Cleanup on Aisle Four (Part 2)

The BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):  If not tended to strategically, brands can become cluttered, busy, and listening can be less satisfying.  It’s on us to clean that mess up so our fans have a good experience when they tune in.

Why It Matters:  Radio is fighting for every quarter hour.  There’s so much competition for ears and eyes, that if we don’t offer up a clean listening experience, the audience could leave.  Think of it like the backseat of a car.  One where you might find empty water bottles, Cheerios on the floor, empty McDonalds bags, and the jumper cables you used last month.  If that’s yours, clean it up and friends will wanna ride somewhere with you.

Let’s clean things up so listeners have pleasant and easy listening experiences.  In our last Planet Reynolds, we touched on several areas to do that – your plot, character development, the content you choose, and your benchmarks.  Find that here.

Let’s move on with new areas for strategic clean up conversations:

Show Imaging, Teases, and Promos:

  • Is it time to update your show’s imaging? What’s the theme or core message?  Does the production value feel very 1980s?  Or does it reflect the vibe of today’s audience who abhor hype and hyperbole?
  • When was the last time you had a teasing exercise? Find a few stories and write teases.  Wanna extend listening or compel an image there’s something to miss? Elevate your writing skills.
  • Do you run promos outside the show? What’s their focus?  An image?  Or your signature feature so you continue to build equity for it?

Show Prep:

  • Evaluate your entire show prep process. How can it change to get better content and better treatments of that content?  Prep should happen the day before a show when you’re at your most creative and have access to resources.  That’s when you come up with your best stuff.
  • What will you do tomorrow to keep your fans from straying? New treatments to high equity topics help keep your P1s engaged.

Digital Efforts:

  • Look at the last week of social posts. How many are the reason people engage you there?  Hint:  they always, always, always come for content.  Never try to coerce listeners to leave social media and turn you on.  It doesn’t work and you’ll become newsfeed clutter.  You grab them with content.
  • What unique feature(s) can you do on social to accrue images so when they’re in the car (where most radio listening is done), they think of you?
  • Lori Lewis is my go-to on social media. She’s super smart and was just interviewed in Barrett Media.  It’s worth the three minutes.  Read it here.

On the Streets:

  • We don’t get out much any longer, mostly because everyone in radio is doing fourteen jobs. But those that do have an edge.
  • Can you develop a year-long campaign to meet people in your market, so they give you a shot? Can the campaign be monetized by sales (you’ll be a hero)?
  • Finally, go to where there are tons of people. Shaking hands for 30 minutes at places where there a lot of potential listeners has a much higher ROI than sitting at a Jiffy Lube on Saturday for two hours (no disrespect to Jiffy Lube!).

Okay, I’m tired of typing so let’s leave it there.  Hope the last two Planet Reynolds have helped you advance your game.  I’ll leave you with a fresh exercise to hear your content as the audience does.

Aircheck Roulette:

Ask someone not associated with your show to choose one 15-minute segment from any show last week.  Listen to the content done in that quarter hour and honestly answer these ten questions:

Were we local?  Were we on a Hot Topic?  Did we share our honest perspective?  Did we share a story about our lives that connected us to the typical listener?  Did we do something with the topic besides just chatter about it?  Did we leave listeners wishing the break had gone on longer?  Did we provide in the first 15 seconds a hook, so they leaned in to hear the rest?  Was there drama in the break to keep listeners engaged?  Was audio available around the topic and did we use it?  Was it fun?

The more yeses you get to the ten questions above, the more I’ll admire you.  Tell me about it (better yet, send me the audio) so I can revel in your epic-ness!

Doing some or all of this puts you in a growth mindset.  It ends up being addition by subtraction.  Clean stuff up, have strategic conversations in all these areas, and when listeners turn you on, their experience will be so rewarding they won’t leave or if they do, they’ll come back for more.

Go get it.

The Josie Dye Show, Indie 88, Toronto Patriots Fans Get Their Cable Cut

With the Super Bowl coming in less than two weeks, here’s a classic idea you can do.  The Josie Dye Show with Matt and Carlin, Indie 88, Toronto, deftly took the topic of the Super Bowl a few years back when the Patriots were in the game and created some mischievous drama.  They called people in the New England area, introducing themselves as representatives of their cable company in Boston, and telling them that there would be no TV service Sunday evening between the hours of 5:00-8:00pm, right when the Patriots are playing.  This was a fantastic concept on paper, easy to comprehend by the audience tuning in, very well executed, and garnered some classic reactions by Patriots fans expecting to see their team win their sixth Super Bowl.

Pitch Your Pardon

Two phone topics come up from what Trump’s done that never touches politics.  Pitch Your Pardon (he pardoned the January 6 people).  What have you done in life (big or small) you would want a pardon for?  Then, as a show, pardon them.  He’s also signing lots of Executive Orders.  The topic:  you’re now the boss at work.  What Executive Order would you sign to change things there?  You can also sign an Executive Order for your family!

Super Duper Lost and Found

No doubt you have a big arena in town.  The place for sporting competitions and concerts.  Partner with them and, after an event, bring on the person who runs the lost and found department who will go over all the items left behind the night before, found when they were cleaning up.  The odder the items the better.

The Daly/Migs Show, 99.9 KISW, Seattle with Cover Songs

We’ve talked before about the kinds of content that work best for your audience.  As a reminder, they are:  pop culture (because pop = popular), local content (if you’re not syndicated), and stories about you that prove you are just like the audience.  Let me add a fourth, which tends to be over-looked.  And that’s music-based content that brands you as part of the station.  Often, shows ignore the music and this kind of content, creating a potential silo that you are not part of the station (which is based on music).  Here’s the Daly/Migs Show, 99.9 KISW, Seattle showing how easy it is.  They found a list of popular cover songs as done by artists in the format, and some groups that are local.  All around a very relevant break that folds the show into the station brand.  One note:  they aren’t even twenty seconds into the break and the real content has already started with a cover song hook being played.  That part is fantastic.

Cleanup On Aisle Four (Part 1)

The BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):  The new year brings an appropriate moment to re-affirm your content strategy and clean up your show for a better listener experience that results in higher ratings.

Why It Matters:  We are not in the radio business anymore.  We are in the experience business.  Years ago, Best Buy was awful to enter.  Salespeople hovered because they were on commission.  The stores were dingy and old.  They were on the road to becoming the next Circuit City.  Then, they got smart.  They redesigned the stores to be brighter, installed interactive areas, and took the salespeople (who all knew we’d just go to Amazon to buy whatever we were looking for) off commission so they were there to genuinely help.  They improved their in-store experience so we enjoyed going there.  We need to do the same.

Ever open that catch-all drawer in your kitchen looking for the menu to the Chinese restaurant only to wade through zillions of paperclips, pens and rubber bands, scissors and coupons, and 14 other menus?  The start of a new year is a great time to clean it out, so things are streamlined and what’s left matters and stands out.

If you are a Brand Manager or leader of a show, here’s Part 1 of things to work on.  I’ll do half now and the balance in the next Planet Reynolds.

What You’re All About:

  • Everyone might have a different sense of your content strategy. With time we lose focus of things like this.  Affirm it so everyone is on the same page.
  • Do a short listener profile so you know your target audience, discussing, too, how their values match yours.
  • Understand why the audience comes to you. What are they looking for when they turn you on?  How are you at delivering that?

Review Character Development:

  • What are the attributes of each person on the show – the major connection points they offer to develop loyalty with a like-minded group of listeners?
  • How are the cast members different from one another? Especially if you have two people of the same gender, how do you help them create separate personas?
  • How do you generate story-based personal content to drive who you are? How can that be elevated to get more so you become a personality-driven show?

Playing the Hits:

Content must be strategically chosen. Where will you find that?  Planet Reynolds readers know I believe four areas are best:

    • Pop Culture (because pop = popular = familiar).
    • What’s up locally if you are a live and local show?
    • The appropriate parts of your life so the audience can connect with you.
    • Music-based content so you are part of the larger station brand and not siloed.

Benchmarks and Icons:

  • Review your benchmarks and features. If your benchmarks have been on for a while, should you update their presentation, so they have a fresh coat of paint?
  • What new features can you add to the show in 2025, so your fans are always getting a fresh, innovative product?
  • What’s iconic about your brand? If a focus group were done on your show, what 1-2 items would come up unaided by typical listeners in the room?  How do you help make that happen?
  • How do you make your show’s signature feature even bigger? That’s not about the prize you attach to it (if a game) but how do you increase its exposure so more people know about it?

The 15-Second Game:

Let’s play a fun game to wrap up Part 1.  Grab ten random breaks from last week’s shows and listen to only the first 15-seconds of each, then stop the audio.  Is enough done in those 15 seconds that would compel listeners to stay for another fifteen seconds?  In other words, are you doing content by then or forcing the audience to wade through paperclips, pens, and tons of menus?  If the morass of up-front promotion and process chatter stands in the way of getting to actual content (the reason the listeners come), clean it up.

That’s enough for now.

Part 2 comes next where we’ll cover promotion of your show, its imaging, show prep, your digital efforts, and a street campaign.

I do this because I want radio to be an epic, unique choice for listeners.  If you have questions on the above, feel free to reach out here.  Doesn’t matter to me if I work with you or not because I believe in radio.

Matt, Gabe, and Captain Ron, KKWF (The Wolf), Seattle, with Billy Bob Silliness

What’s the audience looking for when they come to you?  Certainly a connection.  They want to be around people (and shows) that are real, authentic, genuine, and friendly.  But they’re also looking for humor.  Silly, entertaining, relatable breaks.  Often, that comes in the topic you choose and then what you do with that topic.  Matt McAllister, Gabe, and Captain Ron, The Wolf, Seattle, were talking about Billy Bob Thornton’s new TV show “Landman”.  It’s perilous to talk about the TV show as most people haven’t heard of it, much less watched it.  Hear how they broaden the appeal of this content by just talking about Billy Bob.  And then, talk with him.  This works because it’s obviously fake and the entire team is in on the joke.  Stupid silliness, resulting in laughter and an important image for the show.

VD for the Kids

Valentine’s Day is about one month away.  How about going old school?  Have your listener’s kids write a Valentine’s Day card and mail it to you.  In turn, you give them to all the kids in your local children’s hospital.  Kids writing Valentine’s Day cards to kids.

Karen Carson in the Morning, WNEW-FM, New York with Doughnuts at the Gym

Marry opposites and you get comedy.  Humor happens when you do that.  What are lots of people doing now that the holidays and all that eating are over?  Trying to lose weight by crowding area gyms.  In a brainstorm about opposites last year at this time, Karen Carson in the Morning with Johnny Minge and Intern Anthony, WNEW-FM, New York decided it might be fun to camp out at a gym close by the station and offer those leaving a doughnut just to see what they’d do.  Here’s a compilation of the absurdity when Johnny did that.  Great on-air content in the moment, but an even better video for social media (see it here), which still lives in their feeds and was viewed thousands of times because we married opposites to create the fun.

The Food Journal

Just about everyone will be on a diet this month.  If someone on the show is doing it, form a club around them and a few listeners.  Ask each to keep a food journal of everything they eat.  Then check in with them over the next few weeks to see how they’re doing, what they’ve eaten, and how much weight they’ve lost so you can be supportive.  If you can, find an entertaining nutritionist to come on, too, to help in the conversation about weight loss.