Carlin and Brent, Indie 88, Toronto with Toronto’s Worst Bathroom

To make an idea sticky, you must push your verbiage to the margins.  Language counts for something so to look for the best or worst of something is better than living in the mushy middle.  Which is why Carlin and Brent, Indie 88, Toronto went looking for Toronto’s worst bathroom.  No doubt their listeners have had to use many of them (so we knew it’d be relatable).  We went about this differently than normal.  The show curated a ton of audio and video content prior to us launching the competition, guaranteeing we’d have stuff for breaks long before we asked the audience to get involved.  Here’s an example of a break they did after the launch.  The winning store owner of the worst bathroom got the golden plunger award.  Remember when doing something like this to push your language to the margins so it stands out.

Mom’s Famous Kid!

With Mother’s Day not too far off, who is the most famous person you know (in or out of your market)?  If their mom will come on, do a series of short interviews with them each morning at the same time that week without ever referring to who their famous kid is.  After the short segment each day, take a few calls to see if listeners can guess the famous person whose mom you’re talking to.

The Courtroom Sketch Artist You

With Trump on trial, we’re seeing lots of pictures of him as done by a courtroom sketch artist.  Bring in two courtroom sketch artists in your city.  During one show, have each draw pictures of you guys.  Then the audience votes between the two and the winning rendition is your show picture on all social media platforms through the end of the trial.

Chris and Dina, WMAS-FM, Springfield, MA with the Celebrity Slowdown

When you have something to give out, how you give it out is way more important than what you have to give out.  Yet, I still hear shows that believe the quality of the prizes equals the success of the show or still solicit for caller ten (ugh).  How you entertain and engage the audience is much more important because earning that image captures the imagination of those not trying for the prize, which is most of the audience.  That’s the concept of designing whatever you do for those who only come in to be entertained.  Chris and Dina, WMAS-FM, Springfield, MA came up with a fun new game to prove this called the Celebrity Slowdown.  My bet, as you listen, is that you’re playing along.  So will the audience.

Carl and Carol Mornings – All We Wanna Do Is Talk

I’m not sure when it happened, but I think I know why.

I listen to some personality-driven shows in radio and hear not much more than Carl and Carol talking with one another, the show becoming all about them.  With not much of a sense of how listeners are reacting to (getting bored by) the breaks where they’re just talking about stuff.

The high performers in our industry work extra hard on not just what topics they’ll put into their show, but what to do with them.

Imagine Jimmy Kimmel being introduced to his audience and then doing nothing more than yapping with Guillermo for the entire hour.  Who’d stay tuned for that (or click on the links online)?

Why did all this chatter and lack of matter happen?  We took resources away from our personality shows and said:  please also post online; please also come up with a promotion for a client; please also have a relationship with sales; please also do that remote.  Etcetera.  None of it unreasonable, but then we can’t tack on please also be creative because that bandwidth doesn’t exist.

For the shows and companies I work with, two things I do in our weekly Zooms are keep the show honest to its plot and content strategy.  We also come up with fun/engaging things to do around the topics of the day, things going on in their lives, and things happening locally.

Think of these choices for a typical four-minute content break:

Topic

Carl and Carol in the Morning

An Engaging Pivot
OJ Dies Conversation between the hosts. Talking to someone who once met OJ and has a story.
Taylor Swift’s new music Conversation between the hosts. A feisty/funny drag queen reviews all 31 tracks.
Taxes Are Due Conversation between the hosts. A CPA does a forensics on the credit card statements of a cast member to reveal how much they spent on Uber Eats and Door Dash last year.
Beyonce’s “Jolene” Conversation between the hosts. You do a mash-up of 10 artists who’ve recorded the song, asking listeners to name them.
Trump’s Trial Conversation between the hosts. A courtroom sketch artist does pictures that you use on socials during his trial and/or you talk to listeners who’ve been on juries to hear what that’s like.

I call the right column above “the pivot”.  Think of it like this around OJ dying (because it was a Hot Topic):

Carl and Carol with Option A:  “So OJ died.  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, here’s what we think, blah, blah, blah.”  Spots.

Option B:  “So OJ died.  Blah.  Then the pivot.  Here’s Steve Reynolds from Raleigh who met OJ in Las Vegas at the craps table a few years ago.”  Steve tells his compelling story about OJ.  Then they ask if he got the vibe that OJ was guilty.

Between the two options above, which is more engaging for the audience and never lets them drift or tune away?  Notice in option B there are 90% fewer blahs.  Pivots are treatments of the relatable, relevant content in column one designed to keep listeners engaged so they don’t lose interest.

For my high performers, I know you spend time prepping for these pivots once the show is over.  I can hear it.  If your prep process is lax or non-existent, it’s best you fix that so your show is distinctive and unique.  It should reflect your take by exploring your curiosity on the topics and not just be conversation.  It’s rare those who tell me they do this prep at home are right.  The power of being together to brainstorm these pivots is far greater.  But spending more time on those pivots keeps fans tuned in.

For our managers and companies who believe in your people, we must get back to supporting our talent (aka “our sellable product because they bring the content”) even more with the resources they need to come up with these pivots.  Kimmel has a dozen writers.  We just have us, because the industry’s changed.  But if we expect our personality shows to truly do interesting and epic things with topics, we’ll support them to come up with those ideas (more fun, inquisitive people associated with the prep process) and help get them done.

If we don’t…if all you are is conversation and maybe a phone topic here and there, the audience will stray sooner than any of us think and maybe something/someone else will capture their imagination and build new loyalties to your fans.

If not, it’ll be the Carl and Carol Morning Show –  All We Wanna Do Is Talk.  And that’ll get us nowhere as an industry.

Carlin and Brent, Indie 88, Toronto with Drunk Doug Ford

You know what’s local?  Making fun of (having fun with?) those larger-than-life personalities in your market.  Do you know who they are?  Carlin and Brent, Indie 88, Toronto do.  Doug Ford is the premier of Ontario in Canada and comes from a long line of very colorful family members who are also politicians.  Doug is ripe for being made fun of.  Which is why the guys, on occasion when Ford says something that catches their ear, doctor the audio in a segment they call Drunk Doug Ford.  Being local is about knowing the people and things happening in your town where, when they’re part of your content breaks, are only understood by those who live there.

The Jolene Mash-Up

With Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter” a Hot Topic, lots of people are talking about her version of Dolly Parton’s iconic “Jolene”.  Hundreds of artists have done that song.  Go grab a bunch of versions from artists your audience knows and edit together a mash-up.  Then see if any listener can identify all the artists.

If You Rest, You Rust

Café Luna is a lovely Italian restaurant at the corner of Blount and Hargett Streets in downtown Raleigh, where I live.  I went there so much I was a P1.  Until that day I realized I hadn’t been in years.  Let me explain why and what that means to you.

When it opened, it was one of the few eateries in downtown Raleigh as they worked on growing that area of town.  Its food was terrific.  Parker, the host, always found you a table if you were a walk-in, and the basket of bread was to die for.  Until…

I haven’t been to Café Luna in years because they got repositioned.  A Laotian restaurant opened over here.  An upscale Mexican restaurant over there.  Just down the street there’s a place that majored in tapas.  All that delicious choice made me stray.  My A.D.D. and desire to be hip and cool made me sample other restaurants and, years later, I haven’t been back to Café Luna.  When I head downtown, I always look at the menu in their window.  It hasn’t changed in years.  That was the problem.  Over time, Luna’s dependability and predictable menu was leveraged against it by new competition.  Maybe they thought that their experience didn’t need to evolve because they were so popular.

Now let’s talk about your menu.

There have been times over the years where I have been asked to help launch a show against an entrenched brand.  Reis and Trout’s 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing says that a product’s greatest strength becomes its greatest weakness.  To start, I study the established show and try to flip all their strengths on them.  If they have been around forever, I try to turn that into them being predictable and boring.  If they are nothing more than mostly chatter or keep doing the same things over and over again, our strategy is to do different things with relevant content that positions us as fresh.  If they haven’t had any talent changes in years, I make them sound old.  You get the deal.

I hear too many shows that want to get on and do not much more than talk.  We must be strategic in choosing our content but focus more on the treatment of that content to create an experience for fans that will make them want to come back again.  That takes prep and work.  Had Luna only changed its menu to offer new things that fit, right?

So many shows are fearful of change.  They think they can’t (or shouldn’t) innovate.  Which is dead wrong.  If you’re a tenured show, the audience will trust you and be less inclined to bail if something doesn’t work.

Remember, what got you here, won’t necessarily get you there.

The great Joni Mitchell once told Rolling Stone magazine: “You have two options.  You can stay the same and protect the formula that gave you your initial success.  If you do, they’re going to crucify you for staying the same.  If you change, they’re going to crucify you for changing.  But staying the same is boring.  And change is interesting.  So, of the two options, I’d rather be crucified for changing.”

Leaders make art and artists lead.

I’m not suggesting you overhaul your show if you’ve been around a while.  I am suggesting that you don’t operate in a vacuum.  If you keep doing the same old stuff, some show will come in and reposition you like Café Luna and, in the face of competition, listeners will spend less time with you.  If you’re still hanging your hat on old ideas like Two Lies and a Truth and Try It Tuesday, you face potential boredom from your fans and a vulnerability that a smarter, more innovative show up or down the dial or somewhere online could take advantage of.

Life is change.  Growth is optional.  If you rest, you rust.

Everything truly evolves.  Staying still isn’t an option.  For any of us.

The Seat Sit

With baseball season having just started, is there a baseball team in your town who will let you do the Seat Sit?  You sit in every chair in the stadium if listeners pledge to give you so much money, which will be given to the cause the show supports.

The Daly/Migs Show, Rock 99.9, Seattle Digging Deep on the Bridge Story

I heard some creative excuses two weeks ago about why some shows didn’t touch the Baltimore bridge story.  One said “we’re the escape” (no, you’re not – you need to reflect how the audience feels waking up to the story).  Another said “it’s not local” (that doesn’t matter – it was topic #1 that day which validates being on it). Your audience wants to be tied to the topics of the day.  Add your perspective and you define who you are.  That is one way to do character development.  Enter the Daly/Migs Show, Rock 99.9, Seattle who dug deep into the story.  That morning, they not only talked with listeners who had bad bridge experiences, they also got on a guy who oversees the bridges in the state of Washington.  Listen to their inquisitiveness to localize the story and give insider perspective they would not have normally had.  Listeners lean in with this kind of relevance.