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!
Gush on Your Grad
College and high school graduation season is upon us. Once you gather the dates for local graduations, do a recurring feature in those weeks called Gush on Your Grad where moms and dads come on to tell you about their kid who’s graduating! You’ll feel their pride (or relief!) and it’ll be very local, as the school will be named.
To Leave Me Alone
I’d always thought one of the best gifts you could give your mom was to leave her alone for the day. No banging on her about what needs to be done around the house or to ask what’s for dinner. Test this theory. Take calls only from moms and ask, on a scale of 1-10, how they’d receive a gift like that for Mother’s Day. To not be bugged about anything!
The V Team
Do you do a trivia feature on your show every day? Find five valedictorians from area high schools next month (The V Team) and invite one a day to come on with their mom to play the game once graduations happen. Yea, they’re book smart, but do their know their frivolous trivia?!
The Morning Show By the Numbers
Let’s do some quirky character development in a new feature called the Morning Show By the Numbers. Pit the cast against each other to reveal something personal to the audience about themselves: who on the cast has the highest FICO score? Which guy has the best testosterone level? Who has the worst Uber rating? Who in the room got the most money back in their tax filing? Who has the highest IQ? If doing this, make sure to reveal everyone’s score so we see best to worst!
You’re an A+ in a C-minus World
A show was playfully complaining to me the other day that the world is very C-minus. You can’t get a human on the phone, people snipe at each other in public, technology doesn’t work properly. So we came up with a new feature An A+ in C-minus World. We ask listeners to call to uplift people and places that go above and beyond, regardless of how big or small it is.
Flex on Your Ex
Often when a relationship breaks up, there’s bad blood. Let’s talk to those people to get that venom on the show – lots of stories to hear, right? Then throw at them the curve ball. Ask them to flex on their ex by saying one nice thing about them.
Famous People From Local High Schools
With high school graduations right around the corner, why not spend some time finding out what famous people went to area high schools? Then, invite them on your show to re-live those glory years. Make yourself available to record these at their convenience. Find five and you can have a theme week when graduations are happening.
Tasty for the TSA
You know those TSA workers at your airport? They’ve been working without pay for the last month because of the government. Might be a good idea to partner with a client or two and bring them lunch one day this week as a thanks. Before you do, make sure every TV station in town knows it’s happening and you’ll likely get coverage.
The Gas Tank Challenge
Gas prices are back in the news. There’s not one of us, when filling up, that doesn’t play the same game. The gas is flowing and you try to disengage the pump at an exact dollar amount ($52.00!). Have a competition amongst the cast to see who can come closest. This could be a fun on-air conversation with a wrap-up of pushing the videos, and announcing the champion, on social media.
The Show With the Brogue
St. Patrick’s Day is next week so it’s time for the Show With the Brogue. Re-work all your sweepers to be topical-sounding that day by having them redone in the classic Irish accent. Don’t know anyone who’s Irish or can do the brogue? That’s where A.I. comes in! Be topical that day with lots of St. Patrick’s Day content, but make the show sound it, too.