Listeners want to be brought inside stories – and the best people to do this are those actually in the story. What happens when a celebrity in the audience at the Oscars (Sunday, February 24) has to use the bathroom? The show has “seat fillers” who occupy the seat until the star returns. Using the power of the internet, find people who’ve done this to hear what it’s like.
With Valentine’s Day this week, call your parents and ask them where you were conceived! Then, flip the script and see if listeners will call their parents on the show to ask the same question (remember to keep things legal with all calls). Thanks to The Josie Dye Show, Indie 88, Toronto for this idea.
Not everyone’s Valentine’s Day went perfectly last year. Take stories from listeners where things went sideways and then give one of your listeners a “do-over”.
With Prince Philip’s car crash still in the news, go out and find an entertaining instructor at a driving school who’ll give the show’s cast members a driving test, then come on the program to rate each of you in driving skills.
New feature time! Open the phones and listeners must call with an office story about a co-worker who is either a laggard (lazy), a braggart (boast about themselves all the time), or shoots daggers (is a back stabber). No names keeps you legal, but we all know one of those we work with.
Well, the heavens have opened. Costco has announced they are selling a 27-pound tub of mac and cheese (story here), one of the food items you can never get enough of. Let’s test that. As everyone is in gyms trying to lose weight, ask the audience to vote on which cast member and their family has to buy it and eat nothing but mac and cheese (yes, breakfast, lunch, and dinner) until it’s completely gone. Chronicle every meal and let’s see how miserable that cast member and their family get!
Losing weight is the biggest resolution. Dedicate the first half hour of your show for the next couple of weeks to calling listeners who go to the gym before heading to work to either wake them to get there or assure they are on their way.
With lots of celebrities paying off fan’s layaway items, Mojo in the Morning, Channel 95.5, Detroit did the same. Without saying so, they asked listeners to call to tell them what they had placed on layaway at a store. With great phone screening, the items they heard about (where the funny happened) were: a Batman blanket, piranha fish, anal bleach (whatever that is), and a bong. They then told each caller they were paying off their layaway. The grand total was about $85 to tie into the topic and own it.
Does every cast member of the show have their holiday decorations up in the house? Go grab some digital hits by each person taking a picture of their decorated living room, posting the picture on the website, and asking the audience to try and match the cast member with their photo. Bringing listeners “inside” your home is one reason they will interact with you on social media.
Any idea what you bought your spouse or significant other last Christmas? Or what they got you? Time to put that to the test by having someone on in each cast member’s life and quizzing to see if they remember, too.