I remember the morning that Mancow blocked the Bay Bridge pretty clearly. It’s hard to forget when a GM calls and leaves a breathless voicemail that said “Turn on CNN!” followed by a dial tone.
The biggest bacchanalia of a press orgy that I’ve ever seen in regards to a radio station that:
- Cost nothing.
- Did not involve the ingestion of water.
- Did not disrupt the commute of 200,000 people.
- And basically did not involve death, injury, maiming, the destruction of property, the violation of international banking laws and did not result in lawsuits, terminations, suspensions or the public pillory of a morning show.
Was…
In the Fall of 2012, weeks before the General Election, the White House reached out to Democratic operatives in battleground states and asked them to pick music stations for morning show interviews.
Seriously? How cool is that? They didn’t want to know what would be asked in advance but encouraged the shows to “have some fun”. The goal was to obviously show that the leader of the free world was a likeable, affable, fun guy who was in touch with the audience.
I saw quite a few shows that tried to have some fun, and maybe they did, but it made nary a ripple in the market. They did it. It was good. And it was forgotten. Worse were shows like The Morning Nutz who asked actual political questions. “Coming up next after Carmen calls a massage parlor and pretends she has herpes, we’re going to talk to President Obama about the trade deficit with Algeria! Followed by Filthy On The :50’s!”
So, I was sitting in a Springhill Suites somewhere in the mid-Atlantic States, it was about midnight, and my email begins to BLOW THE FUDGE UP.
It seems that Carlos, Kiki and Danny, the Morning Mayhem at KOB-FM in Albuquerque had their nine minutes with the Prez that morning and had taken “have some fun with it” to heart.
Their questions, in order:
- Red or Green (if you know the market you don’t have to even complete that with “chili pepper”)
- What music gets your pulse going.
- If you could go back in time and tell the young you something, give him some advice, what would it be?
- You’re the most powerful man in the world. They film all the Marvel movies here. If you could have a super power, what would it be?
“KABLOOEY” doesn’t even begin to cover it. My emails were tag teams from Milt the GM and Justin the OM and went a little something like this.
Milt: The Guardian in London just called me at home
Justin: The Today Show wants to get them live in the morning
Milt: CNN and MSNBC are both on hold
Justin: The LA Times just called Carlos
Milt: The BBC and Daily News of Mumbai want to coordinate with an interview.
Justin: Associated Press wants a copy of the interview
Milt: Washington Times emailed
Justin: They emailed me too. Fox just hit me through Facebook
You get the idea. If they had done, what every person who has ever interviewed a President has done, no one would have cared. When Glen Beck calls you out by name and devotes 13 minutes to calling you douchebag puppets of the Democratic Party, you did well. When they refer to the interview LIVE ONSTAGE DURING THE RNC? You did good.
I saw next to Rihanna’s road manager on a flight and we were talking and he said something to the effect of “Radio people do the shittiest interviews. They always ask the same thing. That’s why she hates doing them.”
Huh.
Radio’s tried to spice them up. We’ve changed the venue to a performance room. We’ve Periscoped them. We’ve occasionally had the interviewee do silly things like burp in a bottle that’s then sealed and sold on eBay.
To cut through I think you might need a hook that combines maybe your version of Triumph The Insult Comic Dog with a freshened batch of questions.
Ryan Gosling could have just sat there and answered the same questions, but how boring would that be.
Or the “Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot” TV spot where they turn the tables and interview the reporters.
How many interviews has Mila Kunis done? So the BBC had an intern interview her and she actually seemed to not be experiencing every celebrities 7th Circle Of Hell.
To paraphrase Jerry Clifton, “If everyone is doing something, don’t do it, or do it differently so that at least yours is memorable.”
And for those who read this entire thing hoping for the answers?
- Green
- Beyonce when he works out in the morning “gets my pulse racing”.
- To try lots of different things and not be so inflexible.
- To fly. Like, with no wings or a plane. Just fly.
And for the record, #4 seems to be the one that most infuriated the Neo Cons.
Last Tweets