With Thanksgiving a few weeks away, find the three most fun people in the building and have each of them prepare their version of mashed potatoes like they’d serve at Thanksgiving dinner. On a day before the holiday, have the entire airstaff (or others that you work with) do a blind taste test and then crown your first annual winner of the mashed potato contest. It’ll be fun audio for the show and a great video for your socials.
With Powerball expected to be worth $1-billion, consider doing My Ex Made Me a Billionaire. Find a divorced couple and bring them on the show. Explore what happened in their relationship. Then each person gets to choose half the numbers. Buy a ticket with those numbers and give that couple any winnings the next day.
You have a super power in this new feature called The Color of Your House: Halloween Edition. Listeners call and tell you the Halloween candy they’re giving out Monday. You then tell them the color of the house they’re in. The twist – get the actual color offline so every guess is right. The audience will be astounded (and probably figure it out). Thanks to Sarah Pepper and Jessie Watt, MIX 96.5 Houston for this idea!
Despite the fact that it’s mid-October, some stores already have their Christmas stuff out. How about finding a listener who’ll host you in their home this week and you all put up their Christmas tree? Lots of video for social media with an on-air component of finding and getting to know the family.
What would it be like if you guys recreated the video seen here as a team to celebrate October, our month with Halloween? To heighten the idea, how much social media engagement would you get if you asked some local celebrities to do theirs or appear in yours?
Welcome to Halloween Month! Start brainstorming ideas for the holiday. This week, let’s talk about the Crappy Candy House. What house gave out the bad candy in your neighborhood? Or worse, no candy at all? In our neighborhood, the Axlerods down the street gave out…apples. Time to out these people and, if possible, call one to ask that they fix it for this year’s trick-or-treaters.
I’m getting bullish on ideas that involve the entire air staff on your show. Find a music teacher at an area high school and ask them to assign each staff member an instrument and teach all of you to play one holiday song. Live that narrative on your show as you coordinate things. Then just after the Thanksgiving holiday in November, the whole air staff assembles on your show to play one holiday song for the audience.
Your Monday Morning Free Idea editor read over the weekend that the new King of England is quite high maintenance. King Charles has one of his butlers squeeze exactly one inch of toothpaste onto his toothbrush each morning, which is waiting for him when he gets into the bathroom. Which leads to the simple phone topic: give us the initials of the most high maintenance person you know at work or in life, then tell us why you chose them.
Let’s combine back-to-school with Halloween. The first couple of weeks of October, get teachers to send you a picture of their teacher’s lounge at school. There are great memories as a student wondering what went on behind that closed door. Post the pictures online and let the voting begin. The teacher’s lounge getting the most votes wins a year’s supply of Halloween candy!
A friend just told me he thought Chick-Fil-A’s waffle fries were inferior to the fries of other fast food restaurants. Time to have the French Fry Challenge. Grab fries from any local restaurant that wants in on the competition. Then find three great chefs in town and do a blind taste test to crown your winner.