The Monday Morning Free Idea
Need fresh inspiration for show content?
Check back every Monday for The Free Idea—a fun, entertaining bit of inspiration to help your show connect with your audience even more. You can also view past ideas, many of which my clients and I successfully used to engage listeners.
Need help with that? Give me a shout!
Taylor Tales
Turn left or right and Taylor Swift is in the news. Regardless if she’s been to, has yet to, or even isn’t coming to your city, Taylor Swift content is high equity. Taylor Tales is where you find people who’ve met her and ask them to come on your show to tell that story.
The Summer Job: Three Ideas
Part time summer jobs. We’ve all had them. Inside of that are several ideas and I want to share three. Idea #1: the simple phone topic asking listeners what some of their summer jobs were when they were young. With great phone screening, you will get great stories. Idea #2: find a great part time summer job for a teacher. Building the idea around one person will make it stickier. Idea #3: are any clients looking for part time summer help? Get them on the show to tell listeners. That will make you important to the sales folks.
Who Graduated Them Best?
Arrange for each member of the show to give a graduation speech at a different middle or grammar school in town. The cast member must write a moving, inspirational speech to give to the students. Record each (including reaction from the students). Then post each speech on social media with the audience voting on Who Graduated Them Best?
V Week
If you guys have a daily trivia game, why not theme one week of it around valedictorians at area high schools. Find five, then do one a day during V Week. Gives you a chance to be local and test the book smart kid against the trivia champ on the show.
The Pothole of Pennies
With winter over, do you have a ton of potholes in your town? Find a pothole and tell the audience you are going to fill it with pennies. Whoever guesses how many pennies it’ll take to level it off gets the pennies. You might have a media event for this so don’t forget to tell your local TV stations you’re doing it. It’ll also be a great visual for social media.
May the Fourth Be With You Game
Star Wars Day is this Thursday (May the Fourth Be With You!). If you need a one-off game, find two listeners in your audience: the one person who knows everything about the Star Wars franchise and one person who’s never even seen a movie. Ask the person who’s never even seen one Star Wars movie the easiest questions you can about the franchise. For every question they get right, the Star Wars freak gets a prize. The hitch? Zero lifelines!
Nacho’s Supreme Court
In the next few weeks, the US Supreme Court will start handing down its rulings. Your parody of this could be silly cases decided by five listeners who love Taco Bell’s Nachos Supreme. You can call them your Nacho’s Supreme Court as they render verdict on the dilemmas.
Moral Dilemma #127
Use moral dilemmas to instigate great phones with story telling. Today’s ethical question? Your house is burning down. Inside is your favorite dog and an ex you can’t stand. You can only save one. Which one do you get?
Take It or Toss It
Spring is here which means that lots of listeners will be doing spring cleaning. You should, too. Cull through your crap at home and bring those items in you don’t know what to do with. Describe an item to the audience and open those phones for listeners to say whether you should Take It (back to the house to keep) or Toss It (in the trash).
The Easter Bunny Chocolate Taste Test
Easter chocolate is the lowest form of chocolate around. Go grab an Easter bunny chocolate, a Hershey’s bar, and some Godiva. Invite some co-workers into the station kitchen and do a blind-folded taste test to see if they can choose which is which. You’ll have a great video for social media and, if the people are fun (and they should be if you choose the fun people), terrific audio to use on-air to get listeners to go watch it.