The Audience’s Got Talent

The Audience’s Got Talent

Radio has always been adept at playing off of TV trends. When “Survivor” broke out as a hit in 2000 we used it as springboard to a myriad of promotions that locked listeners in bathrooms or cars or stuck them on roller coasters. And it was good.   In 2006, Idol...
The Time I Almost Got Fired Because Of Prince

The Time I Almost Got Fired Because Of Prince

Do you want to win, or do you want to follow the rules? I think you can do both, but sometimes you have to make a tough decision and beg for forgiveness. I got called on the carpet to explain why I had changed a weekend contest early on a Friday evening. I explained that it was simple: the competition was beating us, and did we want to follow the rules or did we want to win.

The ’10 Questions A Day’ Theory Of Street Teaming

The ’10 Questions A Day’ Theory Of Street Teaming

Street Teamers are far more likely to be approached and asked a question about the programming or promotions of a radio station than anyone else on the staff. So it kind of behooves them to have the answers. Being an effective representative of the radio station is a lot more than wearing a clean T-shirt and having above-average hygiene. It’s about having knowledge of the brand and being able to share it with the listeners and listeners-to-be.

Double Your Ratings In 2018

Double Your Ratings In 2018

Using rudimentary math, it would figure that if we can get more than 4% of people to play our contests and maybe even get that number up to, say, 8%, then we’ll be doing pretty well.
There’s a reason we can’t get that number over 4% and that’s because most of the contests that we clutter the airways with are really just wallpaper. I would categorize most group contests that way. They’re just….there. They’re not compelling, they don’t play to anybody other than the 4% of people we have hyper focused on and they rarely accentuate or build your stationality.
Think beyond the tiny number of people with their landlines and broaden your horizons; try to suck in the whole audience to stop and become engaged. If it doesn’t double your audience, it’s still not going to drag the numbers down like a wallpaper contest can.

Revisiting The Promotional Genius of MTV

Revisiting The Promotional Genius of MTV

There’s no doubt that there’s a generation of Radio People who the significance of the first decade of MTV, would be totally lost on them. MTV was basically Radio. But with a visual. The programming was based on Radio. The people who created it and 4 of the five first VJ’s were all from Radio. Bob Pittman and the rest took great, classic radio promotional concepts that we will still do, and add a visual to them. The methodology was usually the same: send in a post card. And that’s fine. Great prizes are usually bigger than the way we award them.