ABSTRACT
Driven hard, the audio feature is dangerous. The art of constructing radio feature programs is experiencing a renaissance as podcasts reignite demand for this type of program. This chapter provides a rhetorical analysis of the value of the audio feature. It offers a range of practical suggestions based on experience and observation. The extended radio feature does not fit the flow format. Like the ad it is manufactured, but it also has to 'stand alone' in its own reality. It may even be worth hearing more than once, but it gets in the way of the rest of the dynamic and is anathema to flow-format programmers simply because it is too long. When a good radio feature finds an audience it has more impact than continuous babble. The radio features that survive are more likely to follow a limited version of the form—the narrated current affairs documentary, based on authoritative journalism.
