Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston with How Well Does Sal Know the Show?

Character development comes in various forms.  When you’re honest with the audience around a topic of high relevance and when you share a story about your life where someone connects with you.  There are many creative ways to do that.  Ornery Sal, Boston’s Best Boss is a regular contributor to Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston.  The team regularly uses him as a foil to do content.  This time, they brought him in to quiz how well he knows the cast members.  They gave him the traditional one to two sentence story, then Sal had to say which cast member experienced that.  He went four for five, proving he does know the show.  But having him to goof with while doing character development is a novel way to get things done and make character development content stickier.

250 on America’s 250

America’s 250th birthday will be a big topic in one month.  To tap in, can you get 250 kids to read the Pledge of Allegiance or get 250 people to meet you at a public location to sing the National Anthem?

Steve Wants to Sell You a Horse

It was the Monday after the Kentucky Derby many moons ago.  My on-air partner and I decided we needed to use that topic for content on the show.  So, we hatched this brilliant idea to call the McDonalds up the road from the station, claiming we were the owners of the horse that came in last place, to see how much they’d give us for him, saying he’d make for delicious hamburgers.

Genius, huh?  We live in the attention economy and thought those three minutes would certainly keep listeners from going elsewhere.

At 10:00 that morning, we were hauled into the GM’s office and informed we’d lost the McDonalds account.

Fortunately, we had a very good manager who awarded creativity and risk-taking.  He understood, gave us a pass, and replaced them with another client paying a higher rate.

Don’t bank that idea for next year.  The world (and business environment) is different now.

I listen to radio all over the country and, in too many places, hear pleasant people having pleasant conversations around acceptable topics.  In this environment, that won’t cut it.

Where are my renegades?  The mischievous people?  The quirky who can capture the imagination of the audience and cause talk?

I am NOT suggesting you be reckless or inappropriate.  But we do need to foster an environment of silliness again if we’re ever going to stay top-of-mind with our fans, so they develop this fear of missing out.

We ain’t gonna get that through a prep service or being inoffensive and playing it safe with bland conversations and phone calls from listeners chiming it.

Yes, I know the corporate folks look down on this and the lawyers default to “no” a lot.  But how do we work past this to find the sweet spot for people who can do it?  I know we’ve chased many of them away from our industry.  But that doesn’t absolve those of us who remain from thinking that way, too.

Pleasant all the time is our enemy.  It makes radio completely missable. Take a stand, access your sense of humor for silly angles that can be leveraged into talked about breaks.  In one word:  innovate without doing wacky radio bits.  Wait, that was six words.  Sorry.

I had a show once that bought a ton of girl scout cookies.  They invited in two teachers who built a big Jenga tower with the cookie boxes.  The teacher who made the tower collapse lost, and the other got all the cookies for their school.

Or the Boston show that was outraged when Dunkin’ changed the name of the Boston Cream Donut to the Philly Cream Donut.  The Flyers were making their Stanley Cup run (rivals to sports-loving Bostonians).  They had listeners bring their Dunkin’ merch to the station to burn unless they changed the name back.

Or the talent who mused on-air, concerned he left the iron plugged in before leaving for work.  A C-level show would have left it at that.  A B-level show would have opened the phones, asking listeners if they’d ever done that, too (kinda lame, but it’s something).  This show went A-level and sent the co-host home to check.  A narrative with tension!  And while en-route (all of it on-air), they called his insurance agent and found out he hadn’t paid his renters insurance.  Ouch.

Or the show, in new digs, who found a crushed Cheez-It in the carpeting and called every other talent during that program, asking their favorite snack, to figure out who dirtied the studio, pissing off the chief engineer.

We don’t need prizes and contesting isn’t the elixir.  We need imagination.  Doing something imaginative to capture all who are listening will feed the fear of missing out.  An image every show needs to get that extra measure of audience to set you apart.

I’m inspired when I watch old Letterman clips on YouTube.  He was a master at it.  So was Colbert.  I know they had teams of people to suggest this stuff.  But we need to access those odd things more if we’re going to survive and thrive.

So much of what I hear lives in the Sea of Sameness.  Shows that do this kind of stuff will prevent people from leaving.  You’ll capture them for a moment to see what happens next.  If you create attention through imagination, you can then persuade listeners to stay longer, come back, or have a deeper relationship with your show.  If you don’t create imaginative attention, then you can’t.

Let’s go already, radio.

PS:  Because I know you’re wondering, Pavlovian came in dead last in May’s Kentucky Derby.  He had 30-1 odds.  Today, there’s a better than even chance he’d make a delicious quarter-pounder if anyone is willing to make the call.

PPS:  Colbert wrapped up being on CBS on a Thursday night.  The very next night, he’s hosting a cable access show in Monroe, Michigan.  Absolute, total silliness.  I dare you to not laugh at this.  It’s a giggle-fest.  We need more of that.

Christine and Salt, 96.5 WTIC-FM, Hartford with Alexander Graduates

Say your son decides he doesn’t want to walk in his high school graduation ceremony.  What would you do as a parent.  That was Christine’s challenge when her son chose to not participate in the affair, depriving his mom of the picture she wanted of the moment.  Christine and Salt, 96.5 WTIC-FM, Hartford, are deeply connect to the market.  Christine’s been on the show for a very long time and knows everyone.  So they decided to have an in-studio ceremony for Alexander, inviting on local celebrities to give a gradation speech and also to give Alexander a moment to thank a few people, too.  Lots of graduations happening now.  With this idea, the show affirms the images that Christine’s a mom and they know lots of people.  These guys show their innovative spirit to tap into the Hot Topic, making it very memorable on multiple levels for their fans.

Scratch It for the Graduate

Many kids of your listeners will be graduating from high school over the next few weeks.  And some of those kids will go on to higher education.  Which costs a lot!  Time for Scratch It for the Graduate.  Talk with listeners whose kids are headed to college.  Find out where and how much that costs.  Then grab a $1 scratch off lottery card and give them all the winnings to defray the cost!

Moug and Karla, B96, Chicago with Spirit Calls It Quits

Spirit Airlines went out of business last week.  Even if the airline isn’t in your market, it was a big story that needed to be touched on by everyone.  One of the thresholds to determine if a topic is viable is this – is everyone aware of the story?  They don’t have to be interested in it, they just need to be aware of it.  Familiarity drives our interest in things.  In the trajectory of Topic-Treatment-Tone (credit Coleman Insights), it’s what you do with the topic that makes it engaging and entertaining for the audience.  We are storytellers at our core.  Where lots of shows talked around that topic last week, Moug and Karla, B96, Chicago found two people directly impacted by it.  The first is a passenger who was caught during her travels trying to get to Orlando to photograph a wedding (she has audio of the overhead announcement of the flight being cancelled) and the other is a flight attendant who found out the airline was shutting down mid-flight from a company email.

Gush on Your Grad

College and high school graduation season is upon us.  Once you gather the dates for local graduations, do a recurring feature in those weeks called Gush on Your Grad where moms and dads come on to tell you about their kid who’s graduating!  You’ll feel their pride (or relief!) and it’ll be very local, as the school will be named.

The Personal is Universal

My girlfriend is out of town on an extended business trip, and I have the place to myself.  She’s expecting me to keep the house clean.  So far, I’d get an F.

My neighbor borrowed my lawnmower two weeks ago and still hasn’t returned it.  I’m scared to ask him for it back.

I’m going on a vacation and on a limited budget.  The cheapest place I can find is a “sex hotel”.  I’m thinking about staying there but won’t do anything and I definitely won’t get naked.

My dog is really sick and so far, my wife and I have racked up $3900 in vet bills.

 

I talk much on these pages that a show’s goal is to Conquer Content and Create Connection.

What is connection, but proving to the audience that you are just like them?  Think of the people you’re close to in your personal life.  It all started by common bonds.  How to do that today?  Well, be honest in whatever you’re talking about.  And tell stories about yourself by being vulnerable and letting them in your world in ways that prove you are just like them!

There are some general guidelines to follow when deciding if a story you experience is worthy of the show.  Ask these questions, because not all experiences qualify:

  1. Is it an experience the average listener could find themselves in? Is there a fair shot they have had or could have a similar experience?  That’s called relatability.
  2. If not #1, is it an experience so extraordinary and intriguing the listener would be interested in hearing it?
  3. In both of the above, is there conflict or tension? We’re all addicted to drama and without it, you don’t have anything.
  4. Is there a powerful emotion associated with the story, so the audience feels it?

Check all the stories at the very top top.  They each satisfy #1 above:  I’m alone in the house and have to keep it clean for when my girlfriend returns from a trip; I am going on vacation without much money and might stay at a “sex hotel” because it’s cheap; my neighbor borrowed something and won’t give it back; my dog is sick and we have massive vet bills.  In each of these, the average listener could relate and you’re bonding with them because of those commonalities.

Where shows get in trouble, you get a disconnect because not every story has the same strategic benefit.  I recently saw a social media post of a talent talking about being on a corporate jet and spilling red wine on a white sofa.  Not very relatable or great use of content time as the audience says, “that’s not me.”

The other problem is when you have stories with no tension.  Because tension is what creates attention.

Follow these general guidelines as you aggregate personal experience content to be sure your strategic goal in creating connection is reached when making your choices on what stories to share with the audience.

Because the personal is universal.

Anna and Raven, Star 99.9, Bridgeport, CT (syndicated) with Are Minivans Cool?

We talk often about how character development is revealing yourself to the audience. When you tell a story happening in your world, you define who you are and connect with the audience.  Real life is funny.  That’s great content to drive relatability.  Yet, we often only think of ourselves when doing that.  What’s happened to us?  There is real life content all around you every day.  If you journal (the single, biggest, easiest way to aggregate real life content to find stories to prove you are just like the audience), why not ask some co-workers to do it, too?  If they have a good story, bring them in to launch that content!  Anna and Raven, Star 99.9, Bridgeport, CT (syndicated) did that recently.  A co-worker got a minivan.  And he was totally geeked about it.  That’s content as you’ll hear here.

To Leave Me Alone

I’d always thought one of the best gifts you could give your mom was to leave her alone for the day.  No banging on her about what needs to be done around the house or to ask what’s for dinner.  Test this theory.  Take calls only from moms and ask, on a scale of 1-10, how they’d receive a gift like that for Mother’s Day.  To not be bugged about anything!