The Daly/Migs Show, 99.9 KISW, Seattle with Fun With the Mall Santa

It’s not just the topic you choose that makes the break relatable and memorable.  It’s what you do with the topic that accomplishes that.  To help make breaks sticky, think about what you could do with your chosen topics that would give the audience a unique, fun experience no other show in town would.  Enter the Daly/Migs Show, 99.9 KISW, Seattle.  Anything Christmas works now because….well, you know why.  But these guys?  Well, they went to a Seattle mall to interview a mall Santa.  Great topic, excellent execution.  And to heighten things further, in another break for the show, they had the mall Santa play their signature trivia game Beat Migs.  Glorious all the way around.

Kira and Logan, WOKQ, Portsmouth, NH with The Tribe

Every show has an issue with phones.  Listeners aren’t calling to participate in phone topics or games like they used to.  The reason is obvious:  they can interact with their favorite shows in other ways (texting, social media) and they’re simply too busy to phone in.  When we talk about using listeners to help a break sparkle, there are other ways to do this past opening the phones.  Kira and Logan, WOKQ, Portsmouth, NH have assembled The Tribe.  These are the opinionated and fun co-workers in their building.  They’ve figured out all the ways they will need other voices to elevate a content break early in the week.  Then assemble The Tribe in a studio and ask them to participate.  Here’s an example of them doing this.  Airing something like this actually makes the phones ring more.  It’s a simple way to make content more than just the team talking with one another so those not calling in are entertained.

Moug and Karla, B96, Chicago with Treadmill Trivia

Every once in a while you get a content break that ticks multiple boxes.  This one earns these images:  it’s local, it’s character development, it’s unique in its execution, and it’s fun.  John Moug from Moug and Karla Mornings, B96, Chicago is a new dad (character development).  He’s also worried about his weight and new to town.  He signed up to run in the Hot Chocolate 5K (local) and it’s been a story arc on the show.  To help get him prepared, the team put him on the office gym treadmill, asking trivia questions about Chicago he should know living there for almost a year (local).  For every question he gets wrong, they increase the speed (fun).  This one earns multiple images.  Also note that about halfway through, they re-set things for those in the audience that turned them on in the previous few minutes who missed the setup.

The Joanne, Jason, and Ben Show, WOMC, Detroit with the North Pole Debate

How did your show do last week with the US election?  Many avoided it because it was so charged.  Not a bad move for many shows.  But…if you can handle it comedically, it potentially opens the door to tackle it as a topic.  Enter Joanne, Jason, and Ben, WOMC, Detroit who imagined a debate at the North Pole, with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as a candidate and Santa as moderator.  Throw in a quirky angle like this to a tough topic, leave the audience laughing, and you may never get dinged for doing politics.  This is super clever and creative.  It also makes the show relevant around the treatment of the big topic no one else will do.

Chris and Dina, WMAS-FM, Springfield, MA with My Mom Made Me Do It

Nothing could be more endearing than putting a parent on the show.  It’s also quite efficient character development because you go from being a radio host to being someone’s kid for those few minutes.   While brainstorming content for Halloween, Chris and Dina, WMAS-FM, Springfield, MA realized they had very similar experiences with their mothers and costumes when kids.  Option A is to tell the audience about it and then get listener’s stories.  Option B is is to get their moms on to participate in the telling of the story.  This shifted the break from being a monologue (I tell you a story vs. we tell you a story) to a dialogue.  Option B is much more robust and entertaining because the human dynamic appears in a conversation.

Matt McAllister, Gabe, and Captain Ron, The Wolf, Seattle with The Sister Massage

Tension creates great breaks.  Conflict and drama inside a story or opposing forces of an antagonist and protagonist working against each other is the reason you choose to tell a story on the show.  If you went to the mall to buy new underwear, it’s a story not worth telling.  But if, while there, you saw someone get arrested, then you tell it.  Weirdness and moral dilemmas work, too.  Take what happened on the Matt McAllister Show with Gabe and Captain Ron, The Wolf, Seattle.  Ron’s sister got her massage license.  He’s considering letting his sister give him a massage.  You feeling the weirdness?  They did, too, as it’s an odd thesis.  Time to ask the audience what they think.  This is memorable because it’s true and they ask the audience to decide.  Find that tension in your stories and then lean on that to make it memorable.

Kira and Logan, WOKQ, Portsmouth, NH with Liam Payne Passes

There’s this exercise I do when brainstorming with shows around a pop culture or local topic that helps them develop treatments which puts their authenticity front and center.  It’s called Know Wonder.  What do you know about the topic and also, what do you wonder?  Researching every topic stimulates one’s creativity.  That curiosity fuels interesting breaks because, if you’re fascinated by it in the presentation, your audience will be, too.  Liam Payne from One Direction dies unexpectedly.  Many shows would report what they know to the audience.  Add in some curiosity and it comes alive.  Kira and Logan, WOKQ, Portsmouth, NH wondered why people cry when a celebrity they’ve never met dies.  It led to fascinating calls from their fans.  Here’s what they did the day after Liam died.  This is compelling, relevant, topical radio.

Moug and Karla, B96, Chicago with Truth or Treat

A treatment of a topic rarely taken advantage of is street audio.  Getting outside voices on your show brings some color into the break. Much like when Jay Leno did Jaywalking or David Letterman interacted with people on the streets of New York.  Kudos to Moug and Karla, B96, Chicago for Truth or Treat.  Knowing you have to go to the crowds, they showed up to talk with Chicago Bears tailgaters.  Those folks are slightly loose and all in good moods.  So using them will bring that vibe to the show.  In this feature, they wrote tons of personal questions.  The tailgater had to choose one and answer it.  Note how they had the tailgater read the question.  That brought a fun dimension to the feature as we could hear their voice emotionally react to the personal thing they had to answer.

Steve Richards, MIX 96.5, Asheville, NC with Listener Jen and Hurricane Helene

What radio does better than any other medium is connection.  Making people feel like they aren’t alone.  The pictures and videos coming out of western North Carolina are horrific.  Loss of life.  Entire towns wiped away by Hurricane Helene.  While it shouldn’t take a natural disaster to connect listeners, we shouldn’t underestimate our power to do that, too.  It’s why many fans choose us each day.  Amongst the devastation, we make listeners feel like they’re not going through it by themselves.  My friend Steve Richards, MIX 96.5, Asheville, NC is one of the very best I know at this.  As that station powered back up, here’s a call from a listener on her experience.  It’s riveting story-telling with multiple connection points.  We need to know what’s below the service emotionally with our listeners, whether it’s a bad situation or not.  Connect there and we’ll always be important to them

Gregg, Freddie, and Andrea, MIX 104.1, Boston with Triple True or False

I like trivia a lot.  Especially when it’s easy.  Watch a trivia-based game on TV and it’s highly addictive.  You end up playing along with the game, as your listeners do in their cars.  There are so many creative, very engaging ways to do this.  Compile a list and, when you have things to give out, use them.  They are way better than caller 18 to earn images with those not contesting for the prize.  Gregg, Freddie, and Andrea, MIX 104.1, Boston play Triple True or False.  They have three true/false trivia questions.  If caller 14 gets all of them right, they win.  But if they don’t, caller 15 gets the prize.  The key to creating some drama is to first put both callers on the air so one is rooting against the other.  Here it is as an example.  Bet you play along.