There’s a distinction between content that connects and content that alienates, and most personalities have never heard it named clearly. That’s why it’s so common to hear Who Cares and What’s In It For Me performances. It’s not about topic, length, or even how self-absorbed the language is, though that’s related. It’s about where the content lives, and how far the listener has to travel to get there.
Every piece of content falls into one of three categories. Two of them fail more often than they connect. One of them is the target. And the thin line between all three is invisible until you know what you’re looking for, at which point it becomes the most useful diagnostic tool in performance. The three categories are Inside, Internal, and Personal.
Inside, Internal, Personal: What’s The Difference?
This gets technical and a little tricky, because a Personal Story can easily become Inside or Internal, and sometimes Internal or Inside material can be uniquely and charmingly Personal. The point is that there’s risk in two of the three, and it is important to know the differences.
Inside
Inside content revolves around the show’s world, including the studio, the staff, the equipment, the physical space behind the glass, and the things happening in the room that listeners have no access to and no context for. And the vast majority don’t care.
It sounds like this:
“You should see what we’re wearing today — it is so cold in here.”
“Oh, if only you could see what’s happening in the studio right now.”
“Our producer just walked in with the most ridiculous hat on.”
“The board just lit up — you guys are calling!”
Inside content doesn’t just ask listeners to enter the personality’s world. It asks them to care about a world they can never visit, populated by people they don’t know, experiencing situations they have no frame for. There is no emotional entry point, external hook, or door the listener can walk through, because there isn’t one for them.
The fundamental problem with Inside content isn’t that it’s boring, though it usually is. It makes the listener feel excluded by design. The personality is essentially saying: something interesting is happening over here, and you can’t see it. You hear it when shows broadcast live from exotic locations or when remote broadcasts from a local business air.
The listener’s only non-negative response is indifference.
A great performer can occasionally rescue an Inside moment by turning “you can’t see what’s happening in here” into something that creates curiosity or humor. But this requires exceptional craft and should be treated as exactly what it is: a high-wire act with no net. The default result of Inside content is tune-out. Avoid it except in the rarest circumstances, executed at the highest possible level, with a clear plan for what the listener gets out of it.
