Kick-Ass Audio Breaks

It’s really important to be topical.  Being about the moment makes your show sound connected and relevant.  Think of the nightly comedians.  Minus political comedy (which doesn’t fit most radio shows), they create humor around whatever topics are hot right now.  That’s a smart approach to prepping your show, too.  The week of the Masters, Tony and Kris, WIVK, Knoxville decided the audience deserved to know who’d win before the iconic weekend golf tournament started.  So they wrote the names of each golfer on a ball, dropped them down a flight of stairs, and whichever one their producer Cody grabbed first was predicted to be the winner.  Think Topic-Treatment-Tone (as espoused by my friends at Coleman Insights).  The topic was perfect, but the treatment (the idea) was meant to ramp up the laughter and talk.  Here’s audio of the break.  They did a companion video that was released on social media, too, to extend the life of the idea.

My blog this week is Practice Makes Permanent.  In it, I talk about the value of curiosity to get a more creative show.  Surrounding yourself with curiosity always leads to more fun things to do around a topic.  Case in point was what was done last week by Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh.  The big topic in the Triangle was the Final Four match-up that weekend between Duke and UNC, two local teams.  It’s all anyone talked about.  In one of our Curiosity Zooms, when discussing the topic, someone noted that it’s always the next day in Australia.  Which lead to our deciding to call a friend there the day before the game.  They noted to him that, because it’s the next day, the game had already been played and asked who won (he said UNC).  Many listeners got the joke, but a few didn’t, which resulted in one calling the show a little confused.  Do fun and different things with your big topics and there’s no way you can’t stand out.