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The Blog
Notes on prep, on-air craft, and how this thing is built. Free to read — no account, no email wall.
How to cut your aircheck reel in Riano Studio
A program director gives your aircheck about a minute. Here's how to pick the breaks, trim each one tight, put the best first and send it, all inside ShowPrepPro.
Read it →A major upgrade: build your aircheck in Riano Studio, and a page of your own to send it from
Mark your best breaks while you listen, cut them into one aircheck in Riano Studio, and put it on a page of your own at showpreppro.com/@yourname.
Aircheck yourself without thinking about it
Every consultant tells you to aircheck. Almost nobody does — not from laziness, but because recording yourself is four jobs at once. Here's how it becomes one button.
Archive a show, and get the whole morning back
What you said, the copy you read it from, and the recording of you saying it, kept together under one reference. How closing a day works, and why it clears your desk.
Build your whole morning show in ShowPrepPro, start to finish
A walk through one morning in ShowPrepPro: find the stories, build a break against the clock, put it on the rundown, and read it on the air.
Running your show prep in Notion: how to do it well, and where it stops
A Notion setup for radio show prep that actually works — the database, the views, the daily template — and the four things no document can do at 5:55am.
Two sources, or it doesn't run
Why every factual item in ShowPrepPro shows its sources with the date each one published, why we look for two independent ones, and what a single-source item tells you.
Your prep lands at 5pm the day before
Two builds a day, not one: the full edition drops in the late afternoon so you can prep the night before, and the news sections refresh before dawn so nothing is stale.
What an AI host can't do at 6:40 on a Tuesday
AI voices can read a liner now. Here's the part of a radio host's job they can't do — presence, accountability, live response, local memory — and how to make yours audible.
The anatomy of a ninety-second break
A working structure for the talk break, why the cold close matters more than the setup, and how to time one before you open the mic instead of after.
How to prep a radio show: a routine that survives a bad week
A show prep routine for radio hosts that survives a bad week: when to prep, the three-pass method, how much a four-hour shift needs, and what to cut first.
How to still have a voice on Friday: vocal care for broadcasters
Vocal care for radio hosts who talk for a living: hydration that reaches the cords, warm-ups, reflux, mic technique that lowers strain, and when hoarseness means a doctor.
Tongue twisters for radio: a six-minute warm-up that actually fixes things
Tongue twisters for broadcasters, organized by the sound they fix: plosives, sibilants, L and R, and the jaw. A six-minute warm-up, and how not to overdo it.
Where to find show prep material you're actually allowed to use
Public domain and openly licensed sources for radio show prep — Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress, NASA, NOAA, the Smithsonian — and what each license allows.
Sound like yourself, only clearer: building an on-air personality that isn't fake
How to develop a radio personality that's recognisably you and still strong on air: losing the announcer voice, what reads as weak, and the drills that fix both.
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