KMVQ: Who Ruined Your Wedding
The very best, most entertaining phone topics satisfy two criteria. First they must originate from an experience a member of the show has. That’s the justification to do it (verses it being perceived as a generic, prep service topic). The second is that what you ask for must be stories. Inside stories, there’s rich detail and twist and turns that will keep listeners hooked because the show has something to mine for gold. A member of Fernando and Greg, NOW 99.7, San Francisco, went to a wedding which was ruined by an invited guest. Here are the fun phones they did around it.
The very best morning radio is personal and vulnerable. Which is why the feature “Truth or Pair” works. J and Julian, B96, Chicago’s number one show had tickets to give out to see Pink perform at the station. Instead of taking caller ten (ugh!) they challenged listeners to call them with a highly personal question. If they answered it (truth), the listener got nothing. But if the question was too personal, they could take a pass and the listener got the pair of tickets to see Pink.
The Indiana Pacers recently had auctions for new cheerleaders. Kyle from Kyle and Rachel, Radio NOW 100.9, Indianapolis, decided to interview some of the potential cheerleaders. What to do? In a brainstorm, I asked him what some of the stereotypes were for cheerleaders. Kyle said “they’re dumb”. So, he decided to ask them very hard science questions. The twist is he gave them the answers so they came off the opposite of dumb. The way this was done, it was quite obvious to listeners there was a set-up, which made it fun.
Late August means it’s time for back to school. All over the country, parents are rejoicing that their kids are getting out of the house and going back to class. Which is why Rob and Joss, Froggy 92.9, Santa Rosa, CA, put together this excellent production piece of elated parents and the Christmas time classic, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
Karlson and McKenzie on WZLX, Boston have spent the summer making Kevin Karlson’s mother-in-law’s dreams come true. First up was a trip to NYC to see “The View”. Here’s Patsy’s review and their conversation with her about the experience. Hear how personal and fun this exchange is – you get a true sense of Kevin’s relationship with her and, because it’s reflective of real life, it’s very sticky.
We’re in the silly business, right? Here’s a break from Cledus, Dave, and Veronica on WQYK, Tampa which perfectly fuses relatable content with innovation. Dave thought his mom’s outgoing voicemail made her sound like she worked for a 900-number. Listen to how he talks about it and, more importantly, what they do with it to make the audience laugh.
It was 100 degrees in town this week and Mojo in the Morning, Channel 95.5, Detroit talked about it. Here’s a storyline very well constructed to get listeners to hang on for resolution. They received a call from an air conditioning repairman who talked about how busy he’s been. He tells them this story about how, when fixing someone’s unit, a neighbor who can’t get hers fixed approaches him and offers him sex if he’ll take care of things. Instead of finding out if he accepted the offer after he tells his story, Mojo asks listeners what they thought he did, before the guy tells all. These two segments below were separated by a stop set and some music.