Photo: JJjunki
mashup of original
image, Little Bo Peep on Market Street by
Thomas Hawk

Outstanding, thank you!


"Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm." Disraeli

Carl Hiaasen writes about Anna Nicole and the new dawn of modern journalism: "Don't make the mistake of dismissing the Smith story as an anomaly; it's a media watershed. If the death of a hapless, doped-up ex-model can knock two wars out of the headlines, there's no end to the squalid possibilities." Read We have seen the future, and it's not pretty via The Miami Herald here.

Apple unveils new product-unveiling product: "Apple claims the iLaunch can garner the same amount of press attention as a major scientific discovery, high-court ruling, celebrity meltdown, or natural disaster at 200 times the speed of a traditional media-fostered launch." More via CNET News here.

The future of radio: The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet holds a hearing today at 2:30 eastern. The Digital Future of the United States: Part II - The Future of Radio. Scheduled to appear Mel Karmazin, Peter Smyth, Robert Kimball, Geoffrey Blackwell, and Gene Kimmelman. Listen in via the committee site here.

What are we selling, what's being purchased? Points or demos or environments or formats or markets or stations: Fig sends along an email wherein he compares and contrasts the Google Audio initiative with the work of his firm Softwave Media Exchange (SWMX). Fig raises some important issues that merit attention and discussion. Thanks Fig. From his email...

"- Radio station audiences are NOT generic. They each have a target, just like advertisers products & services.

- Advertisers want demographic choice. Not bulk audience markets. It goes against the basic benefit of radio. Radio's ability to target makes it attractive. Selling advertising on radio only to have it not work (because of improper targeting) will drive advertisers away from radio. ("I bought the market using radio, it didn't work") 12+ is a family reunion, not an effective radio buy. (SWMX stations offer choice because over 1,800 stations representing 40+% of all radio 12+ average quarter hours (12.4 million listeners) in 248 markets allows advertisers to choose the correct demo's for the product.)

- What % of the current Google Advertisers are NEW to Radio? (ours is 90% - Is Google more?) If they are bringing new advertisers to radio, why hire radio sales people to call on radio buyers? Who are they selling against?

- Google can preserve a stations rate card integrity by selling the station for what it is worth. Then you don't have to "hide" the station and sell radio by the pound. Let me understand, if Google sells cheap spots and takes a 50% commission, it will cause other local, loyal, station advertisers to pay more. (This is why SWMX has offered "full flighted"options.)

- A 50% commission rate is good for Google. Not radio stations.

We (SWMX) love having Google (or anyone) selling the benefits of radio. But, NO RADIO MANAGER that I know of will allow,

- The sales department to sell a cluster without knowing what stations the advertiser is going to be on. How can you repeat a successful campaign if you don't know what stations worked? Hello?

- Please let me know where a sales person can earn 50% commission. We all want to work there! (Google charges 50% for every dollar they bring to radio. SWMX gives the station 85% of the buy.

Google can do much better for radio and advertisers if it takes the time to learn what radio is all about. Bring more money into the biz, that's great! But take the time to learn why radio is so special. Then get the rate to make radio advertising (and Google) worth more.

Radio can help itself by making it easier to buy. There is too much paper, too many hoops to jump through, too many people saying "no" and not enough attention being paid to the content value. As a MAJOR purchaser of radio, SWMX has made it easier for stations to "get money." If Google really wants to help, it can start by understanding the key benefits of radio, then make it easy for the stations (not Google) to get money."

Congrats & cheers: Alexandra Wallace named EP of NBC's Nightly News.

Photo: Snowy Bike by DrStarbuck
Cool shot, thank you!


"Better three hours too soon, than one minute too late." Shakespeare

"Johnson well says, 'He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.' Life is made up of little things. It is very rarely that an occasion is offered for doing a great deal at once. True greatness consists in being great in little things." Charles Simmons

Congrats & cheers: Brian Kelly, the way-dialed-in programmer who first turned me on to the Gym Class Heroes and Cupid's Chokehold last summer - yesterday it was Top Ten on Rhapsody's All Genres List. Brian Lamb, the C-SPAN CEO, and all-around good guy, who told Sirius to forget it - the pay radio guys wanted rights to preempt C-SPAN for sports (FYI - C-SPAN remains on XM). Bravo Brian! Mel and his subs would be better served retaining Lamb's excellent PA product and preempting one of the Sirius music channels. Not too late to fix (might need a friend or two on the hill someday, someday soon).

Legend of legends: Gary LaPierre inducted into the WBZ Hall of Fame. Well deserved! Congrats Gary. Boston Herald item here.

Legend of legends 2: Marv Dyson is, arguably, the best dressed man in broadcasting, a mensch, and certainly A Great General Manager. CBS2 pays tribute to my pal Marv, the Chicago legend here.

Safe in Sydney: Ron Fell offers up the last post in his blog series - The Queen Mary 2 adventure here. Bravo Ron, well done! Hi to Kathy. Missed one or more of Ron's posts? You may find an index of Ron's posts from the Pacific here.

John Battelle: John posted a brief interview with Michael Wesch the KSU prof who did the killer Web 2.0 video. Video, via YouTube, here, interview, with comments, here. Kudos John, excellent post, thanks for sharing.

High-tech collides with low-tech: Elinor Mills of CNET News writes...

Google, which has a "significant sales force" that works with Fortune 500 advertisers on display and pay-per-click ads, has been hiring more sales staff and has account managers specifically allocated to radio stations, said Josh McFarland, a product manager for Google's Audio Ads business. The company has "a very high respect for what we call the direct (sales) side of the business," he said. "At the same time, we are committed to the self-service model."

Read Elinor's article, Google hears static on radio bid, here. Seems to me there have been seven changes in broadcast sales since 1965: fax, email, cell phones, traffic software, laptops, ppt and pdf, otherwise, just about everything else is pretty much the same. (Closed circuit to Josh: You don't need the major shops to get your product off the ground. Think "local" and "small retail." Consider "pairings" example: with coupons. One of the radio guys you should be talking to is Chuck Tweedle, he's in the bay area at KOIT)

Bonus: Infinite Thinking Machine, a blog devoted to teachers and students here. Which reminds me, perhaps because of the words thinking and machine, of a PBS series - The Great American Dream Machine. Killer satire on TV first brought to us by public television. If you want to know where the inspiration for SNL came from - look no further. Whatever did happen to Marshall Efron? (LATER - Marshall is doing just fine, still acting, more here. I love the internet!)

Video bonus: IT department "help desk" Middle Ages era. Great waste of bandwidth. Introducing "the book" via YouTube, here

Photo: Madison twilight by KAP'n Craig

Amazing image, thanks. To appreciate this image please click on the photo title above, on the flickr page select "all sizes" above the image, upper left and choose original size. Also keep in mind he shot this from a kite, probably standing on the lake (which is now frozen) and it was single digit cold when he shot it. Bravo KAP'n Craig! (Closed circuit to Madison media: hire this guy or at least license his images for a charity calendar, your website, et al)

Craig Wilson uses a "kite cam" to create his very cool pics. Check out and buy, via Amazon, his book Hanging by a Thread: A Kite's View of Wisconsin here.

"A talent can be cultivated in tranquility; a character only in the rushing stream of life." Goethe

Web 2.0 in less than five minutes: Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, has produced a killer video. Highly recommended. Check it out via YouTube here. Thanks to Dave for the tip.

Nobody liked it but the prospects: The Salesgenie.com Super Bowl ad, one of the ads rated poorly by the ad community, critics and citizens alike, seems to have been a good investment. The company says they signed up more than 10,000 new subscribers by Monday afternoon (they needed 700 new subs to break even on the ad). Salon's King Kaufman has more, Shockingly, the experts - that's all of us - got it wrong on that Salesgenie Super Bowl ad here. Reminds me of something the great David Ogilvy said about those infomercials run in the dead of night..."they work."

The sail to Sydney: Ron Fell posting from the Pacific here. Bravo Ron! Well done.

The Wizards of Buzz: Jamin Warren and John Jurgensen do a fine job reviewing the bidding that has become known as social bookmarking. From Digg.com to Reddit.com to Del.icio.us to StumbleUpon the gang's all here. Read their well-written WSJ piece here. Bravo Jamin and John!

Google will crack the code: Some folks are making a mistake by counting out the Google Audio initiative. Of course there are "hurdles" but none that can not be overcome. View this as a marathon rather than a sprint. It's way early on. Miguel Helft writes about Google via cnet/NYT here

Tribune "self-help" strategy: Sarah Ellison and Dennis K. Berman update the Tribune story writing in WSJ here. My thought is should they sell off broadcast TV they are not likely to retain WGN radio. Assuming a bcf of 40%, a modest 10 multiple would yield $193,600,000. My guess is the station could go for close to $200 mil. Of course several other factors would be in play. Cubs rights and real estate issues could have impact that might not be insignificant.

Wheredaguy?: Ron Jacobs' website, ronjacobsonline, is MIA. Any insight into what's up with the Big Kahuna? My hope is all is well with Ron.

Burger invented here: Was it CT, TX or WI? Fred Winston blogs on the birth of the burger here

W2W Anna Nicole: The freak show was off the chain last week. The characters in the Anna Nicole drama being way too rich to resist. The biopics, the tabs, the November sweeps, the books, the courts, the lawyers, this one is only beginning. Steve Dahl served up his usual, unvarnished, pov..."Friday morning on Today on NBC, they said that Anna Nicole was famous for being famous. It seems to me that she was famous for having really large breasts and an extremely messed up personal life." Read Steve's take here.

Thomas Szasz: "The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."