Make This “Radio’s Finest Hour”

by | Mar 25, 2020 | Pandemic | 0 comments

 

In June 1940 Winston Churchill addressed Parliament and referred to the previous month’s decimation of superior German air power by an inferior force as “Our finest hour.”

 

And on March 13th Jerry Clifton posted “This is Radio’s last chance to EVER win back the hearts and minds of our listeners.”

 

Tying Clifton into a Churchill moment is something that I never thought that I would do.

 

But Jerry is right: we’ve become this vibeless, passionless entity that seems to think it can be a better music delivery system than an MP3 or iPod or Sirius. We can’t. But what we can deliver is relevance, entertainment, information, comfort, engagement and help as our listeners face the biggest “threatening experience” in their life.

 

People are locked down, quarantining and are scared. So maybe there are things we can do to help them through this.

Stingray in St. Johns, Newfoundland has an on-line resource called The Homeschool Report geared at parents whose kids are out of school for the rest of the term.

WARM in Seattle and KEZK showed that in tough times, tear up the playbook….and have switched back to Christmas music. You don’t get an email like this when you drop Ariana’s new single:

 

My name is Car Evans, we live in Troy, MO.

Since all this has started, nothing has touched my and my wife’s heart as much as hearing Christmas music on your station, we’ve been glued to it and have told other family members about it.

It’s inspired us so much, that we’ve put up our Christmas lights outside. I’ve attached 2 photos of the front of our house.

Thank you guys again, so much.

Carl & Regina

 

A million stations have had fun with taking songs and reworking them for the moment. That’s fantastic.

We’re a music medium. And with live music cancelled, stations like KSON in San Diego are replaying old performance studio shows. WCCO in Minneapolis is playing old Twins World Series games.

One of the Hubbard clusters is going to host “game nights” and recreate Radio Theater from the past.

From Producer Rudy at KS95.

Ice from Live in Portland is doing solo dance parties for her listeners to join in on.

 

One of the stations is going to have their Traffic reporter do “quarantine traffic”, ie: “There’s a jam up near the frig, so you may want to consider a different room”

A virtual prom is in the works.

We can help our audience AND help our clients. Right now I see stations organizing various “virtual” showcases for clients. Virtual yoga classes. Virtual hairstyling classes. Virtual cooking. One station has a virtual poker tourney with a casino client about to launch.

 

Dozens of stations have put together campaigns to help the restaurants in their communities like Summit in Omaha has.

And finally 98.9 The Bull sent this message of strength and support to the Seattle community.

This could be a chance for us to remind ourselves and our listeners that we can be more than just a wacky morning show top. Help the listeners. Help your clients. And help your stations. It’s a scary time but we got these silly things called licenses for just these kinds of moments.