"If the host is sitting there thinking about his next joke, he isn't listening."

"Unless it's an emergency, don't bother me after 6:00 p.m. and on weekends."

Merv Griffin

He was gifted. Broadcaster. Impresario. A brilliant mind for business. Invented Jeopardy in 1964, Wheel in 1975. At his passing he was working on his soon to debut syndi gamer Merv Griffin's Crosswords. He penned the Jeopardy fill music and retained the rights to it after selling the show. This move alone is said to have earned him over $70 million in royalty payments. Merv was the goods, one simply without equal. Friends and colleagues who knew him, worked with him, tell me he was always upbeat, always positive about today and the rich promise of tomorrow.

Merv was the entertainment mogul who mattered, his loss is significant, he will be missed by a great many.

It's not radio, it's audio
It's not television, it's video

There is no longer a radio business, gone too is the television business. That notion has been a part of just about every talk of mine for the past five years. My thought is it is the business of audio and video. A broadcast business remains but it is no longer confined to regulated wireless. In 2004 some of our EU colleagues working on the agency side started asking us about this notion as it applies to the planning and buying of media. We added text to the conversation. Now MediaVest drops the working term radio and (correctly) makes it a part of audio media. Joe Mandese writes Audio Kills The Radio Noir, Agency Broadly Redefines Medium via MDN here.
Note, Joe includes TNS Media Intelligence citations:

"Traditional AM/FM radio continues to hold a special place in people's lives," the report notes. "With some expected demographic-based differences, the appeal of traditional AM/FM is consistent across age, gender, income and locale, meaning that traditional radio remains a viable way to connect with consumers."

Among audio media, conventional terrestrial radio was cited by four out of 10 consumers as their favorite audio-based medium--slightly ahead of CDs and DVDs and more than four times greater than the number of people who favor technologies such as MP3 players, Internet radio or satellite radio.

"Free-delivery into homes, cars and headsets plays a role in radio's continued appeal," and "radio remains uniquely able to deliver on consumer needs," the study finds, noting that news and entertainment (cited by 69% of consumers) is still its biggest draw, followed by music (57%) and news, traffic and weather reports (53%).

Something bad wrong here: As my Georgia relatives would say. Talk show host murdered, station director killed. Africa remains a very dangerous place. FTM coverage here. My thanks to programming ace Kipper McGee for the tip.

The play's the thing

Follow up on the earlier posts on creating a plan. First, a few words from one of my mentors, the brilliant Harold Geneen "Three-Sentence Course on Business Management: You read a book from the beginning to the end. You run a business the opposite way. You start with the end, and then you do everything you must to reach it."

It was Geneen who taught me "The best way to run a business with the best hope of eventual success is to do it as you would cook on a word-burning stove....You keep your eye on the pot."

Having completed the homework gather your team for discussion. A series of group discussions starting with "the end." Example: we ask "What would have to happen for us to be #1 25-54?" We open the discussion of the thinking, the behavior and actions required.

We focus not on the goal but on the gap.

The space between where we are now and the end. What must we do to reach the goal? We create a plan with objectives, metrics, standards, budget and we agree on responsibility. We keep an eye on the gap.

Congrats & cheers: Harv Blain the Samurai of Skokie is now blogging here. Welcome to the conversation Harv! Thanks to Dan Kelley for the tip. Dave Shepherd, and Dean Goodman, on their closing.