Keep reading with Insiders
Choose how you want to read this article.
Already a member or have credits? Log in
Group Therapy Example: Cheater’s Club
Related Content
Feature: War of the Roses (a.k.a. Love Trap): The Complete Execution Guide
Some bits age like milk. War of the Roses ages like a soap opera that’s been on the air since…
Example: Tad Drex and Kara Panic Button
The Panic Button relationship feature starts with a listener’s situation, but progresses to a listener-interaction conversation. For details on how…
Feature: Hometown Heroes
Hometown Heroes is more than a promotion. It’s a storytelling platform that builds community pride, strengthens your station’s emotional brand…
Go Deeper
Download: The Halloween Feature Picker
It’s October 3rd. The morning show meeting starts in ten minutes. Somebody says, “We should do something for Halloween,” and…
Download: The Scare Dial Scorecard (Interactive Excel Quiz)
Where does your station belong on the Scare Dial: Fun Size, Full Fright, or somewhere in between? This interactive Excel…
Christmas Programming Unwrapped: Radio’s Field Guide To The Holidays (eBook)
Christmas is the biggest listening event of the year, and the most misunderstood. Some stations post the best ratings in…
Selling 13 Days of Halloween: Segment Sponsorships and a Four-Week Sales Plan
If they sell it at all, most stations sell Halloween as a schedule: a few weeks of spots for the…
Programming Rules That Make No Sense (And What To Do Instead)
Program directors love programming rules. Rules are tidy. Rules fit on a single sheet of paper taped to the studio…
13 Days of Halloween: The Complete Countdown Plan For Your Show
13 Days of Halloween turns the spookiest holiday of the year into a promotable, appointment-driven countdown for your show. Instead…
From Picker to Plan: How To Plan Your Halloween Season in One Meeting
Most Halloween seasons on the air just kind of happen. Somebody suggests a game on October 10th. Somebody else remembers…
From Deep Dive to 30-Day Action Plan: Turning Airchecks Into Change
So you ran the Deep Dive Aircheck. Nice. Three full hours. Everybody participated, reviewed the results, discussed, and now you’re…
Halloween Imaging Copy: How To Dress the Station Without Sounding Cheesy (Unless Cheesy Is the Point)
“It’s a SPOOK-tacular, FANG-tastic, BOO-tiful Halloween on Z-104!” Three puns. One sentence. Zero listeners who didn’t just reach for the…
The Halloween Sponsor Package: Bundle Your Best Halloween Programming Into One Sellable Sponsorship
Every October, a sales rep walks into a costume shop with a rate card, a stack of spot schedules, and…
Download: Halloween Sponsor Package Template (PowerPoint)
Stop pitching Halloween with a spot schedule. This two-slide PowerPoint template turns your Halloween programming into a sponsor package that…
Halloween Programming: Why It Matters, What It Offers, and When To Start
Every October, radio stations across the country do the same thing. They add “Monster Mash” to the library, drop a…
How To Tell Ghost Stories on the Radio
Every culture in human history has told ghost stories. Around campfires, at sleepovers, in candlelit living rooms during a power…
Halloween Costumes Are Content: How Your Show Should Dress Up
Americans will spend more than $4.4 billion on Halloween costumes this year, according to the National Retail Federation. That includes…
Dress Up Your Station: Halloween Imaging, Production, and Halloween Editions
Halloween is a costume party. Everyone shows up dressed as something else for a few weeks, and the fun is…
The Halloween Programming Calendar: A Week-By-Week Plan From August To November
Most stations start thinking about Halloween programming when they see the first pumpkin on a coffee cup. By then, the…
Local Legends: Turn Your Market’s Ghost Stories Into Halloween Content
Every town has one. The abandoned hospital on the edge of town, a bridge where cars mysteriously stall, the old…
Halloween For Families: How Family-Focused Stations Can Own the Service Side of Halloween
For millions of parents, Halloween isn’t about horror movies, haunted houses, or ghost stories. It’s about logistics. What time does…
The Scare Dial Workshop: Find Your Spot Between Fun Size and Full Fright
Picture two stations in the same market on Halloween morning. Station one is an AC station. The morning show is…
How to Run a Group Aircheck Monitor Without It Turning Into a Pile-On
Picture this. A handful of smart, well-meaning people are gathered in a room or on a video conference. It’s the…
Ditch The Facts: Tell A Story
Every entertainment report seems to start in the same place. Everyone has the same stories and most personalities, who are…
Personalities Need A Separate Social Media Presence
A few years ago, the debate raged inside radio stations everywhere: Should personalities have a separate social media presence? That…
Feature: We Need A Little Christmas
Not every station can (or should) flip to all-Christmas music. Not every show has the budget or bandwidth for a…
Download: Zero Based Programming Scoring Worksheet
Every station and show should conduct a Zero-Based Programming analysis at least once per year (twice is better). It’s a…
Ready to level up your radio career?
Get access to thousands of articles, features, games, seminars, and expert advice from Tracy Johnson and the Insiders team.