Radio Show Content | Audio Breaks

Sarah and Jessie, MIX 96.5, Houston with Who Sent That Self-Help Book?

March 20, 2022

Sometimes, little things become big things. Consider the mystery faced by Sarah and Jessie, MIX 96.5, Houston back in December. Someone sent Sarah Pepper a self-help book from Amazon. The only problem? No one copped to it. There wasn’t any receipt or note with the delivery acknowledging who sent it. Small things can become big things. And those big things can become defining things! Sarah and Jessie set off to find out who sent the book and who thinks Sarah Pepper needs some help! A question I often ask in a prep session to talent is: what do you wonder about this? Wonderment is a great place to start to come up with something creative. They wondered if Sarah Frazier, Audacy’s market manager (and someone close personally to Sarah Pepper), sent it. Ms. Frazier is always money on the air. So they called her to ask. Resulting in this tiny thing (getting a book from an unknown person) into a bigger, stickier thing, considering how much fun the conversation was.

Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh We’re Rooting For You

March 6, 2022

Just coming off two years of Covid, with so many people isolated from the world except for what they had on Zooms, there is a general sense of isolation and loneliness. Here’s where radio has shined. Our ability to connect with listeners is unparalleled. That’s why so many in the audience feel like they know us. You must have that for this break to happen. Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh have a vibe about their show where they root for people. That’s who they are in real life, which is why it so easily transfers on-air. This is a very simple phone topic that gets immensely human and personal. A listener is starting a diet because she’s tired of how she looks. The show becomes very supportive of her. That’s when she cries in front of them. Because she knows they’re rooting for her. Do you have that kind of relationship with your audience?

Wicker and Wilde, MIX 98.1, Richmond Finding Atlas the Dog

February 27, 2022

There’s this old adage in radio that small market stations want to sound big and big market stations want to sound small. In the latter, “small” means homey. All radio should sound personal. If you’re a person of a certain age reading this post, you’ll remember when hometown stations would let listeners get on-the-air and ask the audience for help in finding their lost dogs. That’s exactly what Wicker and Wilde, MIX 98.1, Richmond did recently. A listener lost his dog Atlas and he asked for the audience’s help in finding him. Which resulted in this narrative theme over one show where listeners called with Atlas sightings and the resolution at the end of the program where the dog and owner were reunited. So homey and touching – with anyone listening that day wondering if there was a happy ending. This is wonderfully touching radio and super local.

Gregg, Freddy, and Danielle, MIX 104.1, Boston with Gram’s Jams

February 20, 2022

Anytime you come up with an idea centered around the music you play, it scores well with the audience and ties you back to the overall brand images of the radio station. Gregg, Freddy, and Danielle, MIX 104.1, Boston afternoons, wanted to play the often-used simple game of reading a song lyric to the audience and having the listener give back the artist and title to win a prize. That’s been done a million times, right? Add in a cast member’s grandmother, who’s reading the racy lyric, and you do both character development and earn an image of being fun, and you shift the feature from being a pure promotional giveaway to the earning of images with the entire audience. Especially important for those not trying to win the prize, but still wishing to be entertained by what they hear.

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.

Kick-Ass Audio Breaks

Sarah and Jessie, MIX 96.5, Houston with Who Sent That Self-Help Book?

Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah, WRAL-FM, Raleigh We’re Rooting For You

Wicker and Wilde, MIX 98.1, Richmond Finding Atlas the Dog

Gregg, Freddy, and Danielle, MIX 104.1, Boston with Gram’s Jams

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

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