Archive for category: Audio

When you have a three-person show, you always have two people of the same gender and one common challenge.  You must separate their characters.  Case in point is Karen Carson in the Morning with Johnny Minge and Intern Anthony, WNEW-FM, New York and Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh.  Both shows have two guys and a challenge we face at both programs is developing different personas for each of the two gentlemen.  It’s first important to know how each is similar and different from the other and focus on the differences.  Then, there are things you can do to help accentuate that.  The week leading up to the Super Bowl, we set both guys in a competition with female-friendly Big Game trivia where the loser had to shave their head.  In both instances, we got a ton of repeat listening as we did a narrative arc that lasted the week and incredible engagement on social media.  Hear how both shows wrapped things up with the Super Bowl Shave Off on the Friday of that week.  Watch WRAL-FM’s final round on Facebook here and the actual shaving of Bryan’s head here.

You can’t tell a great story without at least one viable point-of-conflict.  A point-of-conflict that will draw the audience in and make your story electric.  The length of the break is also dependent on how many points-of-conflict you have.  Case in point is this great character break from Sarah Pepper and Jessie Watt, KHMX, Houston.  Jessie’s 80-year old grandpa got married again.  Their code name for the new bride is Gizmo because Jessie refuses to call her grandma.  This break is four minutes long but doesn’t feel it for several reasons.  First, this is excellent story-telling.  Within the first ten seconds, I know the topic and the main point-of-conflict.  Then, in Jessie’s telling, she adds drama around the main narrative with at least ten additional observations (other points-of-conflict).  You must have drama in stories to make them fun.  Add in great use of audio and this is real and highly entertaining because of how it was told and the details of the story.

You know what’s wonderful?  When a show preps so hard that breaks are mapped out.  Conversation on a show, especially around real life content, is good.  But chit chat without a purpose or destination can backfire on any show, accruing them a “talks too much” image.  Chris and the Crew, WPST, Trenton, NJ know the value of game plans.  Joe on the show bought a pizza for lunch and accidentally dropped it on floor at the radio station.  Did he pick it up and eat it?  That was the hook to get you through this week’s posted audio.  Listen to the design of this simple break.  They grab me with the question if Joe still ate the pizza.  There’s a caller quickly inside the break to stimulate that question.  They then place an Easter egg in the break (an unexpected moment) to add to the humor.  Before they engage people through their app and reveal what Joe did.  All the way around, this is an A+ break for content and execution.

Our yearly community service project on the Josie Dye Show with Carlin and Brent, Indie 88, Toronto is collecting socks for the homeless of that city.  This past year, our seventh doing it, the show raised its millionth pair of socks.  It’s a community service event designed to be very different from all the others you’ve heard.  We are always looking to present our ask of the audience in unique ways.  We acknowledge that our request needs to be framed as a story and as content to impact the images of the show by the larger group of fans who’ll never give us socks.  So this year, something different.  We asked each person on the show to call the most famous person in their phone’s contact list on-the-air to ask for their support and help collecting socks.  Josie’s most famous person is Eric Lindross, who played hockey in Canada.  To them, he’s a superstar, as is evidenced by Carlin and Brent’s reactions just talking with him.  Always be different in what you do.  Look for ways to be innovative so the break everyone hears is its most memorable.

We’ve covered before the importance of telling stories when doing phones with listeners.  Stories are how we connect.  Stories have details and twists and turns and resolutions which make them fun to hear.  Sarah Pepper and Jessie Watt, MIX 96.5, Houston, did calls asking teachers about the worst Christmas gifts they ever got from a student.  Pushing stories to the margins (in this case, the worst gift) helps the story telling because worst gifts are much more fun to hear than best gifts.  Remember when opening the phones for any topic – if you do an “st” (best, worst, lamest, funniest, etc.) – you will get a something from listeners that lives on the fringes of the topic, which is a good move for vibrant, electric stories others tuning in will want to hear.  On the topic of worst teachers gifts, here are two breaks from the show, along with a third where they asked about the best gifts.