Moug and Karla, B96, Chicago with The Etsy Witch

Your Cubs are in the MLB playoffs (Hot Topic) and you want to align with it in a unique, fun way to make people talk.  This one is pure silliness, which is why I like it.  Moug and Karla, B96, Chicago went to Etsy and found a witch to put a hex on the opponent’s of the Chicago Cubs baseball team.  Who even knew that getting a witch on Etsy was a thing?  Even if it isn’t, this creative approach to the topic is the perfect way to make fans stop to listen and, if done well like this, leave talking about it.  Choosing the topic is the first part of a great break.  To make it strategically successful, it’s the treatment you bring that makes it memorable.  Here are two installments of The Etsy Witch from this past week.

The Morning Wolfpack, 100.7 The Wolf, Seattle with AI Predicts the Mariners Win

Work with me and know I’ll ask in every break, “what’s the pivot?”  Shows that are not much more than chatter are fatiguing, because listeners have short attention spans and require glitter being thrown at them very quickly in any break to keep their interest.  Examples of pivots:  talking about Travis Kelce marrying Taylor Swift?  Here comes his high school football coach to add a fresh perspective.  In a conversation about Robert Redford passing?  Here’s a fun quiz on his movies.  The Morning Wolfpack (Matt, Gabe, and Captain Ron) at 100.7, The Wolf, Seattle have dubbed this the QAP (the Quick Ass Pivot).  In a conversation about the Hot Topic of the Mariners run to the World Series, here comes a doctored voice from ChatGPT, who they asked to predict the winner.  In many of your content breaks, plan the pivot – the treatment to the topic you’ve chosen – to make the break all yours and be memorable because of what you did with it.

Scotty Kay, US99, Chicago with A Party at Michael Jordan’s House

I love innovators and those who see ideas in the oddest of places.  That’s why I fell in love when Scotty Kay, US99, Chicago called to get my help on one of the quirkiest ideas I’d ever heard.  Scotty found Michael Jordan’s old Chicago house on Airbnb.  Think of how iconic it’d be for listeners to get into the house once owned by one of Chicago’s most famous people.  What to do?  Scotty decided to throw a concert at Michael Jordan’s old house.  The narrative was set.  The owner of the house said it’d be okay, his boss said no.  As a renegade, Scotty moved forward, finding a group to do it and mapping out the promotion.  One thing we don’t do enough of in radio any longer is capture the imagination of the audience and create experiences in our promotions that make listener’s eyebrows go up.  What I loved was the pure innovation of this idea, which came solely from Scotty finding the listing online.  Bravo.

Karen Carson in the Morning, WNEW-FM, New York City with News Done Right

News features, when done on morning shows, are a smart thing.  The items tend to about whatever is going on right now (very important).  But the goal should not be conveying news items and facts.  Because there are credible news sources all around you, the win of these features now come in the conversation that happens about the story and the commentary offered by those in the chat.  You will define yourself and create a connection point when you’re honest about whatever is being talked about.  Yes, there are exceptions to this observation (how a talent feels about what happened to Charlie Kirk is a total danger zone so avoid that, as an example).  But for most items, when in conversation, the most authentic reactions always appear, shifting your trending feature from fact-based to observation/opinion-based thus engaging the audience more deeply.  Here’s a dated, but very good example of how this should be done from Karen Carson in the Morning on WNEW-FM, New York City.

The Daly/Migs Show, KISW, Seattle with Tyler the Hitchhiker

This could be one of my favorite character development breaks in the last few months.  Taryn Daly from the Daly/Migs Show, KISW, Seattle told the audience that she picked up a hitchhiker for the very first time in her life.  Right there we learn about Taryn!  She’d engaged a guy who’s mode of transportation broke down and he missed the ferry to get to a bachelor party.  The only problem?  The next ferry was four hours away.  So Taryn and her husband did the good deed of driving the guy to his party so he wouldn’t miss it.  Later that night, he figured out who she was and DM’d her on social media.  She could just tell the story on the show the next day and it’d be great, right?  She did things even better by asking the hitchhiker to join her to make it really sparkle.  Listen to this chemistry, a wonderful story, and very memorable break.

Sue and Kendra, Magic 106.7, Boston with The Coach Who Never Talks Football

You live in one of America’s biggest sports city and target women.  Despite that, you’d never talk to the NFL coach in town because women don’t care about sports, right?  Well…not if you’re Sue and Kendra, Magic 106.7, Boston.  They wanted to talk to the new head coach for the Patriots so they asked if Coach Vrabel would come on.  Once the yes rolled in, the work began.  Because this audience doesn’t want to hear X’s and O’s or worse, sports cliches to the standard questions, they set about something different.  They wanted to learn about the coach as a human being – their entire chat was to show his genuine side.  Some shows would think just getting the coach is enough.  These guys set about asking what they wanted to learn about him personally, believing the audience would want the same.  What they got is a one-of-a-kind interview that connected with the audience.

Logan and Sadie, WINK-FM, Ft. Myers, FL with Sadie’s DMV Drama

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.

Wood and Nicole, Taste of Country Mornings, (Townsquare) with Brian The Ugly Guy

This is one of the more interesting breaks I’ve heard in the past few weeks.  It comes from Wood and Nicole, Taste of Country Mornings for Townsquare.  Wood lets us peek into his friendships and tells the audience he has a pal named Brian who is very ugly.  He says his buddies tell Brian this all the time.  What a hook, huh?  Brian is dating a somewhat younger, very good looking gal and the group of friends think she’s a gold digger!  So they get Brian the Ugly Guy on the phone, where Wood and Nicole quiz him about his new girlfriend.  I love many things about this break you should hear:  it has the hook noted above, it’s edgy from the start (the first 30 seconds really capture you), the questions are highly personal and make me lean in, and it never lives in the mushy middle.  This call is good character development for Wood, based on Brian’s real life, and memorable.

The Daly/Migs Show, 99.9, KISW, Seattle with The Kid Saving the Kid’s Life

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.

Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston with The Intern at the Pride Parade

We focus a lot on the treatments you bring the big topics of the day.  Be a show that just chats at the audience and opens the phones on occasion and you’ll be seen as “pizza, pizza”.  I love pizza.  But not every break.  Gathering street audio is a powerful way to validate doing topics because it makes the listeners feel like they’re there.  And it also opens up new ways to have fun.  Boston has some of the biggest pride parades every year.  Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston has a few summer interns so they sent one to the pride parade to gather audio for the show.  One of the best parts of this show is they see content everywhere.  The audio is great, but how they poke fun at the intern at the end of this break makes it even funnier.