We’re in Show Business, but the bottom-dwelling Circus Freak level of Show Business, so it’s always been a source of dismay to me when talent balks at venturing outside their comfort zone.
With one of the Fugitive chases at WBLI, the idea was that the Fuge was going to call in and “be within eyeshot” of the station and make one of the morning guys go outside and do stuff like tap dance and hold a sign that said “I love the Bee Gees,” all under their watchful eye. If the DJ didn’t follow their instructions, the Fugitive would take the money, flee, and no one would ever see a penny of it.
The guy balked. He said that he’d “look like an idiot” and “I have journalistic integrity.” A morning guy on a CHR? Journalistic integrity?
I’ve often referred to Jo Jo Wright, whom I worked with in Charlotte and San Francisco, as being a kamikaze. He never once said no to anything. He once came into my office at Wild 107.7 and joked about doing something that every other night guy in radio would say “Hell no!” to. So I said, how about rushing a sorority? And that’s what he did: he joined a house at San Francisco State University.
It was all about The Content: he could toss out a line about going over to the House to watch “Melrose Place” with “my sisters.” Plus, he had phone screeners, and when I needed thirty bodies in shirts at a concert parking lot, voile.
The next challenge I got from Jo Jo was to suggest that he cheer at a high school football game. And that’s what he did: he got on the air and talked about growing up in Texas and how huge high school football was and that he’d always wanted to be a cheerleader but that they just weren’t progressive enough to have male cheerleaders. “It’s a sport. It requires amazing athleticism.” Was there a squad that would let him join for a night?
And I was swamped with about a hundred cheerleading advisors vying to get him for a game.
Again, it was about Content. For a couple of weeks, he talked about going to practices and the girls would call in and update everyone on his progress. And then he went and cheered a game in Milpitas and half the South Bay showed up.
There are a lot of reasons why he is where he is, and his daredevil attitude towards Content is definitely one of them.
And now on with the Dumpage:
(Markets) Cheapest Station
When Rick Thomas was at Z-90 for the first time, the morning show did a great bit after the competition signed some insanely huge contract that everyone in town was talking about. They presented themselves as “San Diego’s Cheapest Morning Show.” Each morning they would throw out an item like “Cheapest Breakfast” and take calls from listeners alerting them to great breakfast deals. The guy who called in with the cheapest, a .99 cent burrito, coffee, and OJ at the Exxon in National City, would win and get it bought for him: they’d mail him a buck.
So, what if you pulled a Z-90 and took it to the next level? Create the character of this old woman who just got aged-out of the accounting department. But she’s SO great at crunching numbers and finding deals that you’ve made her the Listener Advocate For Low Prices. Every day you shoot a text to the database with:
- Cheapest gas price
- Lowest price for a loaf of bread
- Milk (which is soaring)
- Pet food (soaring because of grain prices)
- Beer
- Airplane tickets (“Frontier has a deal today and today only; RT to Reno for $79)
- Family entertainment (“the zoo is having a free open house for their new grizzly exhibit”)
- Live music (“Tim Mahoney is playing the Cabooze tonight. No cover and two-for-one Bud’s until 10 pm”)
This could be ridiculously large. Could clients get involved? Absolutely. But it needs to be presented as non-commercial because once it’s perceived as just shilling for clients, you lose all credibility.
July 25th
It’s Leon Day, which is Noel spelled backwards: the halfway point to Christmas. One station in a very, very warm market is going to play Christmas music and will be hitting pools with Santas in shorts.
Pay Off Your Power
If you are one of the many stations that have done the Christmas bit of paying off credit cards, having people fax in their electric bill from running the AC on High, and paying those off, is great. But it has to be more than just calling them up and saying “Congrats, Dana, we’re paying off last month’s bill!” Have some fun. Make them listen for their name at the ABSOLUTE minimum. Or hack into the power company’s computer and delete their bill.
Laugh Tracks
I hate beyond belief “laugh dudes”. The guy in the studio who is there just to laugh. It’s painful. But I think it would be funny to do just one morning where the consultant told you you needed a laugh track. Why? Why not. It’s morning radio, not rocket science. Do it, fire the consultant, and move on.
Kind of like KRTR in Honolulu, where they used a different 60’s/70’s TV show bridge music every morning for a week. The bamboo xylophones from Gilligan’s Island. The peppy music from The Brady Bunch. Just as you transition from one topic, feature, or bit to another.
Just Add Sand
Did you know that you can rent sand? Over the years, Clients and I have used sand castle building as an addition or hook for what would otherwise be a, shudder, remote. Or when you have an event that is missing one final piece. In the case of Wild in OKC, they got three piles and had three different groups of co-workers piling, sculpting and accessorizing in the parking lot of a bar with a patio and live music for a Friday afternoon happy hour. Best castle, as judged by applause at 7 pm, won a full tab and food the following Friday for the entire workplace.
You can get it delivered and then picked up.
Short Attention Span Smack
Kind of like group contests, LOTS of radio “celebrity gossip features” kind of blur together. A lot of us are doing the same thing with basically the same titles and names. With some exceptions.
Comedy Central started with an ongoing, very PPM-friendly show called Short Attention Span Theater. Just the meat, the funniest minute or 90 seconds of funny movies. One clip after another after another.
What if you did that with celebrity gossip? 8 seconds of who hates each other and why, each day. It would need a cheesy game show intro and outro. Music intro, Cardi B isn’t too fond of Mel B, outro music.
The Wheel Of Gift Cards
We’re always looking for something; a hook that will stand out and get people to attend our appearances.
When he was at Fly 92, Terry O’Donnell did The Amazing Box Of Potential Awesomeness. It was at every remote, and everyone who attended registered for what was inside… which was revealed at the end of the broadcast. It could be movie tickets. A medium-sized t-shirt from a client promotion three summers ago. Tickets to a concert. You just never knew.
People. Love. Giftcards. So what if you worked a prize fee into your remote package, with a bunch of various gift cards and covered a wheel with them. Every five minutes during your appearance, have a listener spin. If it lands on an occupied square, they win it. If it has already won, they spin until they get something. People would most assuredly come, Ray.
Laugh & Lose
“You Laugh You Lose” is a feature that they do at WDJX in Louisville, KY. It’s a version of the 1970’s game show where contestants would have 60 seconds in a chair while up-and-coming comedians like David Letterman and David Brenner would use their best material on them. If they cracked a smile, they lost. Great idea…especially if you have a comedy club.
Overnights
Unless you’re a day timer, you have “something” on overnight, so why not do something that requires little or no effort?
Beasley in Ft. Myers had a rubberband ball as the overnight talent. He even had a jock bio. Why? Why not. This is Radio, not plasma physics.
The Night Before Christmas
One of the stations was wondering about “what to do” with the celeb interviews they get. And they get quite a few, and they’re also backstage at a lot of shows.
The coolest thing I ever saw was a CHR that took “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and broke it into about 20 parts. And whenever they got someone either on the phone or in the studio, off-air, they would have them read the verse. These were all edited together and ran during the last morning show before Christmas break. They had everyone from Will Smith to Jack Black.
Dog Days Of Summer
If you have a dog, you take them with you when you’re out enjoying the Summer. So why not do a social media campaign of people sharing photos of their dogs at parties, on hikes, or camping? People are going to post these photos, so they might as well do them with you. Done as Dog-ust by Y94 in Fargo.
