Bet you have no idea what it’s like to win Powerball, right? With no winner this week and the jackpot now at an estimated $1.3-billion, do a Google search for people who’ve won large sums of money in the lottery and get them to tell their story of how their lives changed (good and bad) because of it.
Here’s an easy character development game you can play just back from vacation called “Who Got Them Gifts?” This is a test to see how well the audience knows you. List for the audience several gifts a cast member got for Christmas (make sure to throw in a few odd ones). Listeners must guess which person on the show received that bounty!
Not much time left until Christmas. Many parents are running out of places for the Elf on the Shelf, something they use to keep the kids in line. Simple phone topic – ask listeners to give you new locations as everyone counts down the days to the holiday!
Mix kids and Santa and you have a win. Invite kids to come on the show and make their pitch on why they deserve certain toys and gifts directly to Santa. You’ll need someone fun to play Santa Claus and great phone screening so you have kids who can contribute to the bit (and not just offer up one word answers to questions).
Know that tangled string of Christmas lights you have in the house? Challenge a show member to untangle them. The curve ball can be that they compete against a brainiac from a local college who will, at the same time, try to figure out Rubik’s cube. First to do it wins. This is a visual so make sure you grab that for social media. And to add a twist, invite a local sportscaster in to do the play-by-play as things unfold.
The big box stores ain’t going nowhere. They have large footprints and massive marketing budgets. That’s why you’ll get behind your market’s small businesses by showing them some love through Christmas. This is the time of year that makes or breaks their year. So do “(Your Town’s) A-Z: The 26 Days of Christmas”. Once a day, choose a letter in the alphabet and let any employee of a local small business starting with that letter call to plug where they work. The image you’ll get from this is that you support the little guy. Which is very powerful.
With Thanksgiving about a week away, play the “I Wonder” game. I wonder…what Thanksgiving is like at the governor’s mansion. I wonder…what Thanksgiving is like in prison. I wonder…is a way to have interesting conversations with atypical people your audience will lean into.
Seems like everyone is offering to do flu shots these days: the drug store, your doctor, where you buys groceries. No one likes getting shots. So…get shots! Invite someone in the studio one morning to give everyone their flu shot. You’ll get video of winces to share on social media and great reactions for the listeners.
Many shows (maybe yours) ease into the broadcast day with the “First Caller of the Day” feature for their first break. The TJ Show, AMP 103.3, Boston start their Monday show with a different feature called “Awesome or Awful” where TJ asks his cast and callers to tell him something from their weekend that was either awesome or awful. This is a better feature because “First Caller” gets you nothing more than a caller where TJ’s feature gets you a story.
How fun would it be to find a cute sounding kid and have him or her read the ingredients of typical Halloween candy to the audience with the first listener to guess the candy being described winning a prize (and maybe a bag of the candy)?