CPR Promotional Check-Up - Mar 30, 2016

Spring Done Sprung

While March 20th is theoretically the first day of Spring, most of your listeners don't use calendars anymore and don't own a Chases Almanac.

A Promotion Director to remain nameless had a pretty freaking genius-like idea. Her "adult" radio station plays all the PPM rules but also violates every other "Well, harumph harumph, we don't do this kind of thing because, grumble grumble..." and is stupidly successful.

Her idea was to take all the jocks out and do their shifts live (not remotes) at various public places around town on Friday. Why? Because that's where people will be and it'll be pretty hard to "sound" like the market when you're hermetically sealed in a studio.

I know. It's actually Rocket Science. First "nice" day of Spring and you go outside and hang with the listeners. There should be an initiative for this...

I've seen versions of this time-and-again over the years.

• KGON/Portland. 1982. #1 station in OREGON. The first day it didn't rain and was over 60, Gloria the afternoon jock, ran a mike cord out the window and did her show from the front lawn. Why? Why not? What part of "#1 station in the state" are you vague about? They could do whatever they wanted. Final break at 6 was her hopping on her motorcycle and peeling out while a young promo kid with a girl's name held the mike. Not faked. Real. That station was a monster.
• Hines & Berglund at WLOL. One of the biggest morning shows in CHR ever. The first "nice" Friday of Spring? At 7 am? They would decide it was too nice to be inside and seemingly on-the-spot decide to relocate to Lake Nokomis. They would call up Dave at Coke and ask if he could spare a truck of product. They'd call the nice lady with Land 'O Lakes Ice Cream. By 8 am it had all come together and Yippee Skip Day was in full swing and we were broadcasting at the lake. Hundreds of people would skip out and spend the whole day with us, playing softball, swimming, volleyball, whatever. The original social network. (this was all prepped with the clients in the days leading up to the event)
• Wired in Philly? First nice day of Spring in '06? The air conditioning in the studio "was broken" so they seemingly decided on the spot to relocate the station to Bald Knob Beach, a clothing optional beach "across the river". It didn't exist. It was all staged. They marti'ed it from the conference room with AE's and support staff playing the role of listeners. By mid-afternoon they were making margaritas. How "real" did it sound? It fooled one of the streetteamers who left his day job early to follow the directions down to the beach. It wasn't "dirty". They were out hanging with the listeners. Who just happened to not be wearing clothes.
• It doesn't have to be a specific day Some of the best Radio I've heard in years is Oake On The Water at Cities 97 in Minny. He does his afternoon show live from a different dockside bar every Thursday in the Summer. WPGC/DC and Q-102/Philly used to have studios in their club districts where they would take their Saturday night shows to. Why? Because that's where the people would be.KLUC in Las Vegas? A shift at Wet & Wild every Wednesday in the Summer. Why? That's where the locals go.

Yep. Rock Science.