"Every noble work is at first impossible." Thomas Carlyle

Adam Jacobson does a fine job of gathering interesting items for his weekly Radio & Records' Manager's Minute. From his 8/4 writing...

"Diary Mentions Of Satellite Radio Few And Far Between. According to a Research Director study that examined Arbitron data from winter 2006, Sirius saw 2.4% of the diary mentions in Philadelphia while rival subscription radio firm XM saw 1.8% of the diary mentions. At the same time, 95.8% of the diary instances in the winter survey for Philadelphia made no mention of satellite radio. In Washington, where XM is based, the company saw 3.6% of the diary mentions while Sirius saw 1.2% of them. The nation's capital saw the most mentions of satellite radio listening in winter '06 among the top 10 markets. However, 95.2% of diary instances made no mention of satellite radio -- a clear sign that satellite radio's impact from a ratings perspective is thus far minimal."

Of course the good folks at Research Director are talking mentions which is nothing close to share or rating. Once estimates are available the pay radio dudes will have some splainin to do.

To sign up for your free email sub to Adam's weekly Manager's Minute send your name, email address, company and title via email to managersminute [at] radioandrecords [dot] com
Keep up the good work Adam.

In answer to a few emails. My thought is the new sales channels being created by Google and others including Fig's outfit are mad cool. We need to approach all of these new markets with an inclusive pov, not play one against another. The one notion that may be permanently changed in this migration to interactive channels is exclusivity; national rep firms and any other sales organizations will need to accept the new conditions of engagement. May all the best sellers win.

eBay to play: Joe Mandese has the story. eBay will assist in the creation of another online marketplace, e-Media Exchange, set to debut in Q1 of 2007...

"The pilot is a result of a grass roots initiative to explore ways to maximize new technology in order to enhance the current media buying system," the coalition said in a statement released early this morning. "It reflects an evolution of the industry and another potential way for buyers and sellers to efficiently facilitate media transactions."

Get dialed-in to the latest on this initiative at www.admarketpilot.com; Read Joe's coverage here

Being a big fan of Business Week prexy Bill Kupper (during Bill's watch his book has much improved and his migration to online exemplary - 20% of total ad revenues in 2007 will come from BW's new media initiatives) it gives me no pleasure to say his site sucks. Second only to Forbes, BW has an urgent need to improve page loading especially the bandwidth devoted to ad serving. While the content is strong, the online experience is almost too brutal to bear. Having said that Jon Fine has written a good overview of what's happening (and not happening) in cable...

"Broadcast is program-driven," says Jack Kodesh, national broadcast supervisor for agency Media Planning Group. "Cable is network-driven." Broadcast's biggest successes are built on scarcity: Think of how expensive ads get on event shows à la the Oscars and season finales of American Idol. Cable's biggest hits can't command similar premiums. And the ever-expanding nether reaches of your cable system -- and now the Web as well -- lead to more ad inventory and price pressures. This is why, says Bourkoff, the big cable players can no longer drive up ad rates.

Cable still faces the fragmentation of a young medium, but its slower growth leads to a perception that it's a mature one. Clearly, growing up these days is a complex business. You could hardly blame MTV if, like so many 25-year-olds, it's striving mightily to remain an adolescent.

Read Jon's piece "Growing Up Is Hard To Do" here