Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Ft. Myers, FL Rest In Peace Rascal

There tends to be two kinds of talent:  those who have no filters and share everything in an effort to bond with their fans.  And those who have lines they’ll go to but not cross in the kind of relationship they want with the audience.  Which are you?  Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Ft. Myers, FL just tested that.  Part of Sadie’s character is that she recuses dogs.  She’s talked many times over the years about Rascal, one of her toughest rescues.  Rascal had many health issues and, in this last week, passed away.  How honest and vulnerable can you be with the audience when things are sad in your life?  Here’s Sadie sharing the news about Rascal with listeners.  Hear, too, to how supportive and understanding Logan is in this conversation.  Instead of trying to dominate it, he gave her space and slipped in when necessary.  These kinds of breaks are quite powerful to build that connection with the audience.

The Crappy Candy House

When we were kids, the Axelrods where the biggest violators.  Come Halloween night, as we trolled the neighborhood for candy, they were the folks who gave us apples, bags of potato chips, and pennies.  So we dubbed them the Crappy Candy House.  Let listeners re-live theirs this week.

Gregg and Fast Freddy, MIX 104.1, Boston The Oops Moment

Ain’t nothing better than when you can laugh at yourself.  We have all asked seemingly innocent questions or done mindless things, only to find ourselves in quite the embarrassing situations.  We are storytellers and this feature called The Oops Moment, done by Gregg and Fast Freddy, MIX 104.1, Boston, proves that.  They have a platform to share their embarrassing moments, reminding the audience how human they are.  Then they make the great pivot by inviting the audience to share theirs.  They disarm fans to be vulnerable so everyone can have a solid laugh around real life content, at their own expense.

The Oops Moment

A friend of mine was at a party and asked a girl if she lost her voice partying too much.  That’s when she looked at him and said, “No, I had a stroke.”  Oops.  We’ve all had those open-mouth-insert-foot incidences.  Gregg and Fast Freddy, MIX 104.1, Boston do a feature called The Oops Moment.  The time you accidentally embarrassed yourself.  It’s great for storytelling, as you can hear on the audio page this week, too.

Three P’s to Perfect Personalities

Over the years, I’ve heard hundreds of shows do thousands of breaks.  Most of us never really explore what we like about a break.  As a young program director, I relied much more on that it felt right.

Well, feelings aren’t going to make you a success.  Strategy and tactics will.  Judging content against a strategy is the ultimate test.  Does it fit the show’s plot?  Does it affirm positive imagery for the show that leads to a brand image?  Is it of the length and vibe that would resonate with the demo?

My friends at Coleman Insights talk about the Three T’s of Content.  It’s excellent and I’m jealous I didn’t think of it.  They get full credit for Topic (are you on the right topics), Treatment (what are you doing with that stellar content, so you own it), and Tone (how do you want the audience to feel after they hear it).

But structure of the above matters, too.  Once you’ve figured out the three T’s, think about how to present it all.  So, with a nod of respect to Coleman, here are Steve’s Three P’s of Perfection in executing a great content break:

  • Promotion.  I often hear at the top of many breaks gab that is self-promotion.  What the show is giving away, where we’ll be this weekend with tickets, what we just posted on Facebook, why you should look at our Instagram feed, how we’ll have an hour of commercial-free music at 9:00.  Don’t get me wrong.  Promoting benefits of the station is important. The question is how much time will you give it before listeners lose interest?  I’ll regularly hear minutes of this, and fear the audience is shrugging its shoulders.  I wonder if any promotion is more effective at the end of a break, after you’ve engaged the audience with entertaining content.  Remember, if Tom Cruise is on Kimmel, they’ll do content for all of the audience before they promote his new film to those interested in hearing it.
  • Process.  These are the big, long setups many shows do.  The appetizer to get to the entrée.  No, again.  Minimize the foreplay.  Figure out how to navigate this in a couple of sentences because few of us like process stuff.
  • Protein.  This is the content portion of the break and the most valuable of the P’s.  The details that make your story come alive, the caller with her story, the interviewee being asked a probing question, the first query in a trivia game.  Fans come for content.  Getting to what I affectionately refer to as “the moment you’ve all be waiting for” quickly satiates almost all of your audience around the reason they tuned in, for content that interests them.  Measured in seconds, the longer it takes to get to this most important P, the protein – content is why they’re there – the less peril you have in listeners losing interest.

Promotion.  Process.  Protein.  The Three P’s.

Don’t believe me?  Go watch a YouTube video and tick off the amount of time at the beginning of self-promotion and process when all you want is to see them blow up that thing with the firecrackers or start reviewing the gadget.  Watch how itchy you get for the protein.  The more time they spend on self-promotion and process, the quicker you will zone out. I promise.

Listen to each break on your show and judge them the same.  Around the Three P’s that will make your personalities epically perfect.

John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego Emma Knows Her Halloween Candy

With Halloween a few short weeks away, this is one of my all-time favorite breaks.  Halloween is a kid’s holiday, right?  And it’s all about candy!  Which is why John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego grabbed a cute kid of a co-worker (Emma) and had her read the ingredients of popular Halloween candy.  They played the audio for a listener who had to guess which Halloween candy Emma was describing.  You can hear audio of the execution of this fun idea below.  If you do this idea, two keys to its success are finding the right kid.  Also, don’t let them pre-read the ingredients before you record them.  Hearing the kid stumble over the big words adds to its cuteness.  If you find the right kid, record a bunch so you can do it a few times leading up to October 31.

What’s My Dog Eating?

We’re always looking for evergreen games to play to give out prizes.  Not sure about you, but my dogs, on occasion, get some human food.  Record your dog eating some real-person food and play it for the audience.  First listener to guess What’s My Dog Eating wins.  Have clues if it goes on too long to help the audience along.

The Lamest Question to Create Compelling Content

Taylor Swift is dating an NFL player.  What can we do with that?

Our last Planet Reynolds touched on the importance of innovating with fresh ideas, so your fans don’t get bored.  This time let’s touch on how to do that.

The quickest way to thwart the brainstorming process is to ask the above:  what can we do with that?  That question brings pressure to the topic and brains racing.  Ask a group of creatives “what can we do with Taylor Swift dating an NFL player” and I guarantee you’ll leave with, “Let’s open the phones and ask the audience if they think it’ll last.”  L-A-M-E.  Your phones will ring, but it’s a weak treatment to the Hot Topic.

I like to have Pitch Meetings with the shows I work with.  Everyone goes off, creates an idea or two around the topic in their own time and own way, then pitches them at the team in the next meeting, where we can only make it better by adding to it so it’s more vibrant.  Kinda like how SNL writes its skits or Kimmel’s folks offer ideas.

How do I create my ideas?  What works for me?  I go for a walk.  It’s highly unlikely a great idea will come sitting at a desk or in a conference room or staring at a computer screen.  So, I grab one of the dogs (Sam on the left, Willow on the right below) and head into the park by my house for a stroll amongst the trees and nature.  Zero distractions, no phone, only the birds chirping and leaves blowing so my brain is cleared out.

I read a Stanford survey about creativity a few weeks ago and it affirmed the value of going for a walk to open your brain to get more creative.  When I do that, solutions to problems appear and better ideas than yes/no questions pop in my head.

High performing talent are deeply curious people.  They read a lot around the topics of the day and that inquisitiveness stimulates their creativity.

While on a morning walk last week thinking about Taylor, I wondered what it would sound like if a musically inclined person on a show pre-wrote and recorded the song Taylor will release when she breaks up with the NFL player, as many of her songs start.  Or to ask ChatGPT to write Taylor and Travis love poems and have a cute kid read them on the air.  Maybe those are good ideas, and maybe not.  But it’s what hit me on a walk in the woods and are better than a phone topic seeking a one-word answer.

My point is that if your show is little more than benchmarks, phone topics, and conversations amongst the cast, there is limited growth in that strategy.  It’s our creativity (in ways that fit the show) that keep your fans intrigued.  To do that, a walk works for me.  What works for you?

There is much competing for the attention of our fans.  What’s your game plan to prevent yours from straying?

Wonderment then a nice long walk (for Steve) = better ideas that will help you stand out.

And when you stand out and do something different, you become a one-of-a-kind, epic radio show fans crave to come back to.

Brian and Chrissy, WGNA, Albany Where You Should Be With a Big Local Story

Great shows place themselves in the middle of big stories.  If Taylor Swift dating an NFL player is a huge topical story, I’ll always ask what are you doing with it.  Your listeners want to be connected to the stories of the day from your perspective – that helps character development and will always improve your images of being relevant.  Brian and Chrissy, WGNA, Albany have very deep market familiarity.  They’ve been there a long time, know lots of people, and perfectly reflect the vibe of the community.  When a young local girl was kidnapped, they were all over the story.  When she was rescued, they inserted themselves in the story by finding her aunt and having her on so she could answer the questions they were curious about.  Where other shows in town might have chatted about it, run TV audio, or (worse) done something more evergreen, these guys did the hard work of finding a relative who was impacted by the all of it and getting her on to tell the story.  This so resonated, it was part of the story on ABC World News Tonight.  If you’re a local show, be a local show like this!

Taylor or Touchdown

Do you guys have a sports station in the building or a relationship with a TV sportscaster in town?  Bring them on to play Taylor or Touchdown.  Ask the sports person Taylor Swift trivia questions and ask someone on the show (who doesn’t know sports) football questions.  Each can have listener lifelines on the phone, who they are also playing for.  Whoever knows more wins.  Thanks to Rob and Joss, KYXY, San Diego for this idea.