Kick-Ass Audio Breaks

If I were to take an hour of today’s show and play it in two weeks, would it feel old and dated?  If so, that’s a good sign that your content choices were “of the moment”.  That you were so tapped into what’s going on right now, you reflected pop culture and were contemporary.  Your audience wants not only a connection to you, they want to be connected to the topics of the day.  That’s being radio’s version of click bait.  In a brainstorm around the topic of James Holzhauer, the weird guy who keeps winning on Jeopardy, John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego wondered what it was like for the contestants who lose to him.  Noting that each contestant and their city of residence are used in the introduction at the beginning of the show, they wrote down a few and used the Google Machine® to find one.  Here’s an interview with the guy who came the closest – the contestant who lost to Holzhauer by just $18.  In the moment, from a unique angle that fascinated them, and a few minutes of highly relevant pop culture radio their fans could not get from anyone else.

Drama drives great breaks.  Minus some level of drama (conflict), breaks will just sit there and never engage the audience.  It’s drama that draws in listeners, makes them feel something, forces them to take sides, and makes the content and story you’re telling memorable.  The TJ Show, AMP 103.3, Boston found out that Vanessa was approached by the mother of a girl scout to buy some cookies and how bothered she was that it was the mom and not the kid doing the pitch.  There is your conflict.  TJ is a master at stirring the pot to keep listeners on the hook.  TJ tells the story about Vanessa at the grocery store and her encounter with the girl scout’s mom – listen to how they hook the audience in the first 20 seconds.  Then, TJ crafts a payoff to further hold on to those listening (he surprises and delights with the payoff).  Then, here come the phones with listeners taking a side and telling other stories around this silly drama, keeping listeners on the lam even more.  Hear how the drama is presented right off the top, then listen for how this show holds on to listeners with how they present payoffs and phones from the drama.  Real life, and real life with conflict, works.