Kick-Ass Audio Breaks

Oftentimes, we hear from talent that length of break equals its value.  In other words, the longer the break, the more they got done.  This is wrong many times.  A shorter break plays to listeners’ attention spans, which compels all of us to prep harder to earn images and strategic wins.   Here’s a new feature from Two Men and a Mom, WRAL-FM, Raleigh called Know This or Sing the Chorus.  Great new features sometimes come from quirky names.  Bryan Lord’s wife is a teacher at an area school and he went to their yearly talent show.  Finding both a willing and fun fellow attendee, Bryan played around with him to do this version of the feature.  Listen to this break below and see if you don’t agree that the show accomplished the following seven items in this break:  it was topical (the trivia question was about a Christmas tree); it was local (Bryan talked about where his wife is a teacher); there was character development (I learned Bryan is married); it was music-based (listeners tend to evaluate having fun around the music higher); it was a different way to present content (so the show is perceived as fresh and new); it was fun; it was short (everything accomplished here was done in under three minutes).

Craft an edgy story with five lies and convince a listener to call their mom and tell it to her and you have a weekly benchmark called Five Lies to Tell Your Mom.  In search of a new appointment for Mojo in the Morning, Channel 955, Detroit a few years ago, we developed this weekly bit that highlights the relationship one listener has with their mother.  Offline, the show creates a short story with five bold, but believable lies.  They then conference call the listener with their mother and, without the mom knowing they are also on the line, they listen in as the story is told and the mother reacts.  They record this one week out to make it good – which affords the show the time to coach the listener on the story and then for editing and post production.  In some ways, this is a train wreck (in a good way) the audience would never see themselves doing, but love eavesdropping on because the stories you concoct can be as bold as you like to capture the audience’s attention.