Kick-Ass Audio Breaks

Self-deprecating humor is a huge attribute to get the audience to root for you.  David Letterman and Howard Stern, in part, built their empires on the persona that they weren’t good enough, smart enough, or funny enough to be popular.  That made them even more authentic and positioned them as the kind of personalities you root for because they are confident and comfortable enough to make fun of themselves.  Here’s an idea you can bank for next Halloween.  The Cruz Show, Power 106, Los Angeles, showed kids pictures of the cast and asked them which person on the program was so ugly, they didn’t need a Halloween mask.  Kids have no filter and, as you know, are brutally honest.  What comes (towards the end of this short break below) are funny reactions that endear the audience to each cast member as they’re chosen.

Fun benchmarks serve two main purposes for a show:  they help develop significant “fun” images.  Shows cannot win if they’re not perceived as fun by their audience.  This is one of the chief reasons listeners turn you on – there is no show that can win without this image.  The other benefit of a terrific benchmark is that it creates an appointment into the show for listeners.  Considering PPM is a game of occasions, unique and fun benchmarks do this for you.  Trivia and games are an easy vehicle to develop into a benchmark because they are vicarious.  But…(important), it’s how you do it that gives you both benefits.  Any TV game show is basically built around trivia.  Its execution is what cannot be duplicated.  At Amanda and Jesse, B105, Cincinnati, we took the typical “name a certain number of items in a category” game and created Beat the Bear, where the caller has to name the category items or…they’ll be mauled by a bear.  Few have survived, which is the hook for the win.  Here is an example of an effective, strategic benchmark.