How to Grow Your Morning Show

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(By Loyd Ford) Smart morning shows all across America are thinking about how to really connect with audiences as people begin to move back into their ‘new’ habits in a ‘new’ world as we continue to watch Coronavirus impact and the return of economy and work.

Here are some thoughts about new opportunities for your morning show.

  1. Listeners may respond very well to nostalgia and you should consider opportunities to incorporate this into your show (depending – of course – on format and target).
  2. Work to help listeners feel safe and stay safe. You’ve likely had your focus on this, but it might be an error to leave this on the table going forward. Safety has floated to the top of survey after survey and that shouldn’t be a surprise. How you include this creatively and consistently in your show could make meaningful impact for your ratings and show loyalty for some time.
  3. Work to balance your content between the serious and the fun. After a period of time in which your show may have been more significantly focused on the serious, it is important to note that listeners often look for opportunity to get away from the serious. They are pelted with negative and sometimes scary stories where they get their news and even in their personal social media. Put significant effort into blending the content in your show so that you have balance between important information and pure fun and positivity.
  4. Work to create strategy that injects more positive feelings into your show.  People feel positive and negative energy. This is more than ‘number 3’ above where I say you should have balance. I am suggesting that you create potential benchmarks with positivity so people feel your show is a positive safe place to enjoy.  
  5. Work to create opportunities for ‘escape’ from the seriousness around listeners and their lives. You’ve heard this: Adulting sucks.  Never been more true. Think about how you escape and focus on creating real opportunities to feel freedom and escape inside your morning show.

People change in time of high emotion.  All families, all businesses and all individual markets have been touched (and continue to be touched) by Coronavirus. Now is a great time to reinvent the emotion, purpose and strategy your morning show runs on so you meet up with what listeners are feeling and so you give them greater opportunity to connect and become more loyal to your morning show brand. The future is uncertain. It always has been, but in the current environment uncertainty is more evident to everyone. That is risk and opportunity. Make sure you plan and work hard so your morning show experiences this as opportunity.

Loyd Ford consults radio stations, coaches personalities, and provides behavioral and strategic programming to radio with RPC. Reach him anytime. 864.448.4169 or [email protected].

 

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