Archive for category: Audio

Sometimes listeners bring stories filled with drama.  What makes the best stories memorable are details of tension that advance them to conclusion.  Watch any great TV show or movie and this is the technique script writers use to hook us quickly and keep us on the edge of our seats so we stay until the end.  Chris and Dina, WMAS-FM, Springfield, MA had one such experience in their Feel Good feature when a caller told them that he solved the case of a stolen car in the neighborhood by accessing the cameras outside his house.  When he found out a neighbor’s car was taken outside his home, he looked at the footage to help the cops nab the culprit.  What we’re given is a compelling story of high drama and humanity of one person helping another.  This is memorable content.

We’ve talked before about the kinds of content that work best for your audience.  As a reminder, they are:  pop culture (because pop = popular), local content (if you’re not syndicated), and stories about you that prove you are just like the audience.  Let me add a fourth, which tends to be over-looked.  And that’s music-based content that brands you as part of the station.  Often, shows ignore the music and this kind of content, creating a potential silo that you are not part of the station (which is based on music).  Here’s the Daly/Migs Show, 99.9 KISW, Seattle showing how easy it is.  They found a list of popular cover songs as done by artists in the format, and some groups that are local.  All around a very relevant break that folds the show into the station brand.  One note:  they aren’t even twenty seconds into the break and the real content has already started with a cover song hook being played.  That part is fantastic.

Marry opposites and you get comedy.  Humor happens when you do that.  What are lots of people doing now that the holidays and all that eating are over?  Trying to lose weight by crowding area gyms.  In a brainstorm about opposites last year at this time, Karen Carson in the Morning with Johnny Minge and Intern Anthony, WNEW-FM, New York decided it might be fun to camp out at a gym close by the station and offer those leaving a doughnut just to see what they’d do.  Here’s a compilation of the absurdity when Johnny did that.  Great on-air content in the moment, but an even better video for social media (see it here), which still lives in their feeds and was viewed thousands of times because we married opposites to create the fun.

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.

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.