The Yard Sales

What do many listeners have Saturday mornings during the summer?  Yard sales!  How about creating a Friday feature where women get some free air time to promote their weekend yard sale?  Where they live, the time of the event, and ask them about a “featured item” they’re getting rid of (can you say a “Donnie & Marie salt & pepper shaker”).  You’ll be a hero to these women and create a fun feature that’s local and small town in its feel (which is good).

Mojo: The Spelling Bees

Mojo in the Morning at Channel 95.5, Detroit recently had a great pair of concert tickets to give out.  It’s not the prize, but the way you do it that captures listenership.  They decided to do “Mojo’s Spelling Bees”.  The listener, vying for the prize, sat in a car with the windows rolled up. The listener then had to correctly spell five words to win.  The curveball?  For every word he misspelled, a beekeeper in the backseat released a dozen bees into the car!  Disclaimer:  if you like this idea, it’s best to check with management to make sure you’re legal and have all your bases covered!

Call the Valedictorian

With high school graduations about to wrap up, each member of the morning show can call their high school to find out where they placed in the graduation rank.  It’d certainly be fun to hear how average (or smart) everyone was.  The other thing is for each cast member to locate their high school valedictorian (easiest thru Facebook) and invite them on the show to see if they ended up in a professional worthy of the accolade or if they’re now managing a Ben and Jerry’s.

I Love You Man

Nothing may be more uncomfortable for a guy than to hear that a fellow male friend loves him. How do you react to that?  Here’s quick game if you have a prize to give out called “I Love You, Man.”  A male listener comes on and you conference call one of his guy friends.  Without the listener saying he’s on the show playing a game, he has 30 seconds to get his friend to say “I love you” back to him.

How Do You Like Me Now?

This one’s being borrowed from Karson and Kennedy at MIX 104.1, Boston.  Ever have anyone  tell you that you’re no good at something, then go on to excel at it?  This irregular feature is called “How Do You Like Me Now?”  It works because it’s a bunch of triumphant stories about little guys (your listeners)!

Game: There’s An App for That!

There are over 120,000 apps now available in Apple’s App Store.  A quick, fun game is called “There’s An App for That”.  Find some of the quirkier apps available in the store and make up some.  Tell the listener the name of the app and what it does.  They have to determine if it’s a real app.  Three of five right and you have a winner.  For instance:  “Stachtastic” is an app that’ll put a mustache on any picture in your iPhone.  Is that a real app?

Good News

While this feature isn’t necessarily fun, it will resonate with many audiences.  With so many people sensing so many bad things are happening in the world, do “Good News”.  Syndicated country show Tony & Kris out of Nashville do this a couple times a week and it helps them connect with the audience and communicate they share the same values as the listeners.  They take a couple of calls from listeners who tell them about something good going on in their life. There might be moments for humor, but celebrating good things going on in listeners’ lives helps position the show as wanting to raise up the little guy.

Can They Sing or Will They Suck?

As American Idol winds down, here’s a fun game you can play for its last few weeks called “Can They Sing or Will They Suck?”  As played by The Scotty Show at Radio NOW in Indianapolis, go grab four callers.  Caller one must guess, after a little Q&A with each of the other three, if they can sing or if they’ll suck.  Give each of the three others a simple song everyone knows (i.e. Happy Birthday, The Sound of Music, Somewhere Over the Rainbow) so they’re not stumped coming up with a tune.  If your contestant gets two of three right, they win something.  It’s the show cast who determines if the prediction was right or wrong!

Momilies

With Mother’s Day about a week away, you can never go wrong with kids.  Go get some kids doing one of two things:  either ask them to mimic their mother when she’s angry.  Or, get kids to say typical motherly things (i.e. “if you go out in this cold, take a jacket,” or “just wait until your father comes home”).  For starter audio of the “momilies” (kids saying things like their mothers), e-mail me here and I can send you an audio file with a dozen or so to start with!

The Smoker’s Choir

With American Idol and GLEE being big buzz shows, form your own group to entertain the audience.  It’s called “The Smoker’s Choir”.  It’s as simple as it sounds.  Find listeners who smoke and put together your own singing group.  They can perform at show remotes, you can play your own version of “Name That Tune” with them, or any other idea that requires singing. This is one way to parody these big TV shows and find local listeners who can be characters on the program to create laughter around as well.