San Francisco radio station KVVF Latino Mix 105.7 began playing the same song repeatedly last Friday at 3pm. The station selected Nelly’s “Hot in Herre,” the number 21 Best Summer Song of All Time as ranked by Rolling Stone. The question quickly became, “Why?”
Radio Insight reported on Twitter chatter commenting on possible reasons for the strange programming choice. Speculation under the hashtag #Nelly1057 included technical trouble, a disgruntled DJ, or a station hijacking. Unfortunately for drama lovers, the reason was less spectacular. The Univision-owned station is switching formats and becoming Hot 105.7, a contemporary rhythmic station.
Hot 105.7 is not the first to “stunt.” A Toronto station, Indie88, played a Rick Astley tune for week to announce its FM signal revival. It seems the trend is catching.
So without further ado, for all you creativity challenged Program Directors out there, here is an official list of suggested week long, we-are-about-to-change-our-format, stunts that you can pull. And remember, once one station has done one of stunts below, everyone else must cross it off the list. No repeating!
- Play the same song backwards for a week. You lose points for using Abbey Road to relive the ‘Paul Is Dead’ controversy.
- Play a song forward and the backwards for a week. Songs with questionable lyrics like All Along The Watchtower by Hendrix or anything by Dylan work well here.
- Play a song at volume 1, then volume 2, then volume 3, all the way to volume 11 (cheap Spinal Tap reference, did you get it?) and then start over.
- Play nothing for a week. Suggest the UK’s Silent Opera.
- Play nothing but Polka music for a week. Nuff said.
- Replay a song’s English version, then French version, then Spanish version, then repeat. Lion King’s Hakuna Matata great place to start.
- Run a non-stop “donate to sick whales” campaign with the whale song music from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home playing non-stop in the background.
- Run fake news all week. Insert your own Fox News or MSNBC Al Sharpton joke here.
- Run wrong weather all week. Insert your own Al Gore joke here.
10. Rerun The War of the Worlds as original content. And of course I mean the Tom Cruise version.
11. Run an up-to-date countdown in minutes until the terror ends.
12. Run highlights of the OJ Simpson trials back to back to back. Edit all Johnny Cochran parts out for clarity.
13. Play static for a week (some stations might be doing this already and passing it off as music, but that is a different topic).
Best of luck with your new station format!
-Jim Beach, School for Startups and Restaurant Owner Radio host and McGraw-Hill Best Selling Author
