School is back in session in the next few weeks. Test kids to see what they forgot over the summer. Put together a bunch of fifth grade questions a kid going into the sixth grade should remember from last year to see if they enter the school year retaining what they were taught. You can do this with any kid going into any grade with the applicable questions from their previous year.
The next week you have unbelievable temperatures in your market, know someone is to blame. But who? Ask the audience to vote on social media which of your local TV meteorologists is responsible. If they’re willing, have all the chief meteorologists on to convince the audience to NOT vote them (it’s not THEIR fault!). Then at the end of the bad weather, reveal who the audience thinks is to blame.
The marrying of opposites sometimes creates great humor. Go find a bunch of naughty jokes (dirty, but that can be told on-the-air) and ask a bunch of nice sounding girls to read them in a new feature called Nice Girls Reading Naughty Jokes. Thanks to Mark and Neanderpaul, KSLX, Phoenix for this idea.
OJ Simpson is scheduled for his parole hearing on Thursday of this week. Reportedly, ESPN swill carry it live. Ever wonder what happens in a parole hearing? Find someone who’s been in one (as a convict or not) and explore it. It might be fascinating to listeners to hear the story.
With summer being prime movie season, how about a competition amongst local theaters to find who has the best popcorn. You will need to set this up ahead of time. One or two theaters brings in their popcorn each day. It’s sampled by the show and privately rated on a one-to-ten scale. At the end of the week, reveal your results and crown your champion.
One of the consistent themes of the summer is that everyone needs air conditioning, which means HVAC guys are in high demand. Partner up with a bunch of HVAC repairmen who have stories to tell of things they’ve seen or encountered as they’ve gone to homes to fix units. Have one on each week to tell that great story in a seasonal feature you can call “Holy HVAC!”
Want an edgy character development idea? Everyone is sitting with a computer or smart phone in front of them while on-the-air. Unannounced and unexpectedly, the anchor calls an audible and makes the cast members trade places (or phones) where the new person gets to rifle through the browser history of another cast member and quiz them about any site they’ve been to!
Take another listen to Jeff Session’s testimony last week in front of the Senate, close your eyes, and he sounds exactly like Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies. Time to get audio of Granny from the internet and compare the two of them.
With Father’s Day approaching, go gather audio of kids describing what their father does for a living. Start with your kids, then make a bulk of it average, normal kids with fathers who have average, normal jobs to hear how cute they are struggling telling you.
A cast member of a show mentioned to our team on a call that he was the world’s worst book reader. He said he had bought three books in the last six months and not read one of them. Which led to this idea: let’s “hire” three kids once school is out and “pay” them (tickets, prizes) to each read one of the books for the cast member. We’ll give them a week then they come back, read their book report to the cast member on-the-air, and it’ll be like he read them!