You can only learn to do all of the above with practice, practice and yet more practice. This is where hospital/student/community radio is vital. It is the perfect platform for you to practice, gain experience and to fine tune your presentation style. You need to find out what kind of a presenter you are. Are you a presenter that is good at talking about yourself, your life experiences and funny little observations, or are you a presenter that is comfortable just talking about the songs you are playing?. You need to find out what your comfort zone is, what your strength and weaknesses are as a presenter, and you will still need to work on both.

Listen to lots of different styles of radio presenters, both on local and national radio. Listen and learn to what you think sounds good and what doesn’t sound so good. Train your “radio ear”. The best presenters instinctively know what works on the air and what doesn’t. But don’t try to be the people you idolise, learn from them but also learn to be yourself. It can take years of work and practice to be yourself on the air, but its a lot better than trying to be somebody else.

If you are already on a radio station, hospital/student/community, then record every bit of your output and listen back to it and analyse it. What sounded good, what didn’t and get opinions from somebody else. It is vital that you can take constructive criticism and even more so if you can learn from it and improve your presentation style. If you do achieve a career in broadcasting, then you will meet people whose job it is to listen to you and tell you what they like, what they don’t like and how you can improve.

And the most important tip, have fun on the air and enjoy it.You never ever know who is listening to you. On the day you have a bad day and you sound bored and fed up on the air could be the day a programme controller from another station is listening to you for the first time.

Click here for the Presenter Checklist

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