Archive for category: Audio

The first break of your show can be the most critical – they get you in a groove and help you wake up, so you can help listeners who tune in wake up.  Mark and Neanderpaul, KSLX, Phoenix have a very simple, well-framed break in their show’s first half hour called “Middle School”.  It’s a trivia-based game with questions centered around a topical news item, quizzing one listener for a prize.  The questions are relevant and the goal is to have fun around an idea that is vicarious to all others just waking up or driving to work at that moment.  Humor is created around the answers, thus serving the most important goal of laughter.  PPM is a game of occasions so their locked in time creates yet another appointment for early risers.

The audience requires us to build out breaks so they sparkle.  Oftentimes when telling a personal story, it’s no more difficult than getting audio of the experience to help tell it.  Brando, inside Spencer’s Neighborhood, 106.5, The Arch, St. Louis, did his usual holiday decorating, which meant getting on the roof to string some lights.  Not content with just telling the story, the team got Brando’s wife on to add some drama and tension to it – Alex’s take on his efforts adds to the narrative.  Also, always worried he’d fall off the roof, Brando recorded telling his daughter how to call 911 before he got on the ladder, which added more audio to the break.  These moving parts positioned the break in truly HD quality, helping the audience see everything in their head so they could more easily imagine where he was and what it was like.  This, in turn, made the break even more entertaining.  Side note – this show does an amazing job getting to things, commencing with the storytelling quickly, and wrapping the break up before the audience bores.  This happens because they have a game plan – no wasted moments respects the audience’s time and they’re rewarded with additional listens because of it.

Shows need signature features – being known for something helps define the program and its sense of humor.  Locked in features also cause appointments, resulting in more PPM meters.  Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix do the 30-Second Song Challenge each morning – it works because it’s fun, vicarious, and further aligns the show with the critical station music images that it’s the classic rock authority in the market.  On occasion, doing something atypical with an established feature helps it stand out again.  Which is why they got Alice Cooper, who runs a syndicated show on the station each evening, play the game.  Listen as the iconic rock star fails miserably and flames out.  Another moment which causes talk for the show and helps the feature cut through.

Apple releases its new iOS update and anyone with an old phone suffers the same problem:  their phones don’t work as well.  Enter The TJ Show, AMP 103.3, Boston, to address the issue.  TJ believes that Apple is messing with us on purpose – so we’ll all get new phones.  This show has a unique way of expressing what the audience is thinking in a fun way.  Great shows have a good time with whatever the topics of the day are.  With Apple’s release of new phones and a new iOS, TJ delves into the issue in a way generated from his perspective (a great starting point to help define you).  Not only is this content on point (many in the audience is nodding “yea, I think that, too”), but TJ does this in a way that stands out.  Listen for the content, his talk on the topic, and the production value which makes it sparkle.

There are several kinds of content you can do on your show.  All of it signals to your audience that you understand what’s important to them and each of them has a strategic purpose.  Pop culture says you’re tapped into whatever is hot right now.  Personal stories give you an efficient vehicle to define yourself to listeners in a way where they see themselves.  Lifestyle content communicates that you understand what they’re going through. One of my favorite features of all time is called The Bus Stop, done by Michael Chew, at MORE-FM (WBEB), Philadelphia.  Michael was home early enough in the day to greet his kids as they returned from school on the bus.  We hatched the idea that he’d asked the kids, as they got off the bus, about their day.  Maybe it was because they were going to be on the radio or because they knew Michael as he was their neighbor, but what the kids offered was almost always very entertaining, and tapped into the lifestyle of the adult woman listening to the station who also had kids and encountered the same conversation when she got home.