Archive for category: Free Idea

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

With kids going back to school, here’s a relatable idea for your entire audience.  Have kids call a special phone line you set up (could just be your direct extension at the station) and give them 30-seconds to tell you what they did while on their summer vacations.  Invite parents do do the same thing.  Kids are always cute and the disparity against the adults will be amusing. The more you promote the line (on your show and throughout the day) the more you’ll get to air.  This is better than a straight up phone topic because you won’t be at the mercy of what you just get that morning if you roll it out then.

It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

For parents who are tired of their kids this summer, it’s the most wonderful time of the year – because it’s back to school season!  Which is why you’ll play off this emotion by gathering audio from friends, co-workers, and listeners saying their name, their kid’s names, the school they’re going back to, and a quick, emotion-filled sentence about how they desperately want them out of the house and back to school and lay it over Johnny Mathis’s Christmas classic, “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”.

Time Out For Spanish

With commercials all over the place for Rosetta Stone, Stafford and Frigo, the morning team at The Fox in Jonesboro, AR, do a regular feature called “Time Out for Spanish”.  They get a very quirky sentence read in Spanish.  They air it and then translate it back to English.  The fun factor happens with the quirkiness of what they write and the production value they place up against the feature to communicate its silliness.

Angry or Acting

Another fun Mel Gibson game played by Karson & Kennedy at MIX 104.1 Boston is called “Angry or Acting”.  They got a bunch of Mel Gibson DVDs and pulled out scenes where Mel was acting angry (all the Lethal Weapons, Ransom).  They played for the listener audio of either Mel angry (clips from the recently released phone calls) or Mel acting angry (the movie clips).  Three of five right and the listener won, everyone in their cars laughing!

Know Your Celebrity Rants (Idea)

With the Mel Gibson audio being front and center, how about a fun game called “Know Your Celebrity Rants”.  Give a two sentence rhyming clue and then play some of the audio of a celebrity rant (audio links to some below).  The listener has to correctly guess three of five celebrities to win the prize.  Karson & Kennedy at MIX in Boston did this and it was great. Some of the ones they used were Christian Bale, Alec Baldwin, Kanye West, Michael Richards, and Bill O’Reilly.  Just make sure you choose very well known celebrities and more recent is better than old as you brainstorm the deeper list. Find some celebrity rants here, here, here, and here.  Here the audio of how they did it here.

My Town is Better than Your Town

A fun idea done by Karlson & McKenzie at WZLX, Boston is “My Town is Better than Your Town”.  They gathered the names of every local mayor in the metro.  They then pitted two mayors against each other each week to tout their town.  It was basically smack talk, with each mayor talking about all the great reasons their town is the best.  The mayors did need some coaching (this was always recorded) but the end product was very local and they made great contacts in the process.

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.

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