Christmas Carol Censorship

Here comes the Christmas music!  Grab the hook of a popular holiday tune and bleep one word so it sounds dirty.  The first caller to tell you the bleeped word wins your prize.

John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego All I Need To Know About You: Kids Edition

We do a fun daily feature on John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego called That’s All I Need to Know About You.  It’s a simple, call-in benchmark where listeners phone you each morning, make mention of something they saw someone do that irritated them, and then tag on the line, “That’s all I need to know about you,” as a hook to remember it.  Benchmarks deserve to be updated in how they’re done on occasion, but must always stay true to what they are by defintion.  An example of this is David Letterman’s Top Ten List.  While it stayed honest to what it was for almost thirty years (one category, ten punchlines), how they presented it to the audience evolved over time.  And, at times, there were special versions of it.  Which is what this is.  When the need strikes to do something a little different with this regular feature, but keep it consistent, John and Tammy will do special kids versions.  Consider doing that with your features, too.  Here are two examples.

The Josie Dye Show with Matt and Carlin, Indie 88, Toronto 5K For Me, 5K For You

Lots of shows and stations give stuff out to help the ratings.  Contesting has an immediate impact on them.  We were presented with a unique challenge when management told The Josie Dye Show with Matt and Carlin, Indie 88, Toronto that we’d have $10,000 to give out every Friday.  The only thing we’d been asked to preserve was that qualifiers needed to text to win throughout the week for a forced listening part of the promotion.  The win in contesting is NOT what you have to give out.  The true benefit comes in how you give out the prize because that will impact perceptions of the show for all those who don’t play contests, which is 98% of the audience.  We have to engage them, make them laugh, and do it in a way that garners positive images.  Instead of giving one of the random qualifiers the $10,000 each Friday, we put in a twist.  The first name we called got $5,000 when they answered the phone.  We then pulled a second qualifier and called them.  If they answered, they got $5,000, too.  But, if they didn’t answer, or it went to voicemail, the first person got all $10,000.  Here’s one of the breaks.  It was an awesome way to give out the money that we feel was fun for non-contest players to listen in on.  The takeaway?  Work super hard on how you give stuff out – always think how will this impact those who don’t care to win it?

Happy Holidays, I Quit

Resigning from work is all the rage.  Seems like everyone is doing it.  Find a listener who is intending on quitting before the end of the year.  Spend a few days learning about them and then write their resignation letter before you debut it on the show.  Change their voice for extra intrigue.  Here’s a great article on writing a terrific resignation letter.

Expectations Are the Thief of Joy

I’m an Apple guy and just ordered their new MacBook Pro. It’s received stellar reviews and it’s time to update my laptop, so I placed my order.

One thing Apple gets better than any other of the hundreds of brands I interact with is that they know they’re not in the technology or computer business. They’re in the experience business. I’ve always said that about those of us in radio, too.

The laptop is backordered, and I was told it wouldn’t be delivered until December 23. Then Apple did what Apple does. They managed my expectations to bring me joy. Over the last couple of weeks, as I’ve checked on the status of the order, they’ve consistently moved the delivery date up. As I write this, it’s December 9. Where all other brands are having “supply chain issues” and delaying deliveries, Apple is heightening my anticipation as they always do so I stay joyful and gush about them as I’m doing to you.

Teasing is important in radio. But not for the reason most of us believe. It’s near impossible to extend listening as people have lives and those lives will always win out over them giving us another quarter hour. What great teasing does is set the expectation that listeners will miss something great if they tune out. So they get a sense they won’t be in on something special, so they come back to the show for more of that joy.

Often, I hear shows offer no teasing. That ain’t good. Many times, I hear something bland and unimaginative (“coming up next, our Hollywood Report” or “in six minutes, we’ll talk about when I took my dog to the park”). But when we tease intriguing, connective, relevant, entertaining content, being done in a way our competitors cannot, we bring joy to the break and set the audience to return for more of it the next day.

Worse still, I continue to hear stations and shows tell me that I need to do things like tune in Thursday at 7:20 for a “major announcement”. Only to find out that three days of hype led to the morning show telling me Maroon Five will play at the civic center in the spring and that we have family four packs/win ‘em before you can buy ‘em tickets starting on Monday. Yikes. Half the audience shrugged, the other half yawned, and all of them felt duped.

Expectations are the thief of joy indeed. The more you tease the same thing, the higher the expectation and greater chance of less joy.

Listen to your show. Ask if they are on the very best content available on every single day. Because it all starts with content and everything they do is considered content. Is it substantive and strategic? Does it align the program and cast with an image important to developing a relationship with the audience? Then, is it being done in a way that fits and both heightens expectations and delivers it to bring joy to the audience receiving it?

Our customers (listeners) want happiness. It’s in our control and epic if we bring it to them. But first we must set the right expectation and then deliver on it.

Oh wait, the MacBook Pro is now coming December 2…

Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston Andy Grammer Talks Therapy

Interviews suck!  When they’re bad they do.  But when you get the person you’re interviewing off their talking points or what they’re selling (tickets, web hits, books, product) and move them to reveal who they really are through a story, you add to the authenticity of both them and your show.  That requires prep on your part.  Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston has been open with the audience for years about the mental health challenges of cast members.  That vulnerability draws the audience closer to you.  So it’s appropriate, when they found out in prepping for an interview with artist Andy Grammer that Covid put him in therapy, to go there.  Listen to how intimate and real the first part of this conversation is.  How open and honest they are so that Andy is open and honest, too.  Knowing who you are, preparing, and having the confidence to go there makes for a conversation you can’t get anywhere else.

Buy Local, Listen Local

Lots of shows embark on a “buy local” campaign for Christmas shopping each year.  Really smart move as it tends to highlight little mom and pop stores in town.  Bring an additional element into it this year if you do so.  “Buy Local, Listen Local” is where you get business owners on to tell the audience about their small local shop, but only if they promise to play the station there through the holidays.

Lexi and Banks, KUBL, Salt Lake City Facebook Owes Me $20,000,000

One of radio’s many super powers is to tap into whatever is going on in the world.  Being about the moment heightens our relevance and helps connect our listeners to the world.  Facebook decides to change its name to Meta.  What would happen if you already owned a tech company named Meta?  What David vs. Goliath battle would come from that?  Lexi and Banks, KUBL, Salt Lake City got right in the middle of this story by talking with a guy who is in just such a situation.  Here’s a gentleman who built a company and trademarked its name Meta and now Facebook wants it.  What we learn is that he’s in talks with Facebook to sell the name to them for $20,000,000.  Relevance is one of our key images.  Setting yourself in the middle of a story, in a most unique way like hearing how this gentleman is impacted by that move, creates distinct, different radio.

Mr. Passive-Aggressive

Time for a new character on the show called Mr. Passive-Aggressive.  A cast member or listener has a problem and Mr. Passive-Aggressive tells them how to handle it.  Except his fix is passive-aggressive.  You could also nix the character and do this as a phone topic, asking listeners to give you solutions that are passive-aggressive.