Hot List March 30, 2020
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Coronavirus
Shelter In Place
Schools Closed
Work at Home
Tiger King
Social Distancing
Toilet Paper
Cut Your Own Hair
Stay at Home Songs
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Archive for month: March, 2020
John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego The Parents Are Over It
To truly resonate with the audience, we must understand where they are emotionally. We need to really connect with where their lives are in the middle of the coronoavirus crisis. In many respects, that’s easy if you have a life like them. Worlds get smaller when there is something like this. One of our jobs is to communicate to the audience who won’t call (98% of the them) that they are not alone in their experiences. Lots of phone calls do that. Let regular listeners come on to talk about what’s going on with them – their wins and frustrations – and that will talk to everyone else. This is a simple, but very powerful break from John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego, who let listeners come on who are over being stuck inside with their kids. Hear the raw emotion in the callers voices as they tell their stories and how John and Tammy connect with them to tell theirs – all leading to fun conversations that say to the audience, “we’re all in this together.”
The Take Out Shout Out
The reason many shelves are empty at grocery stores is because restaurants are closed and everyone must cook at home. To stay afloat, as you know, restaurants are doing take out (or delivery) only. Many of these are small mom-and-pops trying to continue serving their customers. Every day, do the Take Out Shout Out where listeners call and tell other listeners what restaurants are doing take out, and local restaurants can call in and get a free plug.
Hot List March 23, 2020
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Coronavirus
Schools Closed
Social Distancing
Shelter in Place
Flatten the Curve
Self-Quarantine
Dr. Anthony Fauci
Kenny Rogers
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Stock Market
No Toilet Paper
Tom Brady
Taylor Swift/Kanye Call
Love Is Blind
Andy Cohen
Weddings/Funerals Cancelled
Ozark
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The TJ Show, AMP 103.3, Boston Tommy Tales
With Tom Brady now leaving the New England Patriots, let’s revisit this theme day done by The TJ Show, AMP 103.3, Boston from the beginning of the season when the Pats started playing in the fall. Knowing the power of Tom Brady as a celebrity and the necessity as entertainers to tell stories, TJ, Loren, and Producer Matt decided to do Tommy Tales. Lots of of their listeners had occasion to meet Brady given his many years as the Patriots quarterback. We also knew that even if the listener had met him ten years ago, they’d relive it like it was yesterday. Stories are how we connect and define ourselves – the very best ones have details that make it come to life and keep it memorable. Any great song in your format is a story. Every reality show you watch on TV crafts a story around the compelling characters on the program. To move your fans to care more about you, you tell them stories. Here is a compilation of stories told about Tom Brady that should entertain all.
What Are Your “Co-Workers” Up To?
With lots of people working out of their house, if they are trapped there with kids, ask them to call and tell you what their kids are up to during their workday, but make them refer to the kids as their “co-workers”.
Salt and Christine, 965 TIC-FM, Hartford Rocco from Italy
Here’s a break I bet you can’t do. When there is a topic as large as the coronavirus leaning on shows, it’s more important now than ever to remember two things: how listeners use us (the average P1 comes in twice per week for no longer than fifteen minutes) so they hear relatively little of your show. And that listeners are drawn to us, in large part, for relevance so you must do lots of it to affirm that image. We must avoid breaks right now with topics that are evergreen hold no space in the listeners’ lives. Christine from Christine and Salt, 965, TIC-FM, Hartford, speaks fluent Italian. So, they called Italy to check on how things are with the coronoavirus with the entire country on lock down. This ends up being a fun break around the biggest topic of the day that listeners would lean into, because it’s different and highlights an attribute of a cast member.
The Great Debate at Eight
Christine and Salt, 965, TIC-FM, Hartford do the Great Debate Eight on occasion (at, oddly enough, 8:00) and got into some fun phone calls with their listeners around this topic: with more people staying at home because of the coronavirus, what will there be more of in nine months, babies or divorces?
Hot List March 16, 2020
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Coronavirus
Toilet Paper/Hand Sanitizer
Social Distancing
Grocery Store Lines
Sports Cancelled
Schools Closed
Tom Hanks
Disney Theme Parks
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St. Patrick’s Day
Italy
Spring Break
The Bachelor
Lent
Katy Perry
Zion Williamson
Mariah Carey
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Two Men and a Mom, WRAL-FM, Raleigh The Cookie Tank
High level performers can creatively bring two Hot Topics together for presentation. Enter Two Men and a Mom, WRAL-FM, Raleigh who recognized something must be done with girl scout cookie sales, given they’re hanging out at the entrance to every grocery store. Often, we default to the standard ideas we’ve done before. If fun and focused on one scout and her story, that can actually work. These guys always push themselves for some new angle. So, they brought together that topic along with listeners knowledge of the TV show Shark Tank. They invited one girl scout to come on and pitch her cookies (that’s the standard idea) by placing her in The Cookie Tank to do the same (fresh angle). There’s nothing revolutionary about this break, but it’s an interesting frame because it leads to a production value that starts things that repositions it as fresh, fun, and real – the show plot – and sets us apart in the market from all the same old ideas being done by everyone else.