The very best content comes from the hosts’ real life experiences. Producer Kal on Kyle and Rachel, Radio NOW, Indianapolis, stiffed a waitress on her tip after ordering chicken fingers and not liking her attitude. The morning team called him out and put Kal in the most uncomfortable spot when they “found” the waitress and had her talk to Kal on the show about why he did it.
Nothing is better than when a morning show does something fun and innovative that fits its brand image that the competitor wouldn’t think of doing. Alicia Keys is making the rounds to promote her new CD. Pablo and Free on WPGC, Washington not only did the standard Q&A, they had Alicia call a record store as a customer looking for a song she didn’t know the name of or the artist and that all she could do is sing the hook, which she does. Of course, it’s her song! The effort here is spectacular and created a break listeners walked away talking about!
A major shift we made on Karlson and McKenzie, WZLX, Boston’s very successful morning show a while back was to go more personal with the audience. This is why we have relatives of the cast members on all the time. Kevin Karlson’s in-laws celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, which is why he went around their party with a recorder asking people coming to celebrate how many times in September they had had sex. It’s uncomfortable, unpredictable, and very funny.
Instead of doing a standard Q&A on interviews, Cledus, Dave, and Veronica at WQYK, Tampa do something different and fun. They let listeners guess what the interviewee had for breakfast, then make that a part of their conversation. This part humanizes the person being interviewed and is silly and fun, thus drawing listeners in to the interview because it’s different. Here’s an interview they did using this approach with one of their local mayors.
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.
One of the summer’s big hits was “Magic Mike”. One of the fun features on Fernando and Greg, NOW 99.7, San Francisco’s morning show is when they talk to Greg’s mom, a conservative woman who lives in Texas. They married the opposites of old school views on sex and a naked Channing Tatum. Here’s Greg’s mom “review” of the movie.
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.”
The content plot for J and Julian, B96, Chicago is “multiculturalism”. Simply put, we have one of everything on this show, which is a direct reflection of P18-34 in a major city like Chicago. We leverage the ethnicity of the show to do different kind of content. So, the Olympics was an easy putt for us. Which is why we challenged each member of the team to learn the national anthem of the country of their heritage and sing it to the audience, as though they’d won gold. The audio below is a compilation of the breaks where we did it. Here is the cast of the show singing the national anthems of China, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Poland.