Archive for month: December, 2021

Here’s another great example of the power of audio.  The North Carolina State Fair happened back in October.  As Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh went with their families, there was color all around them.  From the patrons to vendors to ride operators.  All these people (and more) had fun perspectives on the event and many had stories to tell of what they saw and experienced.  These guys are smart.  Not just because they know to bring this content to the show to position them as local and involved in what happens in the community.  But they also gathered audio (a simple feat with one’s cell phone) for story-telling from the colorful people around them.  In this clip, the bus driver taking fair-goers from the parking lot to the fairgrounds, the show quizzed him on the odd stuff he not only saw, but heard from others who worked the event.  Running this audio in the breaks, and commenting around it, is much more engaging than the one-dimensional act of them recounting everything for the audience.

This is one of my favorite breaks ever as done by Karlson and McKenzie, WZLX, Boston.  We were looking to find an edgy way to connect with the audience.  The show has attitude and swagger and we wanted to channel that sense of humor into a holiday idea that would be much different than the standard fare phone topics most shows do around this time of year.  Enter Scared Straight Santa.  Everyone knows of the “scared straight” concept where prisoners scare kids into towing the line so they don’t end up in jail.  We used that to keep misbehaving children in line for their parents or else Santa won’t show up.  The first break is the call from a parent who tells us how their kid is misbehaving.  The next break (and the one below) is when Pete McKenzie calls back as Santa and challenges the kid to promise to be good.  This hits all important images you should have:  it’s fun, it’s real, it’s innovative, and it’s relatable.