Zog and Ivy Unleashed, Power 96, Miami with Marco Rubio is Rapper

It’s politics without doing politics.  I’m long enamored by the creative brain that hears one thing, and thinks of another.  Such was the case with Zog and Ivy Unleashed, Power 96, Miami.  Local politician and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (he’s from Miami) sometimes uses contemporary phrases when talking geopolitical topics.  Zog’s brain lives in technicolor.  So, he married Rubio’s audio to the appropriate song in their format (throwbacks), as you’ll hear in this week’s audio.  This scores on multiple levels:  it’s topical, it’s local, it’s music-oriented, it’s funny, and the break is short.  You wouldn’t think it’d get green check marks in so many areas, but once you listen you’ll hear it yourself.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?!

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.

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.

Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Ft. Myers, FL with Logan’s Relationship Report Card

It’s an added benefit when benchmarks are so strategic they define a cast member.  Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Ft. Myers, FL spend part of their week talking about their significant others on the show.  That’s part of being vulnerable to define who you are.  We decided to flip that script.  Every Monday, Logan’s wife comes on to grade him as a husband based from the weekend.  Did he not finish chores around the house?  Did he take his wife out for dinner?  What happened in their relationship over the weekend, from his wife’s perspective, that gives her equal time and further humanizes him?  She tells the stories and attaches a letter grade.  Thus making it very relatable to our female base, with many being envious to do it, too.  In this version, he gets an “A”.  But the real fireworks happen when he doesn’t.  This is strategic character development wrapped into a weekly benchmark.