Remember the “what I did on my summer vacation” essays we wrote when we went back to grade school? Find your three most entertaining co-workers and get them to write theirs (50 words) then come on your show, and with an appropriate music bed, read them to the audience.
School is back in session in the next few weeks and teachers are a prime demo for a show’s success. Why not figure out a mechanism for teachers to call to enter a promotion where the winner gets their teacher’s lounge pimped out with station swag and a few months worth of snacks?
Lots of kids get reading assignments from teachers before heading back to school. Why not talk to kids who have to do this, find out what book they have to read, and if they’ve read the book yet. If they haven’t, get a cast member to read the book for the kid and then all come back the next day for the cast member to give the student bullet points on the book so they don’t have to read it.
Every market will experience back to school in the next several weeks. How about partnering with your local police department and ask them to set up outside a school in a high traffic area with a radar gun and have them on throughout one morning to share make and model of cars speeding through school zones?
I think it’s smart when you put together a group of people who have something in common – we are very tribal and forming a club helps others identify with similar folks. This one’s call the Tele-a-Cheaters and is the group of listeners who love watching a certain TV show with their significant other, but on occasion, cheat on them by watching new episodes without them.
Let no work begin! We are now inside Amazon Prime Days – open those phones and ask the audience for the initials of their co-workers who’ll get absolutely nothing done because, for both days, they’re shopping on Amazon, looking for deals!
One of the pillars of success for your show is that, never having actually met you, the audience feels like they know you. Play “Do You Trust Us?” with them. Wonder out loud if they trust you and ask that they call, but don’t give them this question until they’re on-the-air with you. Then, once on, ask if they trust you enough to give you one of their passwords. Hear the discomfort, then if they step up to the test!
The Dominican Republic is in the news. And not for good reasons. Few of you can do this idea. You must have an edgy show on a brand where you can very much color outside the lines, without fear of getting in trouble. On occasion, do The Dominican Republic Death Toll, where you give the latest number of people who’ve died while vacationing there. Told you it was edgy.
Reddit had something on its board a few weeks ago that is tailor-made for digital hits and on-air content. You put a picture of a cast member on social media with the words: go ahead, roast me. Then the next day, find an entertaining character (a kid?) who’ll read the funnier things said as listeners have playfully scorched you.
Relationships content is the most universal you can do – they come in all varieties (boyfriend/girlfriend, boss/employee, you/your neighbors, you/your mom) and are quite relatable. On occasion, open those phones and ask listeners to read you what they recently got from someone they broke up with in a few feature called The Awkward Text From Your Ex. Thanks to radio great JJ Kincaid for this idea.