Frank Murphy - morning show coaching
Let Me Be Frank!
Frank Murphy Answers Your Morning Show Questions:
A morning show host in Kansas City writes:
I was wondering if you knew where I could get some back to school morning show Ideas? Thanks for the producers forum notes from Morning Show Bootcamp. Greatly appreciated!
Frank answers:
If you haven't already, write to all the panelists from the producers forum. Their e-mail addresses are in the Session Notes.
If you subscribe to any showprep services, call or write to them. Check www.allaccess.com for samples of The Wireless Flash, The Complete Sheet and The Ross Brittain Report. You can find some ideas there. While you are at All Access, click to the News/Talk/Sports section and find the link to Talk Topics. Perry Michael Simon puts a ton of ideas up there.
Don't forget to brainstorm your own ideas. Make a list of any words you associate with Back to School. For example: lunchboxes, trading sandwiches, uniforms, the smell of new crayons, smoking in the boys room, etc. Then look at your list and think of call-in topics, giveaways, stunts, etc.
"What was your favorite sandwich?"
"What's the most popular lunchbox this year?"
Give the most popular lunchbox away to your listeners
Trade sandwiches with the deejay to win a prize (make them eat your gross liverwurst sandwich or something and you get their yummy PB&J)
For "warm & fuzzy" - collect shoes, school uniforms, etc. for underprivileged kids.
A lot of schools collect a million of something (usually a million pennies) to show the kids how big a number that is. You could collect a million crayons or something, invite schools to come see the pile, then give away the crayons to needy schools (or melt them into a big wax ball and roll it down a hill just for the hell of it).
A publicist in Los Angeles writes:
Don Barrett suggested you might be able to answer a question of mine. Short of pitching morning show producers directly, which I've done (as you might recall), is there a good way to reach the show prep services? Is there a good distribution service or source to getting "quirky, offbeat consumer products" stories to those guys?
Frank Answers:
Several of the showprep services pull information from the mainstream press and rehash it for morning shows. Two of my favorites, The Complete Sheet and The Ross Brittain Report, generally operate that way.
Take a look at www.allaccess.com, www.rronline.com and any other online trade magazines for links to more showprep services.
Another great service is The Wireless Flash, which has its own reporters and tries to avoid covering stuff that has already appeared elsewhere. The Wireless Flash is first on my list of showprep services to order at a radio station. They specialize in "quirky offbeat" stories with contact numbers for phone interviews. Their website is www.flashnews.com. Call Pat Glynn at 619-220-7191 or email him at pglynn@flashnews.com.
Try submitting your client to the Guest Exchange, which is a service run by a morning show producer in Atlanta.
Lastly, when you do book an interview directly with a morning show producer, ask him or her if they are subscribers to BitBoard, MegaPrep, Radio Online, or another bit-sharing service. If so, ask them to post a blurb about you and the guest you are promoting. Other morning shows will see the endorsement from one of their peers and will call you for bookings.
A morning show producer in Philadelphia writes:
I am writing with a request for a HUGE favor. I am in the process of researching and developing contacts and I am attempting to gain interviews for some of the BIG fall movies. However, I am finding that we have very few strong contacts with movie companies and publicists that are directly involved with the production houses themselves.
Frank Answers:
Speak with your station's promotion department to see who they go through to get movie screenings. It may be a regional studio rep or a local advertising agency. Often the studio (or ad agency) will only book guests with the station that's giving them a promotion.
You may have better luck going through the actors' personal publicists. To find a personal publicist, call the agency listing department at the Screen Actors Guild in LA. You can ask for up to 5 actors' agents per call. Then call the agent and ask who the publicist is.
Perry Simon has posted a list of guest contacts in the News/Talk/Sports section of www.allaccess.com. Perry's site is an excellent resource for all morning shows.
Copyright © 2001 Frank Murphy. All rights reserved.
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