Good guests can make a show, but they must be gifted communicators with passion and something relevant to say. The best guests are people who have personal experience and a story to tell, rather than just experts in their field. A guest can also serve as an unwitting foil for savvy hosts with barbed tongues. Managers, particularly those oriented to sales goals and results, like to hear guests on the air in order to feel that the host and producer have done some work to book the show, justifying their salaries. They like to see bodies at desks for eight hours a day.
Managers feel comfortable seeing people working.
We are accustomed to believing what we see. Management may have a hard time accepting that a talent fighting with his or her mechanic is actually doing show prep, but it can be true. Broadcasting is not school, or a factory job where we punch in our eight hours a day. Radio work is different, more like art than manufacturing. Listeners respond to the finished product.