Back to school is upon us and one of the great memories for every listener is the (horrible) school lunches. Partner up with a local band (or have someone with a musical ability) and get them to sing the school lunch menus each day the first few weeks kids are back in school.
While the TV show “Last Comic Standing” is long gone from NBC’s line-up, there’s no reason you can’t take a week in the fall book and still do a parody. How about “Last Preacher Standing”? Preachers are not know for their senses of humor. Find a few and have a weeklong competition to find your market’s funniest preacher!
Ty Loves, New York, 92.3 NOW, New York City, has come up with an interesting way to use Vine to entertain its database of fans in a feature called “The Vine at Nine”. They solicit listeners asking what cast member they want to see do a silly Vine video that day. Vine videos only last seven seconds. The cast member then does the video and at 9:00 that morning, and the link is posted and shared on all the show’s social media sites. This works because it’s silly, it’s quick, and it’s another gross impression with their audience to keep them engaged in the program.
Breaks and benchmarks need to be strategic. They need to define a cast member and/or affirm a central image important to building loyalty. At Drex and Maney, KISS 95.1, Charlotte, we just added “Who’s Who at 6:42” as a regular benchmark. The caller is given a one-sentence story about something that happened to a cast member. The listener must guess who it happened to (there’s your character development). If they guess correctly they win. A silly production value affirms the image we’re after (fun).
Many shows use their first break to do a laundry list of what’s coming on the program that day. These end up being worthless breaks because most listeners won’t ever come back (they really won’t). What they’re looking for is the same thing they want from any and every break; relatable content that’s entertaining. So here’s an idea, specifically for Monday shows, that will cover those needs. It’s called “Whose Weekend?” You guys throw out an interesting thing that happened to a cast member (“this person broke their ankle after falling from a ladder while changing a light bulb in the kitchen”). The audience then guesses who it is, that cast member tells the story, then you’ve used the break to strategically define a cast member and entertain.
With vacations in full swing now, ask for a different family going on their break each week to call and have their kids leave you a voicemail each night of their vacation to tell you what they did that day. Grab the voicemail when you get in and air it.
A fun month-long bit you can do during the fall book would be “World Record Wednesday” where on each Wednesday in one month, a member of the show (or a listener) has to break a Guinness Record.
There is lots of focus on web hits in most companies. With the summer upon us, that means more beach and pool time. Ask listeners (as well as the rest of the station staff) to take pictures of good looking guys in bathing suits while out, post them on your website, and call it “Hunks in Trunks”.
If you have a good prize to give out, bring two listeners in to have a Smelling Bee (alternate name: Spell What You Smell). They sniff a smell hidden in a box and have to spell it. You get the visceral on-air reaction of the smell before they spell it. Some items to consider: sulfur, ammonia, gasoline, goat cheese, compost.
Another fun game which plays off the popularity of the new Star Trek movie is called “Trek or Trebek”. Get audio from any Star Trek movie or TV show and Alex Trebek from Jeopardy. Change how the audio sounds in the production studio. Play it for your contestant, who has to identify if the audio comes from Star Trek or Alex Trebek. The Daily Double sound effect sounds like phasers, by the way! After they guess, play the unaffected audio to prove it. Hear how John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego executed the game here.