Archive for month: January, 2020

Who has A.D.D.?  I hope all of our hands went up!  We all want to be entertained and for it to happen quickly.  The team at Two Men and a Mom, WRAL-FM, Raleigh spend extra time designing breaks with this in mind.  It’s not necessarily about break length (although shorter is better than longer, the design of what you’re going to do is paramount).  Listen to this relatable content and then hear how the break is designed so the listener never gets bored.  There was a big local story where the coach of UNC basketball publicly dissed his team.  Coming out of music, they got right to content with the audio clip of the coach everyone had heard.  No fluff up front – content first!  Then reflection conversation from the cast where you will hear the anchor pivot away from sports to the more relatable topic of disrespecting those you work with.  Then, a call from a listener telling a very passionate story about a co-worker she thought was worthless.  All of it fun.  What helps this even further is that in their allotted time, the break had great pacing and never rested in one spot for too long because they prepped it that way.

How do you do the topic of sports on a female targeted radio show?  By using the same technique we do with all other topics – by creating laughter and fun.  No doubt the topic of the Dallas Cowboys can drive that market.  But we know that chatter about X’s and O’s is a turnoff to even sports fans.  With the news that the Cowboys would probably be hiring its new coach, Mike McCarthy, Hawkeye in the Morning, KSCS, Dallas, pulled from its archives this fun produced piece from the past.  They took the stereotype of Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones as a meddler to an absurd level by putting together this bit with Jerry calling the new coach during the game, asking that Deon Sanders be put in to impress the sponsors at Pepsi.  Want men, women, and all the lifestyles that exist in your target demo to lean in when you do content?  Choose the biggest topics of the day and have fun with them, as is done here.

What you can do on your show is correlated to how deep the relationship is with your audience. Those shows that are well-defined and have been on-the-air longer can go places newer shows can’t and shouldn’t.  Mojo in the Morning, Channel 955, Detroit has been part of listeners’ lives for twenty years.  They have a huge number of fans who come each day for companionship and entertainment.  That they have spent so much time defining themselves and creating laughter, the audience will allow them to do the unthinkable for most programs – do Trump-oriented content.  Enter Mojo show alum Eric Harthen, who does an amazing Trump.  He calls the show each week to mock the cast.  There’s no desire to convince listeners this is real (this is part how you do something like this in 2020).  The character is there to create relevancy and humor by making fun of those on the show the audience already knows and adores.