WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM MARK BURNETT Chris Byrnes The TV ratings winner from last season is back bigger and better than ever. Its opening managed to knock the traditional mid-week ratings winner, "Friends" in Canada and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" south of the border, out of the #1 spot. But what is it that makes "Survivor" such a good show, and creates water cooler talk in offices and work places all over the planet? And what can radio learn from this? I believe there are some basic principles we can apply to radio, and especially the Morning Show.
Simple Plot: We can all understand the game, and the way it's played. It's simple yet compelling viewing. Send 16 people to an uninhabited South Pacific island for 39 days and force them to vote each other off, with the incentive of $1 million for the lone survivor. Entertainment must have a purpose or a plot. As interesting and relatable as the individuals are, "Survivor" wouldn't work if they didn't vote each other off the island. Finding out who will "die" each week is the point of watching. Will he or she be my most liked (or disliked) castaway? So what was the "plot" or primary point that your Morning Show wanted to communicate this morning? How was it different from yesterday's show?
We Can Identify With the Characters: The show's producer Mark Burnett has done a much better job of selecting the cast for Survivor II. The first Survivor had just a few hundred applications, but they still managed to create tension as he teamed up a bible basher, an aged ex-Navy Seal and a homosexual. Survivor II had over 12,000 applicants and was therefore able to select people with more clearly defined personalities. Only 800 people were interviewed, and they were quickly reduced to just 48, who had to undergo physical and psychological examinations and "other” testing, so they ended up with just the right mix. The reason; people identify with people. They tune in to see what happens to their favourite team or person. By now you've probably picked the person you think will win, and each week you'll be in front of the TV to see how they fair should their team have to go before the tribal counsel. The Web site survivorsucks.com, a crafty anti-fan-site that some suspect is being masterminded by Mark Burnett, claims to have identified contestant Jeff Varner, a Web page designer who lives in Manhattan as the overall winner. Do people relate to the characters on your morning show? Does it stand for something? If you have a two or more person morning show, and they always agree with each other, you are paying too many salaries! They need to have clearly defined roles, so different segments of the audience can relate to different members of your morning show. The whole idea of a team is to hit more "relatables" and thus give your listeners more opportunities to support or oppose a personality or a point of view.
Location, Location, Location: This time around the location holds more interest for the average viewer. Australia is the place to go in 2001, fresh from all the positive publicity generated from staging the Olympic Games. Its rugged outback image has also been enhanced by TV shows such as the Crocodile Hunter and anything with Paul Hogan in it. Viewers are tuning in to see the dry arid open land crisscrossed with deep rock canyons, thundering waterfalls, and enormous eucalyptus forests, and to see the kangaroos, emus, wild pigs and horses, crocodiles, large goannas (lizards), and exotic bird life. In case you want to go there it was filmed in the Herbert River Gorge, which is 81 miles from the nearest town and 1,100 miles north of Sydney. But beware, as the world's top nine most poisonous snakes live in the area!
The Catch Phrase: We live in a world where a catchy line can create a buzz for a song, a movie or a show. "Who Let the Dogs Out?" by the Baha Men is a good example. Mark Burnett knows the power of a catch phrase, and is fast making "don't vote me off the island" the in vogue phrase used by all the cool people. A few weeks ago it was "Is that your final answer?" But I'm hearing this less and less, which may indicate that Regis Philbin's three minutes of fame is almost over. Check your positioning statements. Will your audience ever use them, do they believe them, and do they understand them? Has your morning show ever tried to create a local phrase?
Timing: The show was well promoted and teased, and it premiered right after the Super Bowl on Jan. 28, so it had a ready made audience. Look for such opportunities in your market when you launch an important show or feature.
Set the Mood: The backing music and overall musical themes have been carefully chosen to add to the feel of the show. They build suspense, excitement and all the other emotions that are important to the success of a show. Do the music beds your morning show use, fit the show and enhance the show features?
The Secret Advantage: The show was filmed in October and November last year and created after Mark Burnett viewed thousands of hours of film shot from many different angles. And while there must be a number of people who know who wins, no one is talking and we may have to wait until the last show to find the winner. There is speculation that no winner was chosen during filming in Australia. Instead, votes from the final episode have been saved in a "lockbox" and will be counted during the final show. Can the key players on your radio station keep a secret, to gain the edge on the competition, or does the rest of the market know what's happening at your station before your staff?
Think Big: CBS has already signed up for three more shows, and they'd like to shoot one in outer space, which I suspect is not practical. However you have to give the creators of the show points for imagination. Has your radio station started to plan your first live Morning Show broadcast from space? It will be a reality in two to three years time. Already you can purchase land in outer space, and you can reserve spaces on the first public shuttle to the moon. It's this type of "out of the box thinking" that will keep your programming compelling and create your own water cooler talk.
Seize the Moment: A number of radio stations have done their own Survivor series on radio, and generated great interest in their local communities. Mix 99.9 in Toronto did a "theatre of the mind" Survivor with local TV celebrities, and had listeners vote them off one by one until they announced Toronto's #1 TV personality. Not only was it interesting radio but they also got most of the TV celebrities in the control room or on the phone. One of my old stations in New Zealand generated huge interest by taking over a small island in Wellington Harbour and running their own Survivor with a $10,000 cash prize.
Conclusion: Survivor is all about a great idea, that is easy to understand, and is well marketed. Take a few minutes to think about how to apply these principles to your Morning Show, or your radio station in general and you will be more likely to succeed in showing up on the radar screen of potential listeners. By the way, is it me or are the "castaways" on Survivor II better looking this time around, and appear to spend a lot more time wearing skimpy clothing? |