Spencer’s Neighborhood, 106.5, The Arch, St. Louis First Five Notes

You will never lose when you tie your show back to the music brand of your radio station.  Some shows are silos – they never talk about the music or the artists.  I’ve always believed that that’s a mistake as you should acclimate yourself into the larger station brand.  In some respects, listeners choose your show because of you and the content you do.  In many ways, they choose your station because of the music you play, too.  Here’s a fun game called The First Five Notes played on Spencer’s Neighborhood, 106.5 The Arch, St. Louis several years ago.  The listener would choose from the cast who they wanted to play against.  Then another in the room would play the first five notes of a song on the station.  First to identify the artist or song get the point.  Simple, yet effective for tying you back to the radio station.

Hotter Than Hell

Are you in that intense heat wave most people are experiencing now?  Here’s a fun game to play called Hotter Than Hell.  Your caller is told the temperature, at that moment, in the city you live.  They then must guess if it’s hotter than hell.  You then call somewhere in Hell, Michigan to get the current temperature to see if they’ve won.

 

Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Fort Myers, FL The Graduation Letter Twist

In some breaks you get the expected.  You have a general sense where the break is going and that’s okay.  In others, though, it helps to plan an unexpected pivot that will capture the imagination of the audience.  That’s what’s done in this break from Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Fort Myers, FL.  Logan has two kids and his youngest daughter was graduating from high school a few months ago.  The expected came in the letter Logan wrote and read to his daughter about her milestone on-the-air.  So many of us have done that in radio.  It’s touching, human, character building, and expected.  Then, in our brainstorm to create a moment of something unexpected, we decided to give Logan’s son, Gabe, a chance for a rebuttal to the letter Logan read his daughter.  Great breaks happen when you prep them through.  This is the expected and unexpected and becomes memorable as a result.

Alphabet Restaurant Challenge

Here’s an idea you can do through the end of the year called the Alphabet Restaurant Challenge.  Ask the audience for a local restaurant that starts with that day’s (or week’s) letter.  Go A to Z until you’ve done all 26 letters.  This is great local content.  Thanks to Mojo in the Morning, Channel 95.5, Detroit for the idea.

The Teacher Lounge Makeover

Schools will go back in session in a matter of weeks.  Plan on the Teacher Lounge Makeover.  Teachers heading back to local schools say they want their teacher’s lounge done over.  Choose one and do anything from new furniture to a year’s supply of snacks, depending on what you can pull off (and what clients might be able to help you with).

George, Mo, and Erik, KILT-FM, Houston We Need A New Area Code

Know how I know an idea is great?  I’m jealous I didn’t think of it.  Curiosity fuels creativity.  In a brainstorm, asking the “I wonder…” question leads to well, wonderful places.  Such is the case with George, Mo, and Erik, KILT-FM, Houston and this week’s audio.  The team learned that Houston will need another area code next year because of population growth.  I wonder how area codes are decided?  I wonder who makes those decisions?  Those are two of the “wonder” questions they pondered so they explored them.  The show first talked to someone nationally who approves new area codes.  That person told them to call the Texas Utilities Commission, which they did in the second segment.  The show first lobbied for 468, as that spells HOU.  It’s taken in Canada.  So they opened the phones and a listener suggested 489  which spells HTX.  All the way around, this is local, relevant, creative, and fun because it came from the wonder of the team.  I give this an A+.

The Greatest Story Never Told

A few weeks ago, when the Titan submarine story was all over the news, I got a late-night text from an anchor of a show I work with.

The show had befriended a local professor a year earlier who’d gone into space. Intrigued by the story, they talked with him on the program and found out he liked adventurous experiences which he brought into his classroom for discussion with students. They were going to do another break on the lost submarine and the anchor texted the professor to see if he’d ever been in a sub, wondering if he could offer something into the discussion no one on the show could.

The professor asked the talent to call him immediately. The professor shared that he was due to be on the actual Titan voyage that went missing and proved it by sending a picture of the sub on a boat ready to launch at the dock without him. He was uncomfortable with the language in the agreement and his instincts told him to bail from the trip.

If you’re thinking “wow” right now and getting chills, you’re not alone.

He wouldn’t come on the show because he knew it had blown up and everyone had perished, but that news hadn’t been released to America yet and he wanted to be respectful.

Why am I sharing this story? Because I want you to see how this show preps its daily content. Instead of a generic survey or bland phone topic, this show was so deeply curious about the biggest topic of the moment that they tried to figure out how to become the rabbit hole for listeners. Their efforts were to create a break around the topic no one else could.

If you’re a manager, listen to your entire morning show tomorrow and rate it against the funny graphic my friend Kris Rochester did to the left.  Where does your show fall on every break on the Steve Reynolds Content Tracker 3000? Is your show doing birthdays, this date in history, surveys and lists or some other equally bland and generic content? Or are you on top shelf content that makes you relevant?

More specifically, how hard are you prepping to be about the moment? About what’s going on right now? And not in a way that only shares the information or story readily available to everyone in every place they look.  How relevant are you? Relevance is an image that keeps fans returning to the show.

Despite the professor not coming on that show (yet), our team there is always thinking: what is the conversation the audience is having right now and how do we join it in a way no one else can? This show does that around every hot topic (nationally and locally) which makes me immensely proud and a reason they’re pulling a 16-share A25-54.

Take a random hour of your show tomorrow and re-air it in three weeks. On the re-air, listen to hear if the content feels stale. If it does, then it really worked on the day it was originally offered.

Being epic is about being in the moment.  Is the content you’re hearing bland, boring, generic, or evergreen? Or is your show about today’s topics, being done in a way that reflects the curiosity of your personalities so you continue to build a unique product that can’t be duplicated across the street?

Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix The Tide Pod Controversy

The frivolous always wins and tends to be the stickiest content.  Proven here by Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix.  The show got into a conversation about the right number of Tide Pods one should use with a load of laundry.  All coming from a conversation Mark had with his wife.  This became a short term story line on the show, as proven by this break.  Some things to hear:  the caller wanting the update happens very quickly in the break to grab the listener.  Then Paul is smart and does a reset for listeners who are unaware of what’s going on (very smart).  They then push the narrative forward with another caller plus a quick Q&A with a co-worker who helped advance things.  The structure of all of our breaks needs to be like this so the three minutes of content feels shorter.  The other very important thing to note is how stressful the world is so a controversy about something silly like how many Tide Pods to use with a load of laundry will be remembered.

 

Straight to the Comments

The funniest and edgiest part of a website like Yelp are the comments.  That’s where keyboard courage exists from warriors out to exact revenge with their one-star reviews.  Create a fun character who comes on the show and does nothing but read the best in a new feature called Straight to the Comments!