Archive for category: Audio

I’m asked regularly how long a break should be.  I think as long as the drama in the content can survive.  At our heart, we are story tellers.  Stories are how we connect and define who we are to people.  It’s also how we entertain one another – by telling a compelling story.  How long the break can go is dependent on the twists and turns and tension and drama in the story being told.  If there’s one piece of conflict, it’s a short story.  But if you have lots, it can go on longer because you’ll hold the attention of the audience.  This is kinda like a scene in a reality show.  The next time you watch one, note that the scene’s length correlates to the amount of drama in the scene.  Case-in-point is this story as told by Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Ft. Myers, FL.  Sadie had some DMV drama.  As things spiraled, we hear more and more morsels of goodness to keep the listener leaning in.

Sometimes we in radio take the path of least resistance.  What’s the easiest thing to do here?  For instance, imagine seeing a story about a local kid who was swimming and saved another kid’s life who was drowning.  We all know shows that might not see that as content.  Then others who would only recount the story so they could talk more.  Then there’s the Daly/Migs Show, 99.9 KISW, Seattle who live to step into stories by finding those central to it, bringing them on, and exploring what that experience was like.  It’s a very effective way to showcase their curiosity as the story unfolds.  What helps this story was the T-shirt the kid wearing when they found the story.  They knew he liked the station because of the band on the T-shirt, which makes the local connection even sweeter.

What do you do when there’s an earthquake in one part of the world and in another, they issue a tsunami warning?  You find someone there, who’s experiencing it in real time, and get them on your show to tell their story first hand.  Nothing beats it.  You have choice here:  ignore the story, communicate the same information everyone else is giving, or place yourself in the middle of it with someone there.  John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego know it’ll always be option C.  Hawaii has tsunami warnings and a co-worker happens to be there.  This is an easy decision.  They got the co-worker on who graphically detailed everything happening on his end.  Simple story telling with curious people and someone who can answer all the questions.

Seizing the moment is the topic of this week’s Planet Reynolds.  It talks about joining any conversation that’s seemingly everywhere in a way that makes your own it.  Doing so creates big images of being inventive and moving your fans to fear they will miss out on something special if they don’t turn you on.  The couple caught cheating at the Coldplay concert was one such topic.  Out of nowhere last week, it became something.  That compels us to rework our content plan to accommodate the topic and innovate in ways that makes the audience stop to pay attention.  Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston own the ratings in this market because they do this a lot.  In Kennedy’s weekly feature, The Impossible Parody, she tackles the topic in the most fun way.  The video of the break is here and the audio right below.

Lots of shows have used the Missed Connections portion of Craigslist for content.  I tend to tell shows proposing it as a feature that it’s played out and very old school.  Mostly because all shows generally do is read the racier ones.  Enter Hawkeye in the Morning, KSCS, Dallas who always adds his twist to ideas like this.  He got a call from a listener who posted a missed connection and wanted help.  The listener read his post and, shockingly, the woman referenced called the show.  Hawkeye then sent them on a date to a Rangers baseball game and had them on after to talk about how things went and if they’d go out again.  That we got this one story, start to finish, is what makes it unique.  All three segments are in this one audio file below.