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A Big Flip Deserves a Good Stunt

ChannelFlipper said:
Hope we get one if and when this big flip occurs.

I think the usefulness of stunting ended when radios started be harder to manually tune... people don't scan the dial unless they are travelling... and most would not notice a stunt on a frequency they do not customarily tune to. All stunts do is annoy the existing listeners so that none of them are around when the new format debuts.
 
Agreed...Why waste time doing a stunt. No one listening actually cares. You basically are just doing for yourself. I say just drop the format and put the new product on the air right away.
 
Mac Daddy said:
Agreed...Why waste time doing a stunt. No one listening actually cares. You basically are just doing for yourself. I say just drop the format and put the new product on the air right away.

The only stunt I felt had some value was one where we played hooks from the new format for a day (if anyone thinks their competitors don't already know, they are dumb or high), interspersed with messages that they could get a list of all the "snippets" (newspaper, retail, online) and vote for each one starting the next day, when we did an on air test. This translated into a very useful "we play the songs you want to hear because we asked you..." position. With a bit of PR, even TV stations will cover it if you luck out to be on a slow news day!
 
What are you all talking about?! Stunts NEED to happen in order to get more people's attention, plus they are just so gosh darn enjoyable! KTNI in Denver had the BEST stunt ever when they went to The Pole/stripper format!
 
musicfan101 said:
What are you all talking about?! Stunts NEED to happen in order to get more people's attention, plus they are just so gosh darn enjoyable! KTNI in Denver had the BEST stunt ever when they went to The Pole/stripper format!

They are enjoyable to people who are interested in radio, but the average listener could care less about a stunt. And in my opinion, stunts don't really get a lot of people's attention. Especially if it is for less than a day, like most. The only people who will notice the stunt are the ones who actually listen to that station...Which if they are flipping, chances are is not a lot of people.
 
I agree with David E. and those who say stunts have lost much of their value. My sentiments are clearly as a radio fan as opposed to what works best from a business point of view.

I would say though that stunts could be useful if they are done in coordination with messages in other media designed to draw interest and increasing curiosity to the stunt, particularly the internet and social networking site. If this is done right, local TV would follow. It should create a "what in the world are they doing at <fill-in-the-frequency>?" and have it lead up to the announcement. The whole point is to get people flipping to the new station from their presets, which is not easy to do since people are creatures of habit.

If such a stunt was done right, the free advertising would outweigh the current listener alienation.
 
musicfan101 said:
What are you all talking about?! Stunts NEED to happen in order to get more people's attention, plus they are just so gosh darn enjoyable! KTNI in Denver had the BEST stunt ever when they went to The Pole/stripper format!

How about if we drop live turkeys out of a helicopter from 500 feet up? (Can't remember my promo's but it was something like that.)
 
Uh oh - I THINK I may probably know who someone is on this board now...!!!!

Anyway, I must say the type of stunts I dislike the most are the April Fool's stunts. Sometimes I even wonder how people still manage to fall for them. The dumbest one of all was when Coast To Coast AM discussed they were commanded to flip the format to "Toast to Toast" and become an overnight cooking show since that's where the ratings were in this type of economy. Some people were so pissed they continued to write in talking about their displeasure for the joke even days after it was done.

I also recall the UFO sitings one morning over Phoenix.... ;D
 
Those fools were the same ones thinking legitimate guests were on Phil Hendrie's show.

I liked the old days April Fools stunts when stations would exchange formats for a day. One I recall was KROQ and KPWR doing the flip. Those days are gone though.
 
SuperRadioFan said:
Those fools were the same ones thinking legitimate guests were on Phil Hendrie's show.

I liked the old days April Fools stunts when stations would exchange formats for a day. One I recall was KROQ and KPWR doing the flip. Those days are gone though.

My favorite was when KROQ did "Groovy Hits of the Super Seventies" in (if memory serves) 1993. I can remember well them playing "Afternoon Delight" in afternoon drive by the Starland Vocal Band in all of its drippy-cheesy glory. The KROQ teen grunge audience must have thought the world was coming to an end.

Another year they did a spot-on reincarnation of Scott Shanon's Pirate Radio. That was awesome too.

Of course like you said, they no longer do things like that any more. Which is what is wrong with radio now. They took the spontaneity out. They took the personality out, but most of all, they took the FUN out.
 
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