Archive for category: Audio

One pain every parent knows is when you unexpectedly step on an errant Lego left on the floor by their kid.  A relatable known to everyone, but especially Chris and Dina, WMAS-FM, Springfield, MA.  Dina set up the story line on the show, challenging Chris to remove his shoes and take a long walk over a sea of Legos.  A fun idea that’d vibe with any parent.  And listeners who related felt great empathy for Chris, who had endured the same pain, too.  Plus, it was quite funny to make Chris do this.  Stunts like this build characters and force a sense of compassion by the audience.  Here’s the final break from the show of the walk.  Doing a social media video helps extend the fun and presence of the idea to accrue images.

What do you know?  What do you wonder?  Two critical questions in the prep process that define who you are and create your connection to a topic.  It’s much harder to do a great radio show if you don’t have any curiosity to the topics of the day.  In their prep, Anna and Raven, Star 99.9, Bridgeport, CT (and syndicated) knew they had to be all over the Diddy trial – it’s a Hot Topic and requires addressing.  How to do that, though?  It’s salacious testimony, but you can’t rely on just that.  As they jumped down the rabbit hole, they saw lots of pictures from the trial as done by a courtroom sketch artist.  They wondered what that was like.  So they found one and he shared some insight, making for a fascinating conversation around a big topic as done from their curiosity.

A running theme on John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego is that they always get nominated for awards, but never win them.  They’re the Susan Lucci of local radio!  As a tenured show, the rules are different.  They can mock themselves and treat sardonically not winning an award.  This is a connection point with their audience, as their fans don’t win any awards, too.  Because they are so well-defined after 10+ years on-the-air, it’s okay to do this.  They were up for an ACM (Academy of Country Music) award this year, but didn’t win again.  So they did the next best thing the morning the ACM show was on TV.  They broadcast live from ACM Auto Body and Paint in San Diego.  The client was smart and gave them their ACM.  Here’s a video they put on social to continue that story line.

What’s the length of a good break?  It depends on the quality of the content.  And how much drama there is in telling it.  The more conflict, tension, and drama you have, the longer the story can go.  Case in point is the story told on Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston after Kennedy came back from a vacation overseas.  Kennedy’s trip to Thailand, specifically a dinner she attended, went horribly wrong for many reasons.  Twist and turns and lots of speed bumps coupled with a self-deprecating sense of humor compel the audience to want to hear the story to conclusion.  Breaks with those elements feel shorter than they really are, if the break is structured right.  Go watch a reality show and see that they change the camera angle or scene every few seconds.  They do that to keep your attention.  Just like this break.

Character development is when you define yourself to the audience.  When you do that, a connection forms and the audience gets to know you, which is central to radio’s greatest strength – the intimate bond between the listener and the talent.  Often, it’s you telling a story about your life the audience sees themselves in or when you’re talking about a topic and being honest in your opinion.  I will always reward new ways to define you to fans.  Here is a unique idea I’d never consider.  Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston figured out how to see how many one-star reviews they’ve received in their Uber app.  They each looked in theirs and had the audience guess who had the most.  Fun and clever.  And now, all yours!