Radio Show Content | Audio Breaks

Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix Dirty Pics to the Pastor

February 13, 2022

The origin of your breaks communicate your relevance. Using a Hot List topic to generate your break connects both you and the audience to whatever is going on in life right now. Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix used the story of Patriots Coach Bill Belichick getting in trouble for sending a text to talk with the audience about the texts they’ve sent that weren’t proper. As some things go, this became about the inappropriate nude pictures sent to others. Here’s a fun story told by a female listener to the guys about naked pictures she accidentally sent to a group text, which included her pastor. The start is the Belichick story, but the end has the focus on a listener, making her the star of their program. Note her nice compliment to the show at the end of the call. She shared that personal story because she feels like she knows the people on the show, key to her calling.

John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego The Jimmie Allen Interview

February 6, 2022

Here’s another example of an interview that hits the sweet spot to sell tickets and entertain the audience. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts on this page, most people who ask for interview time on a show do so for one reason – they want to sell something. Our goal is to always entertain the audience with laughter and storytelling. Listeners want to get to know the celebrity you’re talking to. Enter John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego with their conversation with country artist Jimmie Allen, who’s on to sell tickets to his upcoming show. If you’re not aware, Jimmie is African-American and very funny. John and Tammy absolutely have a game plan for this interview. But, they’re comfortable enough to let the chemistry drive it. They’re great listeners and allow Jimmie to be Jimmie. Here are two segments. After all the laughter and our getting to know Jimmie better, don’t you think they helped him sell more tickets? Which means he’ll come on the show again. Artists remember great experiences. So do listeners. This ticks all those boxes.

Brian and Chrissy, WGNA, Albany Be Where the Audience Is

January 30, 2022

Great brands meet their customers wherever they are. Look around any big website. They tend to have, front and center, stories about (and links to) stuff around the Hot Topics of the day. Great personality shows instinctively know where the audience is emotionally and where they should be on an given day on a topic. Which brings us to Brian and Chrissy, WGNA, Albany. It’s their first show after their Buffalo Bills lose to the Kansas City Chiefs in what was the greatest weekend for football ever. There’s no need to say that so much of their audience was grieving over the loss. So, that’s where Brian and Chrissy were, too, with their content. Some of their benchmarks remained, but the rest of the show had Bills content and tapped into where their audience was emotionally. Here’s one break which proves that (note how they start the break with audio to hook the audience).

The Big Tigger Morning Show, V103, Atlanta with That’s That with Miss Pat

January 23, 2022

Alliteration is very powerful, especially when it comes to naming features. Research has proven that named features are retained. When you add alliteration, it heightens things. The Big Tigger Morning Show, V103, Atlanta has, in its cast, a comedian very popular with the audience whose name is Miss Pat. Wanting a daily feature to define Miss Pat and her sense of humor, they settled on That’s That with Miss Pat. This is a great, highly memorable name for a benchmark. In the feature, Miss Pat goes off on a topic of the day that has caught her eye. She gets to be her big bold self and apply her sense of humor against a story or topic everyone knows about. Here’s an example of That’s That with Miss Pat.

Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh with Conflict Creates Entertainment

January 16, 2022

In the construction of your breaks and in the dissection of the stories you tell on the show, where’s the conflict? Who or what helps push your story line forward and can be the center of emotional engagement that draws listeners in? Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh think of this in every break they plan on the show. Sarah was due to have a girls weekend with college friends in Key West. Yet, one of the friends invited another gal Sarah doesn’t like, and even considers an “energy vampire” so she’s thinking of bailing from the get together because of it. A good story to tell for character definition because it’s honest and has conflict. The show took things one step further – after Sarah tells her story and lays out the drama for the audience to comment on, they get on the friend in question so Sarah can ask why she did that. This is “lean in content”. And because it had conflict throughout, it garnered an emotional reaction from the audience both on the phones and in social media to make it more memorable to keep the show top-of-mind and “can’t miss”. In your content breaks, where’s the bold conflict you can center things around so listeners are engaged and entertained?

Kick-Ass Audio Breaks

Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix Dirty Pics to the Pastor

John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego The Jimmie Allen Interview

Brian and Chrissy, WGNA, Albany Be Where the Audience Is

The Big Tigger Morning Show, V103, Atlanta with That’s That with Miss Pat

Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh with Conflict Creates Entertainment

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