An election night recipe for great radio ratings

From where I sit On The Kowch election night is a television event. Gone are the days of people sitting around the radio listening for the results. But that doesn't mean radio needs to roll over and play dead!

You still have people driving around in their cars who want to know who is winning or losing. People are curious about the results. If you're in music radio give them a quick update between songs. In other words, give them election night snacks of information.

If you're a talk radio station provide listeners election night what no one else has in your market.  Bring your stars out to play at night when the polls close.

The late great CJAD News Director Gord Sinclair taught me a valuable lesson about election night when it comes to talk radio. Once the polls are closed have fun with the results.

People listen to talk radio for your hosts. So bring them in on election night to do what they do best. Express an opinion about the results as they unfold.

Create a panel of your popular hosts - especially with those who disagree with each other. Five minutes going into the bottom of the hour and five minutes going into the top of the hour. Let them go at it. The audience will love it. I know, because I did it on election nights in Montreal and Toronto with great success!

It was entertaining. It was the only place in town they could hear all their favourite talk show hosts on air that night.

The hosts loved it (well ... a slight exaggeration on my part perhaps but once they got over having to work at night they enjoyed watching the results together and then talking about it on air).

When it is time for the leaders to give their speeches, anchor that part of the coverage with your hosts. Let them react to what is being said (after the speech - not during).

Then open the lines to take calls. Promote the fact that you can be the first to comment on election results. My promos said we were their election connection.

Don't make them wait until the morning to cheer if their party or candidate won or moan if their party or candidate lost. Open the lines on election night after the speeches.

To provide the results it has to be all hands on deck.

Reporters and any other on air people should be at key riding headquarters in your market. Make sure you go to them often on the air. Make sure they get you the winning and losing candidates on air to be interviewed by your broadcast team in master control.

You will need two anchors on election night to do updates every 15 minutes.

Top and bottom of the hour use one anchor for overall results. Assign a producer to help them line up the reporters or interviews. At :15 and :45 use a second anchor who also has a producer working with them. This means each anchor is on the air only once a half hour.

It is a busy but manageable pace for the anchors. But they must have a producer to assist them in coordinating the contributors for their updates.

From where I sit On the Kowch the most important thing a radio station does on election night is to gather material for use the morning after. Have a great show the night before means you're well prepared with clips from interviews of the winning and losing candidates and reports from your teams at party headquarters.

Also make sure your reporters act as producers to book the winners and losers as guest for the morning show. Use clips from the callers reacting to the election results on your morning newscasts. Make sure you promote the fact they were callers to your radio station. Take ownership of anything you use from the night before.

On election night I will be helping to count the ballots. I spent three days as a poll clerk during the advanced polls over the Easter weekend. It was an incredible experience.  I'll tell you all about it in next week's blog.