Karen Carson in the Morning with Johnny Minge and Intern Anthony, WNEW-FM, New York with That Thing on Your Ring

There is nothing funnier than real life and stories are what entertain the best.  When you wrap all that into a pop culture reference, the win is both big and relevant.  How many times have you seen Ring Doorbell camera footage online?  It seems like everyone has one.  So we decided to make this a recurring feature on Karen Carson in the Morning with Johnny Minge and Intern Anthony, WNEW-FM, New York City.  The audience calls with stories of interesting things they saw on their Ring Doorbell camera that happened overnight when they woke up or they were away from home.  In this bank of stories, the first one will grab your attention, but the second call is leading to a divorce.  The second call in this set easily leads to a second break follow-up to see what the wife did.  Keep observing your life and you’ll see easy, relatable, story-based content like this for your show.

The V Team

Do you do a trivia feature on your show every day?  Find five valedictorians from area high schools next month (The V Team) and invite one a day to come on with their mom to play the game once graduations happen.  Yea, they’re book smart, but do their know their frivolous trivia?!

Radio’s Forgotten Superpower (Hey NAB – Read This and Give Me a Call?)

Your fans are driving to work, listening to you, and having fun.  In the quiet, darker moments, what feeling might they be experiencing?  We hear much about a loneliness epidemic in society.  It impacts us all, whether we wish to openly acknowledge it or not.  Loneliness is a public health crisis and no longer a fringe issue.  In the quiet spaces of life – the commute, the cubicle, the kitchen at night, we all have pangs of feeling alone in this hyperconnected world.  These are the exact moments where personality radio excels.

Not to be nostalgic, but when I was a kid and found radio, I would often listen alone in my basement bedroom on Sherman Drive in Newburgh, NY.  As an insecure 15-year-old, I left every listening occasion feeling as though I was hearing my best friend on the radio.

One of my unaided goals for any talent is for the audience to leave saying, “They’re just like me.  I feel like I know them.”

Over the years, we’ve leveraged away advantages.  Some of that we did to ourselves:  we’re less local due to syndication, we’re less unpredictable due to the lawyers and corporate control, and we have ceded music images to music-only services like Spotify and Apple Music.  Some of that was done to us:  the algorithm and passive, endless scrolling.  Personalized feeds feel social but aren’t.  Spotify knows what you like but it really doesn’t know you.  It can’t laugh with you, it can’t root for you, and it can’t comfort you when life gets complicated and punches you in the gut.

One attribute we’ve never lost is our intimacy.  What I learned from my early mentors, that radio is just you and me, still holds.  Every one of us on-the-air has received a call from a listener who had a tragedy in their life, and we were what kept them company through it.

I’ve always wanted the NAB to adopt a new slogan that reinforces to listeners and advertisers this immense strength no other medium has.  I want that positioning statement to be Radio – We Make You Feel Less Lonely.

Not to turn this into a Steve therapy session, but all of us have varying degrees of loneliness in our life.  You or I might not admit that to anyone vocally, but deep down inside we do.  Despite how fast life moves and all these devices we’re addicted to, many of us have pangs of loneliness.  Concurrent, we also feel that, regardless of how hard we try at anything, no one is rooting for us.

I know, this is deeper than you’d expect from me this time.  But here’s where radio shines brightly and we need to lean into this if we’re going to stay relevant.  It’s a lesson on how to deepen the bond with listeners, turning them into fans.

Tackling loneliness as an ongoing community service project is powerful.  Acknowledging this, as I have done here with you, is deeply vulnerable.  I ask shows to talk about this, reinforcing that in a world where people don’t think anyone is there for them, especially during tough times, we are if we do radio right.  So, listeners leave knowing they have a friend, even if they’ve only been there for fifteen minutes.  Radio – We Make Listeners Feel Less Lonely.

Great radio is grounded in Conquering Content and Creating Connection.  There’s nothing more powerful than addressing and solving the loneliness problem each of us experience.  That’s connection.

I was captured by this short video shared by the morning talent I work with at 3FM, part of the National Public Radio System in the Netherlands.  A cast member was about to see a friend she’d not visited with in years.  She mused about how long it might be before they’d see each other again.  So, she wrote her a letter, bared her soul, and offered this private, very intimate moment for all the audience to hear.  As you watch, take note of her cast-mate’s faces.  They sit in awe.  You’ll view this and leave with the same thought I had – I feel like I know her, her values, and how she treats people.  And you’ll want a friend just like her in your life, too.  Radio here made their listeners feel less lonely.

It was neither polished nor “radio perfect”.  It was human.  And in that moment, the studio disappeared, like we were eavesdropping on something sacred.

Somewhere in that audience (somewhere in your audience), there’s a listener all alone, like I was when I found radio.  If we do radio right and dig deeper than trivia games and relationships-features, they won’t feel alone when any segment ends.  Just like I didn’t.

Let listeners know that, and you’ll change their life as they become less lonely.  You’ll change your life, too.  And be reminded why you fell in love with radio as a kid.

If radio is going to matter in the years ahead, it won’t be playing the right songs or having the right benchmarks.  It’ll be because we made someone feel seen, heard, and less alone.

What radio does so brilliantly when done right is make listeners feel less lonely.  Maybe radio isn’t in the music business any longer.  Maybe we’re in the companionship business.  You wanna win?  You want legacy stuff?  Make that job #1 and you will.

Our ability to be intimate with listeners is radio’s superpower.  And could be its next great future.

 

Zog and Ivy Unleashed, Power 96, Miami with Real Talk with Z

I love when family members of the cast contribute content to a show.  If the family member is engaging and fun, the cast member shifts from being a show host into that person’s uncle, son, father, mom, aunt, or sister.  There’s a guy I work with who, when his mother comes on, calls her “mommy”.  It’s funny and touching.  That’s when you become real.  A weekly feature for Zog and Ivy Unleashed, Power 96, Miami is called Real Talk with Z.  Ivy’s son, Z, continues to be in that age of interacting with his mom, where he comes off as well…real.  In this week’s episode, he’s worried about his mother’s behavior and wonders if she’s not going through menopause.  How many other moms of kids listening are laughing along?!

The Morning Show By the Numbers

Let’s do some quirky character development in a new feature called the Morning Show By the Numbers.  Pit the cast against each other to reveal something personal to the audience about themselves:  who on the cast has the highest FICO score?  Which guy has the best testosterone level?  Who has the worst Uber rating?  Who in the room got the most money back in their tax filing?  Who has the highest IQ?  If doing this, make sure to reveal everyone’s score so we see best to worst!

Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh with One Shining Moment

When there is a big pop culture story, do you know what I wonder?  I wonder what do you wonder?  Your curiosity can easily fill a break and drive interest in any topic.  March Madness was a big pop culture event the last few weeks.  An iconic moment in the tournament is its end.  Not in who the winner is, but in the yearly video highs and lows montage with Luther Vandross’s iconic One Shining Moment song.  Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh wondered how that song became the tradition.  What’s the story behind it?  They found Leslie Anne Warren, who many years ago was the one to ask Luther to sing it.  Her story is amazing.  You won’t believe what he asked for to give CBS lifetime rights.  Near every show is on the big topics.  What you do with them makes it memorable.  This is a great example.

You’re an A+ in a C-minus World

A show was playfully complaining to me the other day that the world is very C-minus.  You can’t get a human on the phone, people snipe at each other in public, technology doesn’t work properly.  So we came up with a new feature An A+ in C-minus World.  We ask listeners to call to uplift people and places that go above and beyond, regardless of how big or small it is.

Steve Pet Peeves: Volume 4

Is Steve in an ornery mood today?  Geez, I don’t think so.  I just had coffee with him this morning and he seemed fine.  Let’s ask:  “Hey Steve, anything bugging you today?  And why the hell are you talking in the third person in the blog that you write?”

When you listen to as much personality radio as I do (minimum 6-8 shows a day!), something’s gonna bug you.  That’s why I have the award-winning series Steve Pet Peeves!  It gives me a chance to share some things I hear that create a less than enjoyable listening experience.

Nothing on this list will impact the number before the decimal point.  But do enough of them and it will alter the number after the decimal point.

Here’s Volume 4 (or Volume IV if Roman numerals makes it more official):

  1. Talent who forget that every day you have listeners who don’t know who you are. I’m a new listener tuning in and have no idea who’s who.  Don’t make me work for it.  Help me by telling me.
  2. Any talent posting online a picture of themselves signing a contract extension.  Please stop.  You’re saying to the audience, “I have job security and you don’t,” which is a bad look to connect with the regular people.  I collect these when I see them.  Maybe one day I’ll release them?!
  3. See #2 above – those who put next to the picture, “Well, you’re stuck with me for three more years!” Don’t be passive-aggressive.
  4. Over-explaining how a game works.  Instead of that, just play a short version of it for the audience amongst yourselves.  Doing that shows how it’s played and will grab the audience more.
  5. Spending the first two minutes explaining things to me before the actual content begins. All that process stuff is a tune out.  Because when we’re explainin’ we ain’t entertainin’.  I’m gonna trademark that line.
  6. The dreaded sports bet between shows. Your team is playing their team, so you make a bet with a show in that market.  Decades of doing this work and I have yet to see how any listener finds this entertaining (because it ain’t about them).
  7. When playing a game, asking the caller if they’re ready.  Yes, they’re ready.  They’re already on the phone and you should have prepped them to be ready before you played.
  8. Shows that go on and on about a cast member’s birthday. You know when it’s someone’s birthday in the office and they make you celebrate it?  You know how you feel?  You really don’t care, right?  The listeners feel that way, too, when you go on about yours.  Unless you have a great story with lots of drama.
  9. Talent who put the phrase “it’s your girl” or “it’s your boy” before they say their name. It’s your boy, Steve Reynolds!  Only DJs do that.
  10. Psychics.  Very 1985.  It doesn’t matter that your phones ring off the hook.  Let’s be better than 1985.

I am already working on Volume 5.  Got one?  Email me here.  If you missed previous versions, find Volume 1 here, Volume 2 here, and Volume 3 here.  I’m told once the list is complete, it’ll hang in the Smithsonian.

Anna and Raven, Star 99.9, Bridgeport, CT (syndicated) with Raven’s Mom Gets Pushed Down at the Grocery Store

One thing many in radio do is hear a story that involved someone, then tell that person’s story to the audience.  So much is lost if you do that.  You lose the nuance and, even worse, you lose the first-person emotion that comes with the experience.  You also lose the ability to be inquisitive and get more from that person it happened to because you can’t explore their story.  Which is why it’s so important to get the person central to the story to tell it to you on their own.  Anna and Raven, Star 99.9, Bridgeport, CT had this experience.  Raven’s mom (who’s always money) got pushed down by another shopper at the grocery story.  They invited her on to share what happened.  Raven turned into her son (character development) and you got all the nuance with all her emotion.  All of that made it much more memorable.

Flex on Your Ex

Often when a relationship breaks up, there’s bad blood.  Let’s talk to those people to get that venom on the show – lots of stories to hear, right?  Then throw at them the curve ball.  Ask them to flex on their ex by saying one nice thing about them.