Rob and Joss, Sunny 98.1, San Diego Alex Trebek Tribute
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.
An oft-used bit is to mess up the lyrics of a song and the listeners have to guess the right song to win. Where things gets into unique territory (and become much more valuable because it’s unique) is to have a cast member’s parent do the bit. Often, a cast member would just do this, but using your mother helps position you as their kid (and a real person) and gives you more to play with. Such is the case in a regular bit done by Brian and Chrissy, WGNA, Albany called Chrissy’s Mom Screws Up the Songs. Here’s the payoff to one they did around Halloween. Listen to the production value of this bit and how quickly they moved through the content to not waste the audience’s time. In less than two minutes, the listener is hooked, engaged, having a good time, and leaves with several positive impressions of the show’s humor and relevance. Bonus points that they never put the caller on to guess the song – I love this because there is no inane banter with the winner. They just credit them, focusing more on the execution of the content that is entertaining to everyone not calling.
“Yea, but what are we doing with it?” That’s a question I ask every show in near every weekly conversation. Choosing the topics for the program is the easy part. What we do with them, past the interesting angles that define the talent, is what makes it sticky. You have seen me preach this countless times on this page. The audience wants to be around people they know and like when they turn you on, but most importantly, they want to laugh and have a good time. Looking for a new feature for Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston, the team came up with Drunk News. It’s been done by other shows (Leno even did it for a while). The difference here is how the show did it. They could have read news stories and acted drunk – that would have be perceived as a wacky radio bit. Or, you could type up some news stories and go to the bars in Boston at 2am and get actual drunk people to read them – that’s real. That’s what they did. Nothing truly revolutionary here. It doesn’t need to be. It just needs to be relevant and fun, which this is. Here’s a retro-break that easily shows how it can be done to stand out.
We make these snap judgements about people all the time. Go to the grocery store and watch a shopper not return the cart to the holding area in the parking lot after they put their items in their trunk? Well, that’s all I need to know about them. Drive into a neighborhood and see someone’s washer and dryer on their front porch? You know everything else about their life, right? Lexi and Banks, KUBL, Salt Lake City do a daily feature called That’s All I Need To Know About You. Kinda like an updated version of Jeff Foxworthy’s “You Might Be a Redneck If…” this phone in feature gives listeners an opportunity to call and make their value judgments about people around them, too. It’s relatable, fun, and highly digestible because it quick. Here are a couple of versions of it.
My friends at Coleman Insights talk about the three T’s of content: Topic, Treatment, and Tone. What topics are you on? What are you doing with those topics (treatment)? And how do you want listeners to feel at the end of the break (tone)? This is all part of the strategic process of entertaining the audience in ways that are memorable. Relevance is the key to everything. With Halloween coming up, this is one of my favorite ideas that wonderfully executes the three T’s of content. John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego got a very cute sounding kid to read the ingredients of popular Halloween candy. The listener had to identify the candy to win. This is great because listeners not only played along in the car, but it was fun to hear. Offering up a new idea that fits the show around great content is what makes the break memorable and sets you up as “can’t miss” because there is always something fresh on the show.
A missed opportunity for many shows is in not aligning with the music on the radio station. I know this from experience – we often see our show as separate from the station brand and many times we are much more focused on our content. The biggest thing you hopefully have in common with the audience is your love of the music you play. I’ve launched numerous shows from that foundation and it always works to form a relationship with listeners. It’s especially powerful at a classic rock station. Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix know and love the music they play. They found a local promoter who has had hundreds of encounters with the format’s iconic artists and convinced him to tell them stories about a few. This clip proves the power of talking about the music and telling stories as the promoter tells a terrific tale about Lindsey Buckingham (from Fleetwood Mac) and how difficult he was to deal with.
There are very simple things you can do to make a good, very relatable break, even better. David, Sue, and Kendra, Magic 106.7, Boston were talking about the toys that are due to be inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame. This is very logical content, especially for their audience. The team gets to reminisce about toys from their childhood, bringing back terrific memories for listeners. Psychologically, retro content like this makes people feel warm and safe and reminds them of a happier time in their lives, especially now with all the craziness. What accelerates this break below and makes it even better for the audience is the simple use of audio. They talk about a toy, and here’s audio associated with it (i.e. the TV commercial for it). It’s in that audio that the content comes more alive and they are in a better spot to keep listeners engaged in their topic. In every break you do, ask when mapping it out, what audio exists (or what audio can you create) that will help that break perceptually for listeners who bore easily with just conversation.
We are always going for images. Being real, having fun, and doing something different with a big topic. Here’s MIX Mornings with Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah on WRAL, Raleigh. First, hear how they accrue all those images above. Then, listen to this break and ponder how much work it took to put less than three-minutes of a very strategic break together. The main topics they fuse are back-to-school and the Calm App everyone seems to have. They had to conceive the idea, then write and record the payoff, then find a listener to tell a relatable story (breaks are always better when a listener is involved), then construct the entire break. There’s much pressure on shows to get it done faster because listeners’ attention is scant. That, in most instances, requires more prep, not less. Unless you are a completely defined show, which takes many years, the days of turning on everyone’s microphones and talking around a topic until you think you’re done are not as effective to hold on to listeners, who have a ton of choices for content, connection, and entertainment when you’re on.