Do’s and don’ts for both callers and hosts. Sports talk radio is one of the most popular ways for fans to talk and listen about sports these days, well besides the internet. It gives "Joe Fan" a chance to sound off on what they think about their favorite teams and upcoming games. I have come up with some things that need to be addressed for this format to grow or keep growing.

Do’s

First one, bring "it"when you call. Have a point, make it, and hang up.

Speak up! Act like you mean what you say and know what you are talking about. This goes back to number one also.

Don’ts

Don’t be such a tough guy. Sports talk is just that.......talk. It is all subjective, so don’t get offended when someone doesn’t agree with your opinion. This goes for hosts as well.

Don’t just call a radio station just to hear your own voice on the radio. You do nothing but slow down an already commercially plagued program. And turn down your radio before you go on too!

Also by the way, you didn’t have "Thunder" to be stolen!!!!! Has there ever been a caller in talk radio history that had so many great points and was such a strong caller that the host and all the listeners thought "WOW that guy had thunder!"

Radio hosts, here is your list. Stick to it or at least give it a shot if you plan on sticking around.

Do’s

Have an opinion an get ready to accept arguments for each one of them. Just because you host a show does not mean you are an expert. If you were you would be an executive for an organization on some level.

Let each caller make their point. You get the other three to four hours of show time let the caller get their two minutes in. Besides, as long as you keep some people on hold you should even have an option to talk over them.

Don’ts

Don’t recap the show after each commercial break, we know what is going on, we have been listening.

Why is everyone so negative?  It is just sports.  It really will not have any impact on your life what so ever if you team wins or loses.  Trust me.  I have had almost every team in Michigan win a championship of some kind and it hasn't changed my life one bit!

Chill out on the commercial breaks!!! Quality over quantity! What you need to do is charge more money for less air time! I change the channel if there are too many commercial breaks. One show that does this just has less breaks but the breaks are really long. But at least I know when they come back, they may go for 20-25 minutes! If I think you aren’t coming back for 4-6 minutes I wont either. I may not even come back to your show because I found another one with less commercials. Some shows have almost an equal ratio of commercial to actual show time. Seriously.

We really do NOT need sports updates every 20 minutes, especially at 3 a.m. All this does is cut off the program from any thoughts and adds yet two more commercial breaks for the same exact things we just heard.

The new format for many radio programs has become something like this example:

6:56 commercials lead to sports update at 7:00

7:00-7:02 sports update with sponsor mention

7:02-7:06 commercials

7:06-7:11 talk about what is coming up on the show

7:12-7:15 commercials

7:15-7:20 recap what will be talked about/start a subject

7:20-7:22 commercials

7:22 sports update

7:24-7:28 back to commercials

7:28-7:37 talking sports for longest period of the hour

7:37-7:40 commercials

7:40-7:42 sports update

7:42-7:46 commercials

7:46-7:56 sports talk and one or two callers

7:56 start the cycle over