), sweepers tend to have as little production effects in as possible as where a song has an intro the presenter may choose to play the sweeper over the intro. These will not be played over any other production such as music intro’s as they are designed to be played on their own, often to break up the end of ad breaks into music. You can expect to hear the strap lineĪ produced piece of audio which is can be produced by professional studio singers who will often sing DJ names or station strap lines such as “More Music Variety”. For example ours is “Non Stop Dance”, other popular strap lines include “More Music Variety” or “Today’s Best Mix”. Most radio stations have a strap line they use to help the audience identify easily what they do. I wrote this article a couple of years ago, and hopefully it will be of benefit to people just starting out in radio to understand a lot of the terms, although some of the meanings do differ from country to country too.