Gloss

by

Jennifer Oko
Jennifer is a New York TV producer and word around midtown is she's written a good read about breakfast television. I'm hearing it's one for this year's beach bag. Bravo Jennifer! Check out her book blog here. Amazon info here

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." Edith Wharton

"The efficiency of most workers is beyond the control of the management and depends more than has been supposed upon the willingness of men to do their best." Sumner H. Slichter

"Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible." La Rochefoucauld

Congrats & cheers: Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff, named co-chairs of NBC Entertainment (and the studios). Adrian Holovaty checks out of WaPo online and into the cool new hyperlocal startup EveryBlock. Tisa LaSorte promoted from director of new media to brand manager for Emmis Chicago. Microsoft on their very cool Surface initiative. As first suggested here earlier last.fm has been sold to CBS. Cheers to the scrobbling master Richard Jones and his talented crew! Richard blogs about it here. $280 mil cash got the deal done, Staci dials you into the biz details here. Duncan Riley offers up some color with comments via Techcrunch here. Les deserves credit, another smart move. Quincy and his CBS Interactive team are white hot at this point and certainly the midtown team to watch. This move puts Dan Mason's CBS Radio miles ahead of other radio groups.

Spend $120 mil to make $1 billion? That's the back of the envelope arithmetic on the investment made by Comcast in their content portal and their projected return over the next five years on that investment. Still time for broadcast to get in the game. The local online ad markets are robust and only getting better. Get yours.

The ABCs of PDs - late 1970s: Lots of emails about my mention of ABC radio yesterday. The WDAI staff when Bill Todd was PD included MD Mary Klug and ND Jeff Finch. Other folks in the ABC FM group of those days...The WRIF PD in that era was Tom Bender, MD Gloria Johnson, ND Carol Coughlin, Fred Jacobs was research director. At KLOS Tom Yates was the PD, MD Dabar Hoorelbeke, ND David Heller. At KAUM the PD was Bruce Johnson. The WPLJ PD was Larry Berger. KSFX? Not certain who the bay area programmer was. I'm sure Jim Smith, Lee Arnold or Fred Jacobs could help fill this in. Tom Bender and Fred Jacobs still being involved with WRIF must be some kind of industry record. WRIF is one of the greatest stations in the nation. It deserves much more attention than it gets.

"To create suspense provide the audience with information." so said Hitchcock; kudos to Fred Winston for his clever use of the tease here.

WLS Big 89 Rewind: Photos, video, audio, here.

Laura Ellen Hopper has passed. A legend in California radio. She was there making KFAT happen and later gave life to KPIG. Our thoughts are with her husband Frank.

Red wine: Love the wines of Spain. May I recommend a red made from 100% Grenache. Vina Borgia 2005, Campo de Borja. About $6.00, drinks like a $30 wine. Kudos to Whole Foods for introducing Spanish wines to their offerings.