Wood and Nicole, Taste of Country Mornings, (Townsquare) with Brian The Ugly Guy

This is one of the more interesting breaks I’ve heard in the past few weeks.  It comes from Wood and Nicole, Taste of Country Mornings for Townsquare.  Wood lets us peek into his friendships and tells the audience he has a pal named Brian who is very ugly.  He says his buddies tell Brian this all the time.  What a hook, huh?  Brian is dating a somewhat younger, very good looking gal and the group of friends think she’s a gold digger!  So they get Brian the Ugly Guy on the phone, where Wood and Nicole quiz him about his new girlfriend.  I love many things about this break you should hear:  it has the hook noted above, it’s edgy from the start (the first 30 seconds really capture you), the questions are highly personal and make me lean in, and it never lives in the mushy middle.  This call is good character development for Wood, based on Brian’s real life, and memorable.

The Daly/Migs Show, 99.9, KISW, Seattle with The Kid Saving the Kid’s Life

Sometimes we in radio take the path of least resistance.  What’s the easiest thing to do here?  For instance, imagine seeing a story about a local kid who was swimming and saved another kid’s life who was drowning.  We all know shows that might not see that as content.  Then others who would only recount the story so they could talk more.  Then there’s the Daly/Migs Show, 99.9 KISW, Seattle who live to step into stories by finding those central to it, bringing them on, and exploring what that experience was like.  It’s a very effective way to showcase their curiosity as the story unfolds.  What helps this story was the T-shirt the kid wearing when they found the story.  They knew he liked the station because of the band on the T-shirt, which makes the local connection even sweeter.

Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston with The Intern at the Pride Parade

We focus a lot on the treatments you bring the big topics of the day.  Be a show that just chats at the audience and opens the phones on occasion and you’ll be seen as “pizza, pizza”.  I love pizza.  But not every break.  Gathering street audio is a powerful way to validate doing topics because it makes the listeners feel like they’re there.  And it also opens up new ways to have fun.  Boston has some of the biggest pride parades every year.  Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston has a few summer interns so they sent one to the pride parade to gather audio for the show.  One of the best parts of this show is they see content everywhere.  The audio is great, but how they poke fun at the intern at the end of this break makes it even funnier.

John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego, with The Tsunami Is Coming

What do you do when there’s an earthquake in one part of the world and in another, they issue a tsunami warning?  You find someone there, who’s experiencing it in real time, and get them on your show to tell their story first hand.  Nothing beats it.  You have choice here:  ignore the story, communicate the same information everyone else is giving, or place yourself in the middle of it with someone there.  John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego know it’ll always be option C.  Hawaii has tsunami warnings and a co-worker happens to be there.  This is an easy decision.  They got the co-worker on who graphically detailed everything happening on his end.  Simple story telling with curious people and someone who can answer all the questions.

The Daly/Migs Show, 99.9, KISW, Seattle with Collusion on the Kiss Cam

When discussing a big topic with a show, I’m on the hunt for several “camera angles” on that topic, as provided by the show.  What about that topic intrigues each of them?  How can we shift the camera angle to tackle it from another point-of-curiosity?  Enter the Daly/Migs Show, 99.9, KISW, Seattle and the topic of the Coldplay couple.  Steve, Taryn, and Danny are super curious people.  They wondered, when brainstorming around the topic, what it was like to actually run a Kiss Cam at a stadium.  Was there collusion on who was chosen?  Did anything ever go sideways?  They found someone who’s done it to find out.  Here’s their break, along with the answers to both questions, and a very entertaining way to do the Coldplay topic…because of the camera angle.

Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston with Kennedy’s Impossible Parody

Seizing the moment is the topic of this week’s Planet Reynolds.  It talks about joining any conversation that’s seemingly everywhere in a way that makes your own it.  Doing so creates big images of being inventive and moving your fans to fear they will miss out on something special if they don’t turn you on.  The couple caught cheating at the Coldplay concert was one such topic.  Out of nowhere last week, it became something.  That compels us to rework our content plan to accommodate the topic and innovate in ways that makes the audience stop to pay attention.  Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston own the ratings in this market because they do this a lot.  In Kennedy’s weekly feature, The Impossible Parody, she tackles the topic in the most fun way.  The video of the break is here and the audio right below.

Matt, Gabe, and Captain Ron, 100.7 The Wolf, Seattle with Eff One

Clever, edgy, topical.  Character developing, listener participation, and funny.  These are six images I’d assign to this week’s audio from Matt, Gabe, and Captain Ron, 100.7 The Wolf, Seattle.  Brad Pitt’s F1 movie is doing well and part of pop culture.  It’s a great place to start for a break because it’s quite familiar.  Ron’s grandmother-in-law loves Brad Pitt, so they bring Grandma May on to talk about the movie and, more importantly, gush about Brad.  Then, female callers ring the show to play Eff One.  A bunch of celebs (one being Brad Pitt, of course) are mentioned and they can only Eff One.  You know that idea, right?  It’s edgy, memorable and topical, without violating brand fit.

Hawkeye in the Morning, KSCS, Dallas with Missed Connections Comes to Life

Lots of shows have used the Missed Connections portion of Craigslist for content.  I tend to tell shows proposing it as a feature that it’s played out and very old school.  Mostly because all shows generally do is read the racier ones.  Enter Hawkeye in the Morning, KSCS, Dallas who always adds his twist to ideas like this.  He got a call from a listener who posted a missed connection and wanted help.  The listener read his post and, shockingly, the woman referenced called the show.  Hawkeye then sent them on a date to a Rangers baseball game and had them on after to talk about how things went and if they’d go out again.  That we got this one story, start to finish, is what makes it unique.  All three segments are in this one audio file below.

Karen Carson with Johnny Minge and Intern Anthony, WNEW-FM, New York with Kelly Won’t Graduate

Sometimes in playful relationships, you play practical jokes on your significant other.  Making things like that come to life on your show is unique character development which proves how great your relationship is.  Oftentimes, listeners are aspirational to that dynamic.  Meaning, they admire your relationship, wishing it were theirs.  Connecting with listeners is a deep experience.  Revealing who you really are by digging deep in your personal story telling, and letting the audience glimpse into your relationship’s playfulness, goes a long way to deepening that connection.  Karen Carson in the Morning with Johnny Minge and Intern Anthony, WNEW-FM, New York prove this when Johnny’s girlfriend, who’s about to graduate from college, gets a prank call that she’s ineligible due to missing requirements.

Moose and Breezy, 98PXY, Rochester, NY with Letting Interviews Breathe

When conducting any interview, my radar is up for who talks more, you or the person you’re interviewing.  It should be the latter, as they are the focus of the story telling.  Terrific interviews are done when you have a deep interest in the story about to be told.  Your inquisitiveness to draw out the subject and get them to dig deeper in their story and its emotions determines how impactful the interview is for listeners.  That requires great prep, an ability to listen instead of focusing on your next question, and allowing the interview to breath (silence is a very powerful tool, especially in a serious interview, to give listeners the space to absorb what’s been said).  Moose and Breezy, 98PXY, Rochester, NY show a picture-perfect example of this in a conversation they had with a listener about suicide prevention.