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!
The Love Song Showdown
You can do this with two cast members who have significant others or two listeners. Find someone musically inclined and, getting to know the significant others (of the cast or two listeners), have them write and record a custom love song as a Valentine’s Day gift. The two songs get performed on the Friday show in front of the significant others and then the audience decides which one is better.
The Uber Bowl
A big Hot Topic this week is the Super Bowl. It might be fun to do your parody of this by using…Uber! Lots of people have Uber Eats on their phones. Why doesn’t every cast member of the show order the same thing from Uber Eats at the same time during the show? Then, track to see whose delivery comes first. That person is the winner of your Uber Bowl. Plus you’ll have drivers to talk to on-the-air and get some stories from them of deliveries made that went sideways.
Bad Bunny Does the Assisted Living Facility
Have you ever seen those YouTube videos where kids are listening to Led Zeppelin or the Carpenters for the first time? You get to see their physical reactions and the comments sometimes are very funny. With him performing at the Super Bowl halftime show, why don’t you get to an assisted living facility and do that with Bad Bunny’s music? Great audio for the show and video for social media.
The Super Bowl Showdown
The Super Bowl is less than one month away. If you’re looking for a week-long, big thing to do around the topic, do the Super Bowl Showdown. Each cast member must learn how to kick a 10-yard field goal at a high school stadium. Find local coaches as mentors for each cast member. Then on Thursday of that week, go do it. Post your videos on social and let the audience vote for who did it best, with the results on the Friday show.
Finding the Experts
An easy way to broaden contributors to your show is to ask the audience to call and tell you what they’re an expert in. Compile the list and gather their contact information. Then if a news story appears where one of your experts can add to the content or you find an especially quirky person you can build a feature around, you have more people adding to your show.
Keeping Them Honest!
January means resolutions which means many listeners are waking up early to go to the gym. Find a few and be their 6am phone call to make sure they’re up and on the road to work out! It’ll be very funny if they stop answering or you get their voicemail!
Trans (Your State) Orchestra
Can you find a bunch of local musicians (or a band) and bring them in at some point this week to perform a few Christmas songs? Bill them as the Trans (Your State) Orchestra? The Trans Siberian Orchestra seems to be everywhere each Christmas and this might be a fun play on that.
The Great Gift Wrap Challenge
If there’s one thing most people can’t do its properly gift wrap a present. Which is why you’ll assemble folks for The Great Gift Wrap Challenge. Bring in those people at the mall who professionally gift wrap presents to judge a competition amongst the most fun people at the station. See who wraps it best. You’ll have a great video for social media and audio for your show to entice people to go see it.
The Best Holiday Gifts Cost Nothing
Inflation is up, people can’t even afford groceries. So, add this idea every day until the holidays to help people out. Ask listeners what gifts they can give this year that cost absolutely nothing. Sometimes those are the best gifts so, have one listener each day suggest a gift for a loved one that doesn’t cost money.
The NP Pledge
Appropriate for anytime the family gets together: The NP Pledge. That’s the No Politics Pledge. Have listeners call to take a pledge that they won’t be the one to bring up politics while with their family this week. And that if it does come up, they’ll steer it in another direction!