Radio Show Content | Audio Breaks

Matt, Gabe, and Captain Ron, KKWF (The Wolf), Seattle with Operation K-9 Companion

November 30, 2025

You might be doing a community service project now to show your heart. That’s a smart move to rally the audience to help you reach some goal to make the community a better place. Listeners are searching for any reason to feel better about their town, those less fortunate, and themselves. Your event probably does all of that. Matt, Gabe, and Captain Ron, KKWF (The Wolf), Seattle just wrapped up their annual effort called Operation K-9 Companion where they ask the audience to help them buy and train service animals for soldiers who are home with PTSD. Lots of country stations do this – it’s a great event. This year, the team rallied their listeners to help them raise over $400,000 in one week. That number is outstanding. I reminded them that this week-long effort is not a fundraising event. It’s a story-telling event. Tell stories and you’ll motivate more people who are inclined to give to do so. You’ll also elevate the images of your show with those who won’t. Below are two stories told that showcase two very different emotions. In the first, they surprise the woman who runs the organization with her mom, who beams with pride. In the other, a soldier tells a tough story about how his service dog passed away. Both stories have intense emotions, elevating things for the team.

Iris and Grizz, KSII, El Paso, TX with Content that Becomes the Tease

November 23, 2025

We tease content for two reasons: to extend listening with a provocative, intriguing tease. The other is to make listeners who must leave the show wonder so they’ll return the next day out of a fear of missing something. Often we think of an effective tease as one or two sentences. What happens when content becomes your tease? Iris and Grizz, KSII, El Paso, TX recently combined the two efforts very effectively. They have a daily benchmark where Iris gives pickup lines centered around the biggest topics of the day. Pennies will no longer be minted so Iris writes lines around the topic, then opens the phones (ChatGPT can help with this). Listen to them here do content and how their chemistry drives the break, which leads to the tease of the actual lines. I’m laughing at this break, so I’ll stay for the next.

David, Sue, and Kendra, Magic 107.7, Boston with Sal and His Apple Trees

November 16, 2025

There is content all around you. As you engage people at the station or in life, listen out for stories to tell and quirky characters to put on. In Boston, Sal the Boss is a character on every show in the Audacy cluster. Sal always brings great stories, a swagger and attitude, and a terrific sense of humor. One of Sal’s passions is his apple trees. Each fall, he picks his apples and gives them away to those at the stations. So this year, David, Sue, and Kendra, Magic 107.7, Boston had him come in to talk about it. They then blindfolded Sal, made him take bites of apples, and he had to identify the type of apple it was. This was fun audio, but an ever better video for social media. The audio is below and the video is here.

Zog and Ivy Unleashed, Power 96, Miami with Is Zog a Thief?

November 9, 2025

Evolving story lines keep listeners hooked to stay to a conclusion. Much like a TV show, we keep coming back because we want the ending. This was the case with Zog and Ivy Unleashed, Power 96, Miami. Zog shared on a Zoom that he’d gone to the mall to buy some T-shirts. They only had a few in his size so he took those and the store shipped the rest. When the package arrived at his home, he got all the ordered T-shirts as well as doubles for the ones he already had. To many shows, this would be a one-off break. But, we played with it. When I asked the room what Zog should do, and if he were to keep them all if he were stealing, we were off to the races on a story line to hook the audience. Break #1 is the dilemma and moral question, break #2 are calls with listeners chiming in, and, because he’s a good guy and doesn’t want the worker to get in trouble (keeping in character), break #3 is Zog calling the mall store to ask what he should do. So instead of one break, we get three to extend listening with a story that has an unexpected conclusion.

George, Mo, and Erik with a K with The 6:10 Amen

November 2, 2025

In some regional training I did this past week with talent from Chicago and Milwaukee, the room discussed the power of good news. Strategically, when the world is on fire and negative news is seemingly everywhere, your profiling the good things going on in listeners’ lives sets you apart from all that and reinforces to your fans that, despite a world of stress, you can be the outlet for good stuff. Many in radio do this feature under a variety of names. This is one of my all-time favorites. George, Mo, and Erik with a K, 100.3 The Bull, Houston did the 6:10 and 8:10 Amen. It’s a great feature name for a country station in Texas. Here, they ride along to celebrate a listener calling in with her good news of getting a house. Anytime you show interest in what’s going on in the lives of your listeners, you will win.

Kick-Ass Audio Breaks

Matt, Gabe, and Captain Ron, KKWF (The Wolf), Seattle with Operation K-9 Companion

Iris and Grizz, KSII, El Paso, TX with Content that Becomes the Tease

David, Sue, and Kendra, Magic 107.7, Boston with Sal and His Apple Trees

Zog and Ivy Unleashed, Power 96, Miami with Is Zog a Thief?

George, Mo, and Erik with a K with The 6:10 Amen

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