Power 106 Halloween is Cancelled
In a brainstorm a few weeks ago with The Cruz Show, Power 106, Los Angeles, we decided we wanted to do our version of Jimmy Kimmel’s excellent bit where parents tell their kids they ate their Halloween candy. So, we devised a scenario where Jeff Garcia, the show’s executive producer and father of two young boys, would tell them that Donald Trump had cancelled Halloween. The team added another layer or two into the idea and then Jeff executed our plan, recording his kids in the process. Everyone was talking about Halloween. But only one show in the market thought of this idea to entertain the audience and make them laugh. Which makes this highly relatable and memorable.
With the NFL and college football in full swing and the World Series about to wrap up, we married all the top shelf sports stories with one talent’s lack of knowledge of everything sports-oriented. Stacey K and Jonah, HOT 101.7, Santa Rosa, CA did “Stacey K Sorts Kinda Tries to Do a Sports Report”. Listeners do not tune in for sports scores any longer – this is all available on their smart phones. If they care about the score, they know it by the time they turn you on. Our goal is to create fun. So Stacey watched a game and then Jonah tried to get her to “report” what she saw. They used the topicality of the sports event with Stacey’s lack of sports knowledge to create some fun for everyone tuning in.
Normally you don’t talk about your birthday on the air, right? No one really cares when you’re in the office and someone else goes on and on about their birthday. But, if you add audio of those at the birthday party insulting your partner for not attending, you create humor and character development for them, which elevates the conversation strategically because you’re defining someone on the program and making the audience laugh. Such was the case when Ray and Karen, The Morning Misfits on MIX 94.9, Cincinnati, talked about Karen not attending Ray’s weekend birthday party recently.
One of our absolute favorite Halloween bits was done by Dave and Veronica, WQYK, Tampa, who decided to ask the mayor of St. Petersburg to read the Vincent Price poem at the end of the Michael Jackson song “Thriller”. Doing a homegrown version of this part of the song is unique, very topical, and fun. This break takes on the added dimension of unpredictability because of how they got the mayor to do it (unnecessary in the execution, but it certainly added to the drama of its presentation). Dave (who’s completely fearless) went to a town hall meeting and, asking to go last, requested that the mayor do this in front of an unsuspecting crowd. Everything about this break is perfect: how they presented the scenario, the airing of the audio with commentary, with the mayor’s final product at the end.
There are few honors higher in a market than being asked to throw out the first pitch or sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at your local major league baseball park. Lisa and Ray, US 99.5, Chicago were invited to Wrigley Field to help with the seventh inning stretch for a recent Cubs game. “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was something the iconic Harry Caray made fun when he did play-by-play for the Cubs. Nervous to do a great job in front of thousands of fans and a TV audience, Lisa and Ray decided to get tips from Harry’s widow, Dutchie. There are options for a show when something like this happens: just talk about it or find something to do with it that is unique and has a “first person” quality. Talking with Dutchie accomplishes the latter and makes the break and its content more memorable.
One struggle for many parents is amount of candy and sugar their kids eat. Sean Henry, from Sean and Michelle, B103, Rockford, IL has a young son. In efforts for Sean to connect with the female base of the program, he regularly talks to his kid, Declan. After a party for his sister, with tons of sugar, Declan had too much candy and went off on violent TV shows. The world from the perspective of a kid hopped up on sugar! What parent wouldn’t listen to this, hear real life, and bond with the cast? This connection point is the start of building a relationship with the audience where the personalities are the draw into the program.
If you listened to the break from last week (just below this), Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston put together a flawless break with a funny “Cats in the Cradle” parody for TV anchor Kate Merrill, who was filling in for Kennedy and missing her kid’s first day at school. On the break after the one below, they did the next obvious thing and called Kate’s husband, who was instrumental in gathering crucial items to make the bit work. Kate humorously confronted her husband, giving the show a shot to re-air the great audio from the first break and drove the show’s relatability as we get to see their real husband/wife life.
Running narratives across a few quarters hours might work to extend listenership if the story arc is compelling and fast-moving. Loren from The TJ Show, AMP 103.3, Boston was out having a bite to eat and saw a proposal on a marquee across the street from Thomas asking if his girlfriend, Melanie, would marry him. She was so intrigued that the show set out to find them to get the backstory and, more importantly, to see if Melanie said yes. This is the power of radio – Melanie called into the show to tell them what happened. Hear the enthusiasm, fun, and evolving storyline based on a real life event. This is very memorable radio.