Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix Tiko the Singing Parrot
One of the many ways the internet has come to help shows is to offer up audio of almost anything you’re talking about. Breaks need another element to keep listeners’ attention. Often that’s a listener call. But almost any topic that’s tackled has some kind of audio available online. Chatting about last night’s big TV show? Play a piece of audio from it so those listening who didn’t see it feel included. Then, social media has lots of audio from videos of relevant topics that help sell what you’re doing and create laughter. Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix found a video of a parrot who can sing along with Led Zepplin songs. Just the right silliness for a show that plays classic rock music. Hear how the audio of the parrot helps create the fun. Bonus points from these guys for the front and back ends of the break. In the first part, they seamlessly talked about NFL football from the day before and on the back end, there was a tease about the My Pillow guy, taking a break that could have been done anytime, and making it topical, too. Make sure you use available audio in all of your breaks to help them stay electric.
Continuing the theme of taking a stand so the audience feels something for you. The Josie Dye Show with Matt and Carlin, Indie 88, Toronto is liberal in a liberal city. The show is at a stage in its development where they wanted to take a stand against people who did not believe in masks. So we ventured out on that limb with lots of conversation about how to do that and how to handle ourselves to define the program. What was critical was finding someone who could hold the position opposite of the show. Here’s a break of them talking with someone who was a public face in the market against the wearing of masks. The show brought her on, then challenged her beliefs with their own. There are many caveats to doing something like this, which could be perceived as political should you consider wanting to be this honest and emotional with a topic that is polarizing: first, where is the show in its development stage with the audience? The better developed shows can potentially do this. The younger, less defined shows cannot. How will you treat those you challenge? Will you give them their time, then do it in a tone accepting of another point-of-view? Finally, are there enough fans of the show who would agree with your position to connect with? It’s important for any talent to honestly share their feelings about the topics of the day. But the rules (if it should be done and how) are different for all. Something you must be exceptionally sensitive to and discuss strategically with others in and out of the show to decide if it’s appropriate. This audio passes all our thresholds and caused talk for the show, but only because we did everything above.
A primary strategic objective for every talent is to do content that moves the audience to care about them. Think about the relationships you have in your real life. The people you know, who you can just be yourself around. Who you have fun with and affirm you. Those are the people you want to spend time around. We develop a relationship with listeners in exactly the same way. By revealing ourselves so they feel like they know us, too. Mojo from Mojo in the Morning, Channel 955, Detroit had open-heart surgery last week. It was a procedure he’d known he needed for years and now was the time. The listeners knew all because Mojo has this deep capacity to share all of this life with his fans (everyone on the show has this ability, which is why they are all so popular). Here’s the break where Mojo talks about his family on the eve of the operation. It’s exceptionally honest, authentic, and real where Mojo explores his fears, and chats about his therapist, his mom, his kids and wife, and the video he would leave for them if something went wrong. Then wonderful dimension at the end when they aired callers wishing him well. Pay close attention to the callers. Listen to how they talk with him. What they say and how they say it. It’s quite apparent they care about him. That’s the kind of relationship you should have with your listeners, too. This is content only they can do, which makes them special. Despite the length of this break (they’ve earned that), would you do a break like this? Could you? Email your thoughts to me 
At our core, we’re storytellers. Each break in which we do content, we convey who we are and what we’re all about by the sharing of stories. We prove our relatability and entertain the audience by telling them. Then the great shows turn the forum of storytelling over to the audience. There are three components of all memorable stories: the set up (this is the short synopsis of what the story is about at the very beginning, not unlike the opening paragraph of any written story). The second part has all the wonderful details, drama, and tension that move the narrative of the story forward. And the end is the payoff or destination. With this week’s audio, I want to focus on the middle part, because it’s the drama and details that make a story come to life and entertain the audience. Lexi and Banks, KUBL, Salt Lake City had just come back from their holiday break. Lexi had a very bad motel experience as she drove with her boyfriend and dogs to see family. A five-minute story is long, unless it contains lots of drama to keep the audience hooked to move through the narrative. As she tells the motel story, count nine different pieces of drama that kept the listener’s interest. If you have only one or two pieces of tension in an experience, reconsider telling it because there might not be enough there to entertain the audience. This has all that and then some, which makes it memorable, relatable, and fun to hear.
One of my favorite new features in 2020 came from John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego. All content must be relevant and the best content is fun (or done with the intent to make you laugh or feel better). I always add major bonus points when something is developed so specific to that show, no one else can do it. One of John’s daughters is a vegan. When she comes to visit, his life changes dramatically because he has to buy different food for the house and try different things for meals. That tension is what makes this a great feature when Abby arrives called Lifestyle Advice From a Vegan. No other show can do this because it happens only to John and only when Abby arrives. That’s what makes this very authentic and funny. John writes the script so he can poke a lot at himself (he’s quite self-deprecating, which works here), asks Abby to read it as though she wrote it (he doesn’t allow her to pre-read the scripts so you hear her smiling or laughing as she says certain things), and then he adds an appropriate music bed. All around, I am getting to know John (character development) and the bit allows the show to display it’s quite genuine sense of humor. Here is the last installment of the feature from 2020.
Be strategic about your content messaging and be different from anything else out there and you stand your best chance things will cut through. We were looking for a fresh way to do character development with David, Sue, and Kendra, Magic 106.7, Boston. When doing a standard character development exercise recently, we happened upon some traits the entire team had that were odd (in a good way). When doing character development, it’s always most efficient when listeners connect with a core attribute they have in common with you (i.e. being a spouse, having kids, liking sports, owning a pet). But sometimes, it’s the quirkier things which are the stickiest. Here’s “Getting to Know You”. Kendra hoards receipts. She never throws them out. The audience is told this fact then callers are challenged to guess how many receipts she has in her pocketbook that morning before she reveals the awful total. I love this take because, while letting the listeners into the lives of the cast (we do this with all three cast members), it’s not your standard tell a story, then ask for phone calls, that makes it work for me.
Let’s play off stereotypes for this week’s audio: guys don’t do any work around the Thanksgiving meal. They neither cook, clean, nor offer anything else. With that stereotype out of the way, here’s a classic piece of audio from Tiffany and Michael, B101, Philadelphia. Holidays are a time of family gatherings, in groups large and small. We know that strategic character development almost always happens when we put family members of the cast on the show and get them to bring us inside the relationship. Real works and this is real. Here’s family man, devoted husband, all-around great guy and cast member Michael Chew getting assigned the list of things he needs to do around the house from his wife, Nancy. To effectively define your character, the audience must see themselves in the story that you tell, you must add dimension to the break (this is what Nancy does – she brings the real and the room plays with it), and at its end, the typical listener must say the cast member is just like them. This accomplishes all of that.
Even though we all knew Alex Trebek would, at some point, leave us, we were faced last week with ways to treat that content on the show. I did some extra listening around the dial – to shows I work with and shows I do not – to sample how talent handled it. Several took the path of least resistance: let’s give out some Trebek facts and spend the balance of our time reflecting on his life and making commentary. Good, not great. These moments call for deeper dives of storytelling. Finding people who can talk about the subject from a first person perspective. Of them all, Rob and Joss, Sunny 98.1, San Diego were one of the few who stood out. Yes, they started the break as we all would. With a great frame. They then pivoted and put on someone who had been on Jeopardy to reflect on Alex and talk about him in ways they could not. Bonus points because that person was local, but they didn’t need to be. Great content is relevant to the moment, emotional in its display, and centered around a story no one else can tell. This hit all those marks.