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Small Market Radio Morning Show Prep Tips

A

AMRadioGuy

Well... I guess I'll be the first person to crack open a thread here in almost 6 years...

Any tips for effective show prep for a small-town morning show? Relatively small market, AM w/ translator. The AM covers the market very well, the translator decently. We've got a news department doing local news, too. One man show as far as on-air is concerned, though, reading the local news, etc. National news is syndicated. It's a "full service" kind of station, 60s through late-70s music. Any tips/suggestions for successful show prep (or folks who have had success with a community-focused local morning show in a small town - what worked & what didn't)?

Quite a few threads here suggest that a small-town station done right can still be successful. I'd love to start a discussion about how to make that success happen, and proper prep is definitely a part of that...

(Edit: I'm not necessarily asking about a national prep service - we already have a couple of those. I'm looking for a more local connection than "it's national spaghetti and meatballs day").
 
If your in a more rural area, everyone loves weather talk. The NWS has a page of "this day in local weather history" on their website. I highlight hem every morning around 9:30. If it was an especially memorable event they have a QR code you can scan about the event that gives you more info and specifics about it.
 
I'm at an AM with translator that covers the county with local news in a town of 16,000 with 42,000 in the county. We enjoy 13,300 of 38,200 12+ ratings. I do sales. Voice tracked. Very local. 1 of 50 signals on dial.

We do a daily contest (different each day), birthdays, anniversarys, observations around town and such.

Being 60s & 70s, maybe pick a year and play a song each hour and mention something from that time such as news, prices, maybe a memory from a listener or two when you play the song.
 
My experience working in small towns is that the people there tend to be proud of their town. So the main idea is to know what is happening all the time and talk it up to people. It doesn't have to be a big thing:

"Girl Scouts Troupe 127 will be selling cookies at Kroger in Bluefield this weekend" And you play a 20 or 30 second pre-recorded phoner with the troupe leader saying what time and asking her favorite cookie.
Click to expand...

It's also a good way to generate sales leads. One or two mentions is free (but not guaranteed), guaranteed advertising costs money.

Having regular contributors can be a valuable strategy as well. Those can be sponsored. One station I worked for had a daily business/stock market report from a local financial advisor and a farm market report from a local grain elevator that were sponsored. Each of them had a little chit chat embedded if you wanted to talk about the annoying road work on Third Street or about their fishing trip on Friday.

But before you can do any of these, you must have a brand in the community. Otherwise no one will think to let you know about their Girl Scouts fundraiser.
 
ac175 said:
If your in a more rural area, everyone loves weather talk. The NWS has a page of "this day in local weather history" on their website. I highlight hem every morning around 9:30. If it was an especially memorable event they have a QR code you can scan about the event that gives you more info and specifics about it.
Click to expand...
It's a pretty mixed area, in a small city with suburbs a bit to the south and lots of farm country to the north. That's a good suggestion! Thanks :)
 
b-turner said:
I'm at an AM with translator that covers the county with local news in a town of 16,000 with 42,000 in the county. We enjoy 13,300 of 38,200 12+ ratings. I do sales. Voice tracked. Very local. 1 of 50 signals on dial.

We do a daily contest (different each day), birthdays, anniversarys, observations around town and such.

Being 60s & 70s, maybe pick a year and play a song each hour and mention something from that time such as news, prices, maybe a memory from a listener or two when you play the song.
Click to expand...
Wow - how do you get prizes for a daily contest? That's impressive, @b-turner.

Already doing birthdays & anniversaries, but haven't had a lot of traction there. I get a few calls each week but it's not a reliable daily thing... yet. I discuss celebrity birthdays, too.

Is your morning show voice tracked, too, or just middays & pm drive?

Thanks for the other suggestions!
 
PTBoardOp93 said:
My experience working in small towns is that the people there tend to be proud of their town. So the main idea is to know what is happening all the time and talk it up to people. It doesn't have to be a big thing:



It's also a good way to generate sales leads. One or two mentions is free (but not guaranteed), guaranteed advertising costs money.

Having regular contributors can be a valuable strategy as well. Those can be sponsored. One station I worked for had a daily business/stock market report from a local financial advisor and a farm market report from a local grain elevator that were sponsored. Each of them had a little chit chat embedded if you wanted to talk about the annoying road work on Third Street or about their fishing trip on Friday.

But before you can do any of these, you must have a brand in the community. Otherwise no one will think to let you know about their Girl Scouts fundraiser.
Click to expand...
Some fantastic suggestions here... thank you! I do my best to know what's happening but it can be tricky to figure out all of those things. We do have organizations reach out to us but also lots who don't so I read the paper and have joined some local Facebook groups, too.

We have a sponsored stock market report, but I do the report solo, so no chance for back and forth banter.

Any suggestions for how to develop a brand better? We have a lot of heritage and have been involved in the community for many years but there's always room for improvement.
 
Get off Facebook/Twitter/etc. and go to local events where you know the people you're meeting are local or probably from around the area, unlike on social media where anyone can say they're from Anytown USA and/or be a bot/fake profile.

Physically go to the local organizations and meet whoever is in charge of communications, so they know who you are, then use the station's email address and your own to follow up, so you know they have each one for media releases. Don't email first asking "can I come by?" - just pop in. If I were you I'd do this about once a month or every couple months in case someone new at whichever organization becomes responsible for media releases/outreach. People take jobs in small towns and then move on, get fired, change job responsibilities, get promoted, etc.

Also if someone in their 20's or 30's is in PR/comms for an organization, do you really think a radio station is going to be top of mind for them to reach out to first thing if they have an event going on? I wouldn't expect them to, so you have to remind them your station exists by going there and introducing yourself. It's easy to ignore/forget about someone's email versus having them standing in front of you.
 
We leave an envelope in the station mailbox or call the business with the winner's name.

We do a live 30 minue buy-sell-trade-birthdays & anniversaries. Birthday winner gets a free cake from a chain supermarket that won't spend a dime with us. For anniversaries, the winner gets dinner for two. In each case we call or email the business with the winner's name. People can email or call in the name for that birthday or anniversary.

Every shift is voice-tracked.

Last week we gaveaway tickets to Germanfest and Bullfest. Both local events. We did a paid remote at Germanfest on Saturday. On Friday the local Kubota dealer had Orange Days with a free lunch. Easily 350 showed up. On our paid remotes we do something to drive traffic. People stopping by can register to win a $100 bill awarded during the last break.

We have more than 1 in 3 in the county listening. Average listening slightly less than 9 hours a week. Midday almost 10,500 listeners. 1 hour north of Dallas/Fort Worth. 50 stations can be heard here.

Take a listen: kgaf.net
 
Don't forget the obituaries, school lunch menu (read sarcastically poking fun at the horrendous food served), and maybe a half hour taking calls from listeners regarding a local topic, or " what's on your mind today?". 😁

And please, please, help out your local animal shelter, with lost and found and a shelter pet of the day.
 
Last edited:
AMRadioGuy said:
Some fantastic suggestions here... thank you! I do my best to know what's happening but it can be tricky to figure out all of those things.
Click to expand...
Yes. It helps a lot to have buy in from all the station employees, especially the sellers. Their job is to be out on the town and trying to do business with the business leaders and so forth in the town, who will often also be the leaders of the local Red Cross, the Smithville Elementary PTA and the Garden Club.

AMRadioGuy said:
Any suggestions for how to develop a brand better? We have a lot of heritage and have been involved in the community for many years but there's always room for improvement.
Click to expand...
Priority #1 is to be visible, both physically in the town, and on the apps. You can't expand the brand if people aren't sampling your station.
Priority #2 is to offer music and information that people want to hear. You can't be successful if you're playing Barbara Streisand and Perry Como.
 
When I was on air, we used the cajun sounding smell brothers who would sniff out the school lunch menu at 7:10am and conclude with somtthing silly like 'remember the time you smelled that skunk a week before it came up in our yard? Kids loved it.

A half hour of what's on your mind sounds pretty boring to me. Most I've hard get few calls or it's the same people daily.

You'll notice KGAF is music intensive full service. That seems to work for at work long term listening. The buy, sell trade is a holdout since 1973.
 
radiofan2023 said:
Get off Facebook/Twitter/etc. and go to local events where you know the people you're meeting are local or probably from around the area, unlike on social media where anyone can say they're from Anytown USA and/or be a bot/fake profile.

Physically go to the local organizations and meet whoever is in charge of communications, so they know who you are, then use the station's email address and your own to follow up, so you know they have each one for media releases. Don't email first asking "can I come by?" - just pop in. If I were you I'd do this about once a month or every couple months in case someone new at whichever organization becomes responsible for media releases/outreach. People take jobs in small towns and then move on, get fired, change job responsibilities, get promoted, etc.

Also if someone in their 20's or 30's is in PR/comms for an organization, do you really think a radio station is going to be top of mind for them to reach out to first thing if they have an event going on? I wouldn't expect them to, so you have to remind them your station exists by going there and introducing yourself. It's easy to ignore/forget about someone's email versus having them standing in front of you.
Click to expand...
Also fantastic advice and I'm planning to make it to more local events to meet folks! That personal connection is definitely important.

You're right about young folks and PR/comms not thinking about radio as a promotion medium. I'm a young guy myself and I don't think most of my peers would think of radio as a way to promote an upcoming event. I doubt most people under 30 have been exposed to a radio station that has a proper community presence and promotes events, anyway, as most of the big signals don't do much of that (if any) these days. So getting to know young people in charge of organizations & their PR wing is even more crucial!
 
b-turner said:
We leave an envelope in the station mailbox or call the business with the winner's name.

We do a live 30 minue buy-sell-trade-birthdays & anniversaries. Birthday winner gets a free cake from a chain supermarket that won't spend a dime with us. For anniversaries, the winner gets dinner for two. In each case we call or email the business with the winner's name. People can email or call in the name for that birthday or anniversary.

Every shift is voice-tracked.

Last week we gaveaway tickets to Germanfest and Bullfest. Both local events. We did a paid remote at Germanfest on Saturday. On Friday the local Kubota dealer had Orange Days with a free lunch. Easily 350 showed up. On our paid remotes we do something to drive traffic. People stopping by can register to win a $100 bill awarded during the last break.

We have more than 1 in 3 in the county listening. Average listening slightly less than 9 hours a week. Midday almost 10,500 listeners. 1 hour north of Dallas/Fort Worth. 50 stations can be heard here.

Take a listen: kgaf.net
Click to expand...
That cake from a local supermarket... is that something that's on the station's dime? I'm assuming so since you said they won't spend a dime with you.

How do you actually get enough prizes to do daily giveaways? That's pretty awesome that you're able to do that. We do giveaways on occasion here, but I'd really love to do more of them because they seem to really drive engagement. It seems like your station owners are willing to put some $$ in to help drive listening and engagement which is rare these days.

Thanks for the link to your station - I'll give it a listen.
 
PTBoardOp93 said:
Yes. It helps a lot to have buy in from all the station employees, especially the sellers. Their job is to be out on the town and trying to do business with the business leaders and so forth in the town, who will often also be the leaders of the local Red Cross, the Smithville Elementary PTA and the Garden Club.


Priority #1 is to be visible, both physically in the town, and on the apps. You can't expand the brand if people aren't sampling your station.
Priority #2 is to offer music and information that people want to hear. You can't be successful if you're playing Barbara Streisand and Perry Como.
Click to expand...
For sure! I'll check with the sales team here and try to get them help be "eyes and ears," too. It's amazing how many hats some local business owners wear in addition to their own shops.

Any suggestions to increase visibility?

You're right about the music piece, too. Our format is 60s through early 80s with an emphasis on 1965-1975. So it skews older for sure but still has a good following in the community. There is some Barbara ("Stoney End") and Como ("It's Impossible") in rotation, but those run alongside the big hits of that era (and those were big hits in their own right, too). It's full service but the format isn't a sleepy one.
 
The station gives them exposure for the store providing the cake at no cost to us. I turned around and sold the giveaway. Example: The Hometown Insurance Birthday Club winner today receives a free birthday cake from big chain grocery. We 'brand' the giveaway to a paying account. I have a waiting list if the sponsor drops. Last time that happened was during Covid.

We have no issue getting giveaways in exchange for on air mentions. For Mothers Day I have a $150 giveaway from a jewelry store, a dozen roses, dinner for two, two movie passes plus anything from the snack bar and a $75 gift certificate at a boutique. Station cost $0.
 
b-turner said:
The station gives them exposure for the store providing the cake at no cost to us. I turned around and sold the giveaway. Example: The Hometown Insurance Birthday Club winner today receives a free birthday cake from big chain grocery. We 'brand' the giveaway to a paying account. I have a waiting list if the sponsor drops. Last time that happened was during Covid.

We have no issue getting giveaways in exchange for on air mentions. For Mothers Day I have a $150 giveaway from a jewelry store, a dozen roses, dinner for two, two movie passes plus anything from the snack bar and a $75 gift certificate at a boutique. Station cost $0.
Click to expand...
Ahh, okay! Any suggestions on how to approach businesses like that? Is that primarily a talent or sales role in your operation?
 
I strictly do sales but I have years behind the microphone and in programming. I secured the giveaways mentioned.

What I tell people is: How would you like some advertising without opening your checkbook or all the red tape at corporate. Giveaway X (daily/weekly/specific event) and all it cost you is wholesale price/food cost. I can really bolster your top of mind awareness. I picked you and wanted to see you first before going to my second choice. It's such a boost most stay with it year after year. This simply doesn't happen often. More often than not I don't have to go to my second choice.
 


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