CPR Promotional Check-Up - Feb 11, 2014

American Idol

One of the smaldium market stations has a flyaway to the finals. I can not possibly impress upon you how little listeners care that over-paid and over-privileged DJ's get to go to stuff like this and the Grammys. Which is why you shoud take the flyaway and turn it into a week-long talent hunt for a listener to send and cover the hoopla. You want out-of-their-mind, aggressive, spontaneous, funny, video making people who won't get sucked into Label Schmooze Dinners and will actually be out crashing parties and ambushing celebs.

At Wild in SFO we sent Gracie, a crackwhore mom from Oakland, to the Grammy's. Arguably the most amazing series of call-ins and interviews I've ever heard. Look for more Idol stuff on Monday.

The Weekend That Sucks

The problem with most weekend contests is that they rarely differ at all from the often-as-boring contesting you're doing during the week. Weekend's are about vibe. I love contests where part of the hook is that we don't tell you what's you're going to win until something has happened. You've chosen a door. You've broken a piñata. Or in the case of this contest, it's liposuctioned out of an intern. Vacuum cleaner SFX are a must.

Pothole

The season of cracked axles and flattened tires is almost upon us. If you live in the snow country, you're all too familiar with potholes. Back when Q-102 in Philly was a Clifton station, that market was experiencing a particularly bad Spring. Some streets were literally impassable. And the City was saying that they were so backed up and under budget, it might be months to get these things repaired. So Jerry suggested, "Let's just do it ourselves." The station rented an asphalt truck and sent out the promo staff and jocks with shovels to personally fill in these caverns in front of listeners' homes. THAT'S something Sirius or an iPod will never be able to do. And one of the reasons that station was a juggernaut for so many years.