" Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had" Michael Crichton

Attention wine lovers. My friend, Chicago funny person, Larry Wilson, is raving about the Elin McCoy book "The Emperor of Wine." Long a fan of Robert Parker, Jr and holding a high regard for any Wilson suggestion have added the book to the stack.

Fred Jacobs writes...

More than anything else, radio companies need to focus on content and personality development - ingredients that can innoculate (sic) our medium from new technology competitors. We're not going to get there if we insist on saving small dollars by voicetracking. It's not about how consumers receive their entertainment, it's about the entertainment itself.

I like Fred, smart guy, and while I agree with him on the need to focus on talent, I respectfully disagree on two points...

Commercial radio's consumers are the advertisers not the listeners as Fred writes. Fred, please allow me to suggest a reading of Searls and Weinberger. This goes much deeper than semantics. It begins in metacognition.

It is also about how listeners receive their entertainment which, as I have said for years is more and more about audio and increasingly has little or nothing to do with radio. The radio business is a romantic notion, it's gone, operators are in the audio business. As my friend, and pioneer media entrepreneur, Larry Bentson says "nothing stops technology". Robert Kaplan writes "the vigor to face our adversaries must ultimately come from pride in our own past and its achievements" he goes on to add the words of Livy "Never mind if they call your caution timidity, your wisdom sloth, your generalship weakness; it is better that a wise enemy should fear you than that foolish friends should praise." The glass, in my opinion, remains more than half full, all that is needed is the hard work of intellectually honest thinking, creativity and some game changing innovation.

Thanks to Joel for forwarding a link to Fred's blog. You may read all of Fred's comments here

Thanks to John Rook for pointing out the obvious - Pat Boone has earned the honor of being in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Get more and support Pat here. This reminds me that Bill Drake and Rick Sklar are not yet where they belong - in the B&C's Hall of Fame, The NAB's Hall of Fame and the Chicago-based National Hall of Fame (We need to get these gentlemen recognized, please join me in writing a letter to each nomination committee). This, in turn, reminds me...the first group to be inducted in the NAB's Hall of Fame did not include...Marconi...that gentleman was inducted in the second year...think about it.