George, Mo, and Erik, KILT-FM, Houston Being Around Interesting People

Each of us, when choosing those we want to spend time with, always make room for the fun, interesting people.  No one wants to be around anyone boring.  That thesis holds true for your show and the relationship you have with the audience.  What accentuates that is when someone on your show embraces out-of-the-ordinary experiences.  You admire those people and even become aspirational to them.  This week’s epic audio features George, Mo, and Erik, KILT-FM, Houston.  Mo got a letter from an inmate.  We decided to read it on-air and make it content.  This audio features a fascinating call from a listener who’s an ex-inmate on what it would mean to the writer if she wrote back.  Interesting and touching.  Mo embraces this kind of content so we’ve decided to get letters from inmates at the sixteen Houston area prisons to keep the narrative alive.  Be interesting and the audience will want to be around you each day.

Your Prom Date: Revisited

We’re about to the turn the corner and prom season will be here.  High school kids will be awkwardly asking for dates and going to the yearly school tradition.  Unique character development would be if each person on the show finds the prom date of another cast member and gets them on the program.  Learn about the cast member from their high school prom date!

Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh The Break You Won’t Understand

Relatabilty is an important image you must own to connect with the audience.  Communicating “we understand what’s important in your life” goes a long way to the audience wanting to be around you.  But you must also go deeper to connect with fans in emotional ways that makes that bond harder to break.  In a market like Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill that houses major universities, March Madness is a critically important topic as many are into it and everyone’s aware of it.  Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh know the images of each university.  As someone who also lives in the market and is a die hard NC State fan, I’ll share that they always figure out how to disappoint us.  The show knows the average Wolfpack fan is cynical about their team.  Listen to this call you probably won’t understand.  It’s an NC State fan who puts on full display that cynicism.  NC State fans listening to their show, and everyone else who’s lived in the market for longer than a minute, are connecting and laughing at this.  Bonus points (important):  hear to how local this break is!

The Celebrity Peep

Easter isn’t too far off.  The Celebrity Peep is a fun, interactive bit you can do that will engage and intrigue listeners.  Find a local celebrity everyone knows.  Fill their mouth with peeps.  Then have them read something.  Play it for the audience.  The first listener to guess the “celebrity peep” wins.

Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston Side Hustles

The best phone topics come not from a prep service, but from your life.  Prep service topics tend to be very generic and evergreen.  “Do you like Peeps?”  Nope, anyone can do that anywhere.  Your best topics, the things you want the audience to contribute to, come from stories you will tell about items going on in your life right now, with a pivot to then have the audience tell you their stories just like it.  Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston, are masters at doing this.  Dan on the show and Karson’s wife, Lana, have found side hustles.  Break one below is them telling their story.  Lana’s is collecting cans and Dan’s is one not very traditional when it comes to the topic.  Both are well-told stories by funny people. They engage the audience emotionally, then ask the audience to call in with theirs.  If there’s a recipe on how to do a phone topic, this is is it and it’s well done.

Name That Accent

Variety is the spice of life!  You should always have a ton of fun ideas that can be used on the show to keep the program fresh.  Name That Accent is where you invite listeners with accents to call (or better – tape them ahead of time).  Each person reads the directions on how to use a common household product and callers have to say where that person is from.

 

The Irish Booth Annoucner

For St. Patrick’s Day, find someone with an Irish accent and have them be your live booth announcer that morning.  They’ll talk the show into spots and back to content.  They can read sponsorships and do your teases.