Archive for month: November, 2011
Turkey-Tastrophes
What would be very easy and very simple is to find out how listeners’ holidays weekends went sideways. Eddie and JoBob, KHITS, Chicago suggested a great frame for this phone topic, considering the Thanksgiving holiday: “Turkey-Trasrophes”.
WBMX “Enough Already”
Boston is long known for it’s cynical, always complaining residents. Which is why we developed a new feature for Karson & Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston called “Enough Already”. This is where listeners come on to complain about the topic they’ve heard too much about lately, then exclaim “enough already”. We purposely screen out those calls about traffic (because that’s all we’d get) and end up with this fun!
Make Your Pitch to Santa
A PD friend recently told me his son put together a Power Point presentation on what he wanted for Christmas. His folks were sat down in the living room and the kid ran through the pros and cons of his list for parental consideration. So…how about getting some kids to put together pitches for Santa? Get a Santa character and kids come on to do the audio version of their pitch on why they deserve what’s on this year’s list!
WNOU Mrs. Huber
We are in the process of defining our new morning show Kyle and Rachel, Radio Now, Indianapolis. So, there’s a healthy emphasis on this team revealing their lives in ways that the audience can see themselves. Recently, in an on-air conversation about going back to school, Kyle decided to have on one of this childhood teachers to tell stories about him. This does the trick because it adds dimension into the break around the telling of a story.
Three Questions
Here’s a terrific character development bit called “Three Questions”. During one break, the anchor of the show asks the cast three very personal questions (i.e. who in this room has had sexual fantasies of someone else in the room, has anyone in this room ever stolen anything, who here secretly distrusts a family member). Instead of answering, the cast members who would answer in the affirmative just raise their hands. The entire break is being video recorded and placed on the website so P1s can see who answers “yes” to the questions. The next day at the the same time, the anchor rolls down the questions again, but this time, those who answered “yes” are revealed and they give more details on their answer!
John Buys School Supplies (KSON)
Here is a break perfectly designed for PPM. In an on-air chat in September, John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego, were talking about helping their kids buy school supplies. John never really lived up to expectations, according to his wife. So she called into the show to comment. This is not only excellent character development, what they get done to entertain the audience in less than three minutes is amazing – John’s wife and listeners participating to create dimension around the topic to have fun.
Sales Factor
Despite the ratings not being too stellar on FOX’s “The X Factor”, there’s still no reason you can’t have fun with it. In the final couple of weeks of this show, do “The Sales Factor” where you have a singing competition amongst the sales staff at the radio station over the course of one week. Listeners will have fun with the sales people trying to sing. Pit two head-to-head in each competition with listeners voting one off. The winner gets a free live commercial on your show for a client of their choice.