Everyone’s talking about KFC’s new Double Down (this is the bunless sandwich). Go grab four of them for each show member. The challenge? Each person on the show must finish their four within an hour. The last person to finish all their Double Downs must go to the closest KFC and buy the first 50 people who come by that sandwich. You can position this as though the losing show member must spend their own money even though the it comes out of promotions.
Gene and Julie in Dallas do a great feature called “Long Lost Loves”. Listeners of a certain age sometimes wonder whatever happened to someone from their past. Maybe an ex-boyfriend from college, a teacher who had an impact on them, or a boss they had when they were a kid. A listener comes on each Friday and talks about the person they’re wondering about. The show’s private eye then pokes around to find out how that person’s life has turned out. He returns on Monday’s show to tell the listener. This works with a great listener, solid memories of a person, and a private eye who has to be a terrific storyteller. It’s captivating radio.
If you record in-studio celebrity interviews after the show for air the next day (when they’re in town), here’s an easy idea that’ll help you push audience from one hour to the next. After you record the celebrity in the production studio, have them also cut a short phone call with you, too, to say they’re in town asking if they can stop by to say hello or that they’re headed in and to ask if you want them to stop and pick up some McDonalds. Then, schedule the interview in a later hour of the show, but air the recorded “call” earlier to push audience to hear it.
Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian just broke up – they say they’re staying friends. Invite listeners to call you up, name an ex, and tell you the story about why they broke up. You have to guess if today, they’re “Friends or Foes”.
How about finding a senior citizen and having them read all of those salacious, exceptionally inappropriate text messages Tiger Woods sent one of his mistresses? The marriage of opposites (a senior citizen and sex texts) works. If you can’t find a senior citizen (or that doesn’t work for you), find another “opposite” to do it to create the disparity for humor!
Kara Dioguardi, the female judge who basically took over for Paula on American Idol, has cried a couple of times on the show this season. Some say the tears are fake. Which is where you come in. Test the thesis that women can cry on command. Speeding ticket? Women get out of them with tears. In trouble with a boyfriend? Cry and he’s angry no more. Do “Cry Like Kara and Win” by getting a bunch of women on the air to see if they can cry on demand. Make sure you get the audio of Kara crying to set things up.
One of the buzz shows now is “The Marriage Ref”. So, shows are trying to figure out their version. At WZLX, Boston, Karlson and McKenzie are doing “Same Sex Marriage Ref”. Considering gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts, this classic rock morning show is finding same sex couples and assembling a group of fun, local celebrities who then try and counsel the same sex couple through a relationship issue.
Does the station never have the budget to do bigger ideas? A recurring, quick feature you can do is called “We Win, We Go!” Once a morning, play a scratch and win lottery ticket. If you win money off the ticket, spend the winnings putting yourself right in the middle of whatever is happening in the news or pop culture right now. Dave and Jimmy at WNCI, Columbus did this. They hit for a $2500 lottery jackpot and went to the Olympics to broadcast for a few days. And all the days they won nothing, it was fun to listen to. Total cost each day is one dollar, and the bit literally takes under one minute! You can do this with whatever the big story of the day is.
“Olympic Athlete or Westminster Dog” is a simple game which plays off two pop culture topics. Gather names of athletes at the Winter Olympics and the names of dogs at last week’s Westminster Dog Show (both available on line). The listener has to get three of five right to win. Great on-air games can be vicariously played in cars and at home. This one is quirky and fun and can be played along with by everyone listening.
This is a new weekly Monday benchmark highlighting relationships called “Man Card Monday: How’d He Use It /How’d He Lose It?” Take calls from women who tell the show the manly thing their guy did over the weekend (i.e. he changed the oil, re-roofed the house) to demonstrate how he used his man card or the girlie thing he did (i.e. carried her purse through a department store, got a pedicure) to show how he would possibly lose it. Great phones are about telling stories – here you’ll have lots of them.