Choosing the right content is a key step in the show prep process. The trick is knowing what works and what doesn’t. You can indeed make any topic or content entertaining, but if you start with relevant and familiar content, you’re ahead of the game. Here’s a simple and effective way to judge all content, including interview guests, news stories, and segments on your show: The Triple Threat Filter.

Triple Threat Filter

How do you decide what is worthy of your show? It boils down to three questions—a Triple Threat Filter that cuts through the hype and cuts to the core. If your content fails to pass one of the aspects, it threatens your success. That doesn’t mean it won’t work, but it’s enough to give you pause.

Here’s how to evaluate each content idea in the prep process:

Familiarity

Familiarity is a key (and perhaps most important) component to success. Does your audience already know about it, or are you stuck spending half the segment on a backstory to make them interested? Talking about the top-of-mind stories of the day is a huge advantage because your audience is already aware of them. No education is necessary, and no long intros or setups are needed.

It’s tempting to focus primarily on this aspect of the story. Some shows almost consider it a free pass to instant use, even if the content fails the other two criteria in the filter. Talking about the latest Taylor and Travis relationship drama is familiar because the story is everywhere. However, building a segment around an actress from your hometown trying to get a break as a minor character on a new, unknown Netflix series scores low in this category. Maybe even zero! You will be doing more heavy lifting, making them interesting because the familiarity is low. The lack of familiarity is a threat, but that isn’t the only consideration.

Relevance

Next, evaluate whether the guest fits your audience. Ellen DeGeneres once welcomed Nadiya Hussain, a viral TikTok chef with a knack for quirky recipes, onto her show. Few knew her, but the guest matched Ellen’s lifestyle-leaning crowd, who love a foodie fix. She dished stories about her latest kitchen chaos.

Imagine dropping Nadiya onto The Dan Patrick Show, a sports talk juggernaut. Dan’s great, but listeners are there for sports and hot takes. It doesn’t matter how interesting she is. Her spice tips would land like a thud. Her lack of relevance to the target audience is a threat. Patrick could probably make it work at Super Bowl time by asking what food she’d serve for a quirky and relevant Super Bowl party, but that’s a tough fit because the audience doesn’t already care.

To test it, picture your core listener—age, tastes, habits, etc. Would they perk up or tune out? You do have a detailed Target Audience Persona, right?

As with familiarity, the lower the relevance score, the greater the threat. If the topic or story is both unfamiliar and irrelevant, it’s probably best to find something else, unless the third criteria in the Triple Threat Filter is off-the-charts positive.

Entertainment

This should go without saying, but it often needs to be repeated in a loud voice several times. Can you deliver this story in a way that is worth hearing? It doesn’t matter how relevant or familiar a story is. If you can’t deliver the goods, putting it on the air makes no sense.

Entertainment is the wild card. This is the most important of the criteria in the Triple Threat Filter. Run every topic and story through the Triple Threat Filter. They don’t have to be a “10” in all three categories, but if they’re low in one or two areas, they better outperform in the other.

Conclusion

The Triple Threat Filter works. Familiarity hooks them, relevance keeps them, and entertainment seals the deal. Score high in all three areas, and you have a hit waiting to happen. The lower the scores, the greater the risk. The one thing you can’t overcome is a poor score in the Entertainment category.

Pic from Freepik.com.

Tracy Johnson is a talent coach and programming consultant. He’s the President/CEO of Tracy Johnson Media Group. His book Morning Radio has been described as The Bible of Personality Radio and has been used by personalities worldwide. Tracy is also the creator of  Radio Content Pro an AI-powered show prep service that addresses all three of these triple threat filters by putting stories in radio speak and giving you teases, on-air copy, responses, phone topics, social copy by platform, blog copy and more.