The Mystery Question

Sometimes you want to catch listeners off-guard with a reaction to a question they aren’t prepared for.  That’s where The Mystery Question comes to play.  Load up the phones with a certain type of listener and say you’ll only ask them the mystery question once you answer (that gets you the most natural of responses).  This time you’re looking to talk to anyone in a relationship over five years.  Once you answer, ask if they remember what they got their significant other last year for Valentine’s Day.  Then wait for all that silence because they can’t remember.

Christine and Salt, 96.5 TIC-FM, Hartford with Lauren Saves Jackson

Sometimes running in the opposite direction is a smart strategic move.  Seems like there’s negative news no matter where you turn.  It’s Trump this, Biden that.  So if you become the show that shares positive, uplifting news, you’ll gain an image not as the escape from all that, but as a respite.  This week’s audio proves that, and a few other things.  Before heading off for high school one morning, Tolland, CT resident Lauren Lews saw her 140-pound Great Dane, Jackson, fall through the ice of a pond in her backyard.  The dog started to struggle so Lauren did what any of us would do, she risked her life to save her dog’s.  In this on-air conversation she had with Christine and Salt, 96.5 TIC-FM, Hartford, Lauren tells her story.  You will never miss if you get the people in stories to tell their version of it to you audience.  Images received here:  it’s a story that fills you with pride, it’s local, and it’s very human, reinforcing that there is good in the world.

Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Ft. Myers, FL Sadie Loses Rascal

Can you cry in front of listeners?  Can you be that vulnerable to show your true emotions around a sad experience?  It’s true that much of what we should do in radio is be fun.  High on the list of what listeners are looking for is humor and a good time when they turn you on.  No show wins without that image.  But you’re a human being and there are many sides to you.  My question is are you capable of showing all of them to prove it?  Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Ft. Myers, FL are deep and different people.  And quite comfortable to show all of it to the audience.  All of that forms a bond which is almost unbreakable to moving people from being listeners to being fans of a program.  Sadie recently lost her dog, Rascal, after a long illness.  He was a rescue and she wanted to bring listeners into that experience.  Can you do that with those who come to you for connection each day?

My Mom Has Two Stories

Efficient character development is done when a story is told that defines a core attribute of who you are listeners can connect with.  A new character development feature for the show can be My Mom Has Two Stories.  Have a mother of a cast member on.  She tells two stories about her kid.  One is true, one isn’t.  Listeners guess for a prize then the real story is told, defining that person.

The Benefits of Being Big

Can you imagine your radio station spending one week and raising over $8,000,000 to help a cause important to you?  What would it say to your fans, those on your team, and to your sales department about the power of local radio?

I provide talent coaching to the national public radio system in the Netherlands (NPO) and that happened in December with their annual fundraiser called The Glass House.  Three 3FM (their CHR) personalities are locked in a glass house in a public square and spend one week raising money for One Dutch, a charity working to find a cure for ALS.  One of the personalities, Wijnand Speelman (seen here on the right), has been personally affected by this disease – his grandfather died from it.  So, he spent the week with his fellow talent personalizing the cause, drawing listeners close, to help reach their total of over 7.5 million Euros, triple what they raised last year.  I reminded them that facts tell, and stories sell in the coaching leading up to the start of The Glass House.  When viewed as a story-telling event, you can see why this was so successful.  See their wrap-up video below or here.  You won’t understand it unless you speak Dutch, but I guarantee you will feel it.  That’s when the win happens.  (Do yourself a favor and watch the video to see how incredibly big this was.)  The head thinks and the heart feels – this event is all the feels.

Listeners don’t get small things.  When radio plays on the margins, it’s likely to be missed.  Those I work with know I like doing big, gigantic things.  As that’s heard and remembered.  When it comes to cause-oriented work, we have two goals:  raise whatever we’re looking for from active fans and (much more importantly) impact positively the images of the show with those who won’t.  Whether you’re doing a community-service project, giving out concert tickets, or running a narrative content story arc about a talent to define their character, be big.

Listeners are looking to join brands that do good in the community.  Hang out with other media for a minute and the world is an ugly, abusive place.  Positioning your radio show as the place for goodness, then rallying your listeners to do that, creates more loyalty.  Radio is an intimate medium, and this helps build relationships with listeners who want more of that intimacy in their daily lives.  That’s one of our superpowers.  Give listeners an opportunity to join your team in this way makes them feel better about you and it makes them feel better about themselves.  That’s when they transition from listeners to fans.

The benefit of being big and different:

  • Josie, Carlin, and Brent, Indie 88, Toronto did their seventh annual Socks for the Streets campaign, asking listeners to donate socks which are given to the homeless community.  This year 309,934 pairs of socks were donated.  Their seven-year total is close to 1.5 million.
  • Hawkeye and Michelle at KSCS, Dallas did their annual 10,000 For the Troops around Thanksgiving where they ask listeners to write a thank you card, which is then sent to a member of the military overseas, thanking them for what they do. This is a program we put on the show years ago.  This year they asked for 10,000 cards and got over 150,000.  For the price of a thank you card and stamp (I love the old school nature of this), a fan felt better about themselves.
  • Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Fort Myers, FL and AD and Chris, KSHE, St. Louis each did Santa Paws.  Sharing that Santa Claus takes care of kids Christmas Eve, our mission was to get toys for animals in local shelters.  Logan and Sadie’s event is tenured, and listeners sent them 6,262 dogs toys.  AD and Chris did it for the first time and raised close to 3000.
  • Karen, Johnny, and Anthony, WNEW-FM, New York and Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston do Toys for Girls and Boys. Each campaign lasted a few weeks.  Karen, Johnny, and Anthony, in their first effort, got 6,224 toys and Karson and Kennedy received from fans over 10,000.  Big and gigantic.

In every instance above, the items were sent to the station on purpose.  So that those who work in the building, and especially those who have the hard task of selling the airtime, see the power of radio and authentic, compassionate personalities.

As 2024 continues to unfold and we plan for growth, we can do a bunch of little things with our brands (cause and non-cause oriented) or we can commit to doing big things, which helps us be remembered.

Radio doesn’t have a listening problem as much as we have a top-of-mind awareness problem.

Do big, epic things with your content and we’ll solve that.

Carlin and Brent, Indie 88, Toronto The Stolen Amazon Package

One of the most efficient things you can do is ask the audience a question.  Do that and those paying attention are grabbed emotionally.  In this relatable break about stolen Amazon packages, Carlin and Brent, Indie 88, Toronto do this.  “Would you confront someone you saw stealing an Amazon package from a neighbor’s porch?”  Any listener would answer in their head and pay closer attention.  That’s what they do here.  One other thing to point out in this week’s audio is how little time they spend on the initial scenario about Carlin’s sister.  A typical show would talk around that story for several minutes without advancing the narrative.  In this break, they make that crucial pivot early from talking about their story to a listener telling theirs.  Two major takeaways:  questions grab listeners and make them more vicarious to your content and make sure you put that pivot in early to keep their attention.

The Super Bowl Super Anthem

If you scroll on the Wikipedia page for the Super Bowl, you’ll find every artist who’s sung the National Anthem over the years.  Put together the Super Bowl Super Anthem.  A version where every line in the song is done by a different artist who’s done it.  Once the teams are decided, play your super cut and give listeners a chance to identify every artist.

Karen, Johnny, and Anthony, WNEW-FM, New York with Hey Dad, We Need Toys

There’s this concept of doing your break for the person least interested.  If you can craft a break around a topic and a listener who doesn’t care about that topic is entertained, you win big.  Karen Carson in the Morning with Johnny Minge and Intern Anthony, WNEW-FM, New York raised toys for disadvantaged kids over the holidays.  In our effort to stand out and engage those in the audience who don’t have the resources or would not send a toy for any reason, we needed to grab them emotionally, too.  So each of the cast members called their fathers on-air to ask them to donate some toys.  Which got us a “can you top the last dad” vibe.  Listen to these two breaks through the lens of not caring about what they’re doing.  If you are engaged by what the show did to promote the toy drive, the show won.

The Dry January Tribe

Lots of people look at this month as Dry January where they won’t touch a drop of alcohol.  Is someone on the show doing this?  Get listeners to commit to it, too.  Then you guys can check up on everyone throughout the month.  And the rest of cast can be cynical and guess when the person on the show doing it will crack and have a drink.

Bet on This January Reset

A new year is an appropriate time for a strategic reset of your show and the management of the talented people who are charged with connecting with and entertaining listeners who’ll decide your fate.

Here are five things to engage your creative talent on if you are a manager (and anchors of shows, you are managers of people).  Conversation around these important items will help continue to build a positive team who will help get you to the mountain top:

  1. We are all charged with being leaders. That said, give your people your most valuable commodity, your time.  Spend as much of it with them as possible, with your phone off.  That tells them they’re important and helps you become a listener to their lives.  They’ll leave that interaction feeling empowered.  That’s a core attribute of leadership.
  2. Understand what’s going on in the personal lives of your team. Reciprocate by sharing yours with them.  Vulnerability is the foundation to a relationship where you care about one another.  Do that and you’ll move mountains.  No one really leaves their personal life at the house when they head to work.  It’s all connected.
  3. Remember that culture isn’t free Panera once a month. Culture is building an environment where creating trust is non-negotiable, and everyone contributes to developing it in every conversation they have and every move they make.  A strategy without a great culture is less effective.  Culture comes when it’s We Not Me.
  4. Know what’s noise – those small things that really don’t matter. Steer your team away from the noise and focus on the big stuff.  Not everything is Defcon 1 (especially negative posts on social media).
  5. Practice gratitude. Openly telling members of your team how much they’re valued and appreciated gives you wide latitude to growing them as people first and team members second.  Plus, it’s the right thing to do.

Three important reminders if you are talent:

  1. The head thinks and the heart feels. All the ratings gimmickry in the world can’t match a talent and radio station emotionally connected to its fans.  Do you choose and share content that will define what your show is about, who you are, and make fans feel something about you?  Make the audience care about you with the content you do (and how you do it).  It’s an unbeatable combo to loyalty.  Don’t believe me?  Check out this widely watched Chevrolet commercial from the holidays.  They ain’t selling cars.  Or this Dutch ad for a pharmacy which isn’t selling drugs.  They’re both selling emotion.  Play to your fan’s hearts.
  2. To be great, be F.A.I.R. What images are you earning in every break?  Be Fun, Authentic, Innovative, and Relevant (in any format).  Remember the trajectory:  content leads to images which leads to perceptions which leads to ratings which leads to revenue.  Listeners come to you because of your brand image (your perceptions).  That’s how you get there.
  3. Winning shows are about the moment. Listeners come for content.  Make sure your content comes from whatever is going on now in pop (popular) culture, your town if you are a local show, and your life (in ways that make you relatable).  Be about the moment because you can’t win by being an evergreen show where any content choice could be done on any day.  Be about right now.

Have these conversations internally as you begin a new year.  We are dinged that radio is no longer relevant.  Go listen to a show that does these eight items and you’ll find big winners with ratings and revenue to match