Radio Show Content | Audio Breaks

Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston Drunk News

November 1, 2020

“Yea, but what are we doing with it?” That’s a question I ask every show in near every weekly conversation. Choosing the topics for the program is the easy part. What we do with them, past the interesting angles that define the talent, is what makes it sticky. You have seen me preach this countless times on this page. The audience wants to be around people they know and like when they turn you on, but most importantly, they want to laugh and have a good time. Looking for a new feature for Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston, the team came up with Drunk News. It’s been done by other shows (Leno even did it for a while). The difference here is how the show did it. They could have read news stories and acted drunk – that would have be perceived as a wacky radio bit. Or, you could type up some news stories and go to the bars in Boston at 2am and get actual drunk people to read them – that’s real. That’s what they did. Nothing truly revolutionary here. It doesn’t need to be. It just needs to be relevant and fun, which this is. Here’s a retro-break that easily shows how it can be done to stand out.

AMP 103.3, Boston TJ’s Street Match

October 25, 2020

PPM ratings are all about occasions. Our job in developing daily, fun radio, is to have as part of our recipe, “tune-in features” that affect listeners’ behavior so they turn us on. Listen to any successful show breakdown their wins and you will almost always hear them reference that fans set their watch for features they must hear. Solid, fun, can’t miss benchmarks must be a part of your show if you care to turn a two-day a week listener into a three-day a week listener. Much like Apple releases new products and targets them at Apple fans, your fans are the easiest route to getting more listenership because they already like you. Benchmarks must reach certain thresholds to be effective, though. Just doing the same thing at the same time each day isn’t good enough. When The TJ Show was on AMP, 103.3, Boston, we challenged TJ to come with a can’t miss feature we could get known for. Here’s TJ’s Street Match, a play along game that used people on the streets of Boston, one listener, and a bunch of very quirky questions to keep everyone tuned in.

KUBL, Salt Lake City Lexi and Banks That’s All I Need To Know About You

October 18, 2020

We make these snap judgements about people all the time. Go to the grocery store and watch a shopper not return the cart to the holding area in the parking lot after they put their items in their trunk? Well, that’s all I need to know about them. Drive into a neighborhood and see someone’s washer and dryer on their front porch? You know everything else about their life, right? Lexi and Banks, KUBL, Salt Lake City do a daily feature called That’s All I Need To Know About You. Kinda like an updated version of Jeff Foxworthy’s “You Might Be a Redneck If…” this phone in feature gives listeners an opportunity to call and make their value judgments about people around them, too. It’s relatable, fun, and highly digestible because it quick. Here are a couple of versions of it.

John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego Name that Halloween Candy

October 11, 2020

My friends at Coleman Insights talk about the three T’s of content: Topic, Treatment, and Tone. What topics are you on? What are you doing with those topics (treatment)? And how do you want listeners to feel at the end of the break (tone)? This is all part of the strategic process of entertaining the audience in ways that are memorable. Relevance is the key to everything. With Halloween coming up, this is one of my favorite ideas that wonderfully executes the three T’s of content. John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego got a very cute sounding kid to read the ingredients of popular Halloween candy. The listener had to identify the candy to win. This is great because listeners not only played along in the car, but it was fun to hear. Offering up a new idea that fits the show around great content is what makes the break memorable and sets you up as “can’t miss” because there is always something fresh on the show.

Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix The Lindsey Buckingham Story

October 4, 2020

A missed opportunity for many shows is in not aligning with the music on the radio station. I know this from experience – we often see our show as separate from the station brand and many times we are much more focused on our content. The biggest thing you hopefully have in common with the audience is your love of the music you play. I’ve launched numerous shows from that foundation and it always works to form a relationship with listeners. It’s especially powerful at a classic rock station. Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix know and love the music they play. They found a local promoter who has had hundreds of encounters with the format’s iconic artists and convinced him to tell them stories about a few. This clip proves the power of talking about the music and telling stories as the promoter tells a terrific tale about Lindsey Buckingham (from Fleetwood Mac) and how difficult he was to deal with.

Kick-Ass Audio Breaks

Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston Drunk News

AMP 103.3, Boston TJ’s Street Match

KUBL, Salt Lake City Lexi and Banks That’s All I Need To Know About You

John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego Name that Halloween Candy

Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix The Lindsey Buckingham Story

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