Okay, it’s not quite the wet dream the title suggests – or is it?
Because, within limits, the leftern blogosphere CAN contribute to the programming of a radio station in a red state that’s blue-ing. I have decided this, and I have the ability to implement it.
Names are changed to protect the innocent below the fold.
This is how it works.
The group I work for has three radio stations in this market, operated as a cluster.
One of the three is my responsibility. The programming is 100% satellite. Three hours of the morning show are occupied by an extremely popular male/female team in national syndication. The rest of the day is Westwood One’s Adult Hits format, known as “SAM” or “Simply About Music.” In many cities, the format is known as “Jack-FM” or “Bob” or whoever. In Burlington, the format is presented as “MP103.”
The way it’s positioned is iconoclastic: “We play whatever we want. You never know what we’ll do. We are the rebels. We are the pie in the face of corporate radio.Whatever, whenever.”
For the sake of discussion, we’ll refer to this station as “Willy 93.1.”
These are the program elements that I control:
Three ten-second spoken statements per hour which must include the moniker.
Example:
“Like Willy 93.1? Tell President Bush. Oh, never mind, he knows, He listens to your phone calls. We’re Willy 93.1.”
“We do whatever we want. Kinda like President Bush. The only difference is the Constitution’s on our side. We’re Willy 93.1.”
A great deal of unsold inventory in :60 and :30 slots. Now writing political scripts to fill these avails and voicing them myself will get me strung up and shot. But things found on the internets, linky links to mp3s and oreo cookies are good things.
During the syndicated morning show, which I’d like to change to Rachel and Marc, but one thing at a time, there are five minute twenty-second positions that are set there for news. We fill with music instead. Any requests?
Any ideas for promotions, ways to frme the community calendar, any brainstorms at all are good.
Think of yourself as having the very real keys to a very real radio station. Because in fact, that isn’t that far from true.
Please keep in mind that your suggestions in the thread may actually end up implemented on the real air at a real radio station.
This is for real. What do you want to spew out through the transmitter within the framework I’ve described?
I gotta start doing something with the damn thing anyway. It’s picking up popularity.
Those ten second lines are particularly valuable.
