CPR Promotional Check-Up - Oct 5, 2011

Another Spoke On Your Wheel

There was a great Tommy Kramer line that I know I'm going to butcher. It was something to the effect that the greatest bits and promotions were never brainstormed (ie: "Let's sit down and create a landmark contest"). They were something that a morning show did and it HIT. So you keep doing it and soon it's what you're known for.

Horribly paraphrased.

Ditto with secondary characters. GREAT TV shows have amazing secondary characters who occasionally pop in. "Janice" on Friends. "Newman" on Seinfeld.

And they were probably one-time shots that struck a chord.

Great morning shows have amazing secondary characters. You just need to have your radar up for them. Because they're out there. "Hammering Hank" at Wild in SFO? A highschool kid who used to call in to Jo Jo and came in to answer phones one night. Crisco with the Dave Ryan show? An intern in a slew of interns who just stood out.

And they don't have to be interns. Dave Morales had Gracie at Wild in SFO. A crack mom in Oakland who used to call in nightly. He was smart enough to know that she was BETTER then any character he could have created.

The Dog House had Verinder, a middle eastern gas station cashier. He became a staple on their show for years. Having JV marry two dogs? A "7". Getting Verinder ordained and having HIM do it? A "10".

Power in Miami, for YEARS, had "Uncle Beasley Reed" who was an octogenarian multi-gazzlionaire who was on his 19th Playmate wife and owned the station. As opposed to the other characters I listed, he was not real. But when they dressed Mark Mosely up, stuck him in a wheelchair, rolled him onto the stage at Power House with a rolling plasma bottle thing (and a hot stripper as the nurse) 19,000 people at the arena stood up and roared. They'd been listening to him for years and "knew him" as well as any DJ on their favorite station....

...and he'd been a one time imaging idea that had HIT.

I've been talking with a lot of "new" morning shows lately and I've been pounding "have your radar up". Be watching for these people. Because they will be people who help you punch through and not just be another morning show in a slew of morning shows.

Example from the TV side of things? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQgRzw7iYXQ