Here’s a fun and dark way to involve listeners in the upcoming execution of an inmate that might work on a male-targeted morning show. It’s called the Death Row Inmate Game. Karslon & McKenzie at WZLX, Boston describe the inmate and give listeners a shot at guessing an item in his last meal to win a prize. The approach adds dimension and emotion to the conversation and builds anticipation to hear the actual meal he’s chosen as his last.
Facebook is being used by all demos now, which is why we got into a conversation about it on Tiffany & Michael’s morning show on B101, Philadelphia. Specifically, news guy Bill Tafrow was bothered by the fact that an ex-girlfriend had de-friended him on Facebook. So, the only course of action was to get her on the show to find out why she did that.
Last month on Karson & Kennedy on MIX 104.1, Boston, we did “The Race to 1K” where we challenged the two co-hosts to spend the month meeting listeners. The first to meet 1000 listeners won. This was another effort to get our team out in public and to generate lots of local content for the show through the audio they got during visits with listeners. Here’s one break which showed how much fun they had when they went out.
We just added a new weekly benchmark to Mojo in the Morning on Channel 95.5, Detroit called “Five Lies To Tell Your Mom”. The show concocts a story with five plausible lies a listener must tell her mother, just to see how mom reacts.
Jimmy and Yvonne on DAVE-FM, Atlanta have a regular character on their show called The Queen. He’s a flamboyant gay guy who tells the market all the fun places to go each weekend. Who better to have in the studio than Bob The Queen when they needed commentary on the Royal Wedding the week it was happening? Great contributing characters fill a specific role on the show and tend to create talk because of this focus and their humorous point-of-view. Here’s The Queen on the Wedding.
While out on paternity leave, Nick Cannon from New York’s 92.3 NOW wanted to stay in touch with listeners. So he did something completely out of the ordinary. He gave listeners his home phone number, which he says he’ll answer when he’s there. Then to prove the number works to the skeptics in the studio, he dialed it and a very pregnant Mariah Carey answered. Now, all of New York has Nick’s home phone number, which is a nice was to create buzz. The audio is below so enjoy!
We do a feature each morning at 8:00 on Rollin’ with Nick Cannon, on New York’s 92.3 NOW called “Cannon’s Questions” where Nick Cannon calls someone and asks them a slew of silly questions. In the audio below, see what happens when an upset husband inserts himself into Nick’s feature.
What happens when you know the guy your sister is about to marry is gay? You try to get him to reveal it to his sister on your show. That’s what Mojo in the Morning on Channel 95.5, Detroit did. This is an excellent example of taking what was a standard phone topic and turning it into something people would talk about. It comes in three parts.
Interns can be fun! What would you do if you suspected an intern lied to you? Here’s one from Karson & Kennedy at MIX 104.1, Boston. After an intern called in sick, they suspected the lie when reading her Facebook page from the evening before (lots and lots of drinking). So what did they do? The confronted her on the show about it, with her mother on the hotline! After everything was aired, their was penance to be paid to stay with the show. Listen and enjoy!
One of the on-going jokes on the Tiffany and Michael Morning Show on B101, Philadelphia is how bad a driver news guy Bill Tafrow is. So bad that we decided to test him publicly by setting up a narrative story arc over a couple of days to test him. Here are two breaks from that arc. The first is when Bill and the rest of the team get their written test results. The second break is audio from the next day when Bill goes out with a driving instructor, who grades him very poorly. These are terrific examples of character driven content. These are the kinds of things listeners identfy with and remember.