"High station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace." Tennessee Williams

"There is an audience for every play; it's just that sometimes it can't wait long enough to find it." Shirley Booth

"No pleasure lasts long unless there is variety in it." Publilius Syrus

Today's image: Test pic #9 by Dave Winer. Very cool shot. Thanks for sharing.

The show must go on

Succession planning is difficult. It's one of the only mission critical tasks that consistently gets a pass until it becomes a high priority, one of obvious and serious urgency. We should get around to that someday becoming What are we going to do now?

The sudden and unexpected loss of the very gifted, hard working and successful Tim Russert serves as a perfect illustration.

As a practical matter, Tim was an incredible talent and a strong leader who held four key posts at NBC News.

Wendy Wilkinson, already on staff, would appear the person most deserving to be named NBC's D.C. bureau chief, one of Tim's responsibilities.

But who is best qualified to serve as the next managing editor and moderator of Meet The Press? Who is the person that can also contribute to the other news division shows as chief political correspondent (and advise parent GE on relevant political matters)? Finally, who is the executive that can serve as effective advocate for political news when dealing with New York.

No doubt, Tim Russert was that most rare of once in a generation broadcasters but the show must go on. Steve Capus and Jeff Zucker have a big, complicated hiring and potential major reorganization on their hands. They'll need to do a job equal to that once done by Michael Gartner in hiring Tim (likely a mission impossible).

Waiting until you need to find someone is never the best strategy. The odds are against you especially when timing is no longer on your side. Succession planning deserves to be a priority on the agenda of every manager before need presents. It's consistently the one must-do that managers just don't do. The unexpected happens and it happens to the best of managers. The failure to develop a solid succession plan twice worked against CBS in recent years. Howard Stern and Dan Rather.

Five suggestions.

1. Champion human resources development. Every person on your team deserves the opportunity to realize their full potential. Develop the people who develop your profits. Exhibit A: Meet The Press EP Betsy Fischer started as an intern on the show seventeen years ago.

2. Make it a requirement. To be eligible for promotion people must have trained and/or identified (and be in contact with) one or more qualified replacements.

3. Formalize succession planning. Make it part of the annual business planning process. Establish timed objectives with delayed incentives for effective implementation (i.e., Identify candidates by dates certain, pay bonuses when actually faced with a need that the plan resolves).

4. Adopt the practice of continuous recruitment. No matter how strong the short list developed continue to network and search for qualified candidates, especially high potential candidates.

5. Keep score. At the end of every week ask yourself "If the airplane went down and [Dave Martin] didn't come back from vacation do we have at least two good candidates ready, willing and legally available to talk with us about [Dave's] job? Whom is [Dave] now training to take his place?" Keep a scorecard listing all your players, grade yourself. How ready are you this week? No, really, this week, right now, how ready are you?

Plan now for the show to go on later. Finding people is made easy when you're looking for them before you need them. Pay no attention to those who would have you (and their bosses) believe "There's no one out there," they're out there and you're paid to find, develop, retain and someday replace them. As the great Paul Drew taught "Planning affords the best ROI."

[Related: Timesmen Bill Carter and Jacques Steinberg write With Tim Russert's Death, NBC Must Replace a Man of Many Roles here and David Carr writes The Media Equation - In Mourning for a Man and his Era, here. WaPo's Eugene Robinson writes The Outsider's Insider here. The story all insiders are talking about - news of Tim's death broke not on NBC but on Wikipedia - BW's Jon Fine w/more here.]

Word to the wise: Don't write another liner, produce another promo or create another ad until you read this PDF. Thank me later.

The responsive chord: Tony Schwartz passes. [Obit, NYT]

Local, local, local: outside.in bows Radar (in preview here)

Grapes: Favorable exchange rates (1 USD = 3.04 ARS) continue to make the wines of Argentina exceptionally good values. Budini, Malbec 2006 (Mendoza). A good red under $10, drinks like a $25 wine.

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.

Photo: sunsmoke by Karmalize. Very cool. Thank you very much!

"Goodwill is the one and only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy." Marshall Field

"As soon as a true thought has entered our mind, it gives light which makes us see a crowd of other objects which we have never perceived before." Francois de Chateaubriand

"If the world is cold, make it your business to build fires." Horace Traubel

CBS, again most watched. CBS is saying when the numbers are in they will show them #1 in prime for the fifth-straight year. NBC finishes fourth for the fourth-straight year. In the 18-49 demo Fox leads 5.23 mil, CBS 4.85 mil, ABC 4.55 mil and NBC 4.05 mil. Michael Janofsky has more at Bloomberg here.

CNN to deliver more local. CNN buys a minority share of Minneapolis based Internet Broadcasting giving it access to the local news content of some 70 stations. Emily Steel has the story for WSJ here. Cory Bergman has a good overview with comments at LostRemote here. The end game is local, that's the ultimate destination of online wired and wireless. My thought is the dead tree guys are still leading online local. TV is playing catch up while radio is not yet in the game. Still seems a perfect opportunity for broadcast to lead development of local online.

Now that CNN Pipeline is free they should ring up Dave Winer and learn about his Checkbox News concept. Rather than mess around with their main page, an idea certain to rattle the powers that be, CNN would benefit from putting Dave's idea into play as a part of the new and free Pipeline. The notion that someone at CNN will decide what "local" stories are linked "on merit" preserves an obsolete editorial control. Give me, the reader, control. For example, let's say Minneapolis - St Paul is one of the 70 IB local CNN affiliates. Give me the option of electing "local" Twin Cities stories. Let me also decide the topics of interest (e.g., Twin Cities entertainment news or Twins baseball).

Please stop telling me what the top stories are and please start giving me what I want.

To have access to 70 streams of local content without making 100% of that content available and easy to get would be missing a major opportunity. Dave's Checkbox News concept might be a solid solution that takes advantage of Pipeline's already cool technology and creates real value for the reader. While you're at it, where's my "local" widget?

Congrats & cheers: Bob Shannon on his excellent writing about the great Fred Winston. Bob's writing, All Them Big Dogs, is available on AllAccess.com (free sub req). Dave Sifry and team on the latest refresh of Technorati. Six months in the making, read all about it here. Pandora + Sprint = personalized radio on your phone, very smart. Details here. The gang at Feedburner on getting a cool 100 million from Google, Michael Arrington has the details with comments here. As was said here yesterday, big dogs eat first and they eat till they're full.

Sir Paul vid debuts on YouTube: Smart. Back story via ET here. Catch the vid Dance Tonight @ 5pm eastern today.

Thank you very much: Ron Fell, the best of men, checks in with photos to share. He's just back to the states after a trip to Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore. Watch this space for Ron's pics, coming soon. Thanks Ron! Mark Levy, the RAB's cool young turk of training, for his kind words about A Great General Manager. Thanks Mark!

Mileage may vary: Attempted to purchase The History of Rock and Roll CDs yesterday. Submitted all the info. Directed to a page saying I would be getting a confirming email. No confirming email as of this morning. No charge to my card yet. Hate it when the cart fails to work as advertised. Hey Bill, you're losing $$$. Will try it again. Should you be interested in getting your very own copy of this uber-cool commemorative audio, here's the place.

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.

"Manage by setting objectives and organizing, motivating, communicating with, measuring, and developing people, including yourself." Peter Drucker

Time to vote for the 2007 bloggies! Voting closes 10pm est this Friday. Congrats to all finalists. A really tight competition this year. Here's just a taste, three of the thirty categories...

Best weblog about music: Pitchfork, Stereogum, You Ain't No Picasso, Yank Blog, 3Hive

Best entertainment weblog: Defamer, Blogging Project Runway, Pink Is the New Blog, PerezHilton, Go Fug Yourself

Weblog of the year: Go Fug Yourself, PostSecret, Gizmodo, Dooce, Boing Boing, Lifehacker

Check out all of the finalists and vote, early and often, here.

The hookup: XM hangin with Mr Softy. As suggested, encouraged for some years now, the first tribe of wireless (and those FM with pictures guys) need a Redmond strategy. XM has one. Vista ships with XM on board. The story here. (p.s. it's not too late, the ultimate destination is local, perhaps an ad hoc group should make the trip and spend some time with Mr Groove himself, Ozzie. This is the part where you get extra points for those live and local investments). Perspective: Ray looking back and looking forward in Dec 2005 here

Lovin that Tempranillo: Do yourself a favor and please pick up some of this good Spanish grape. The Vina Sardasol 2005 (Navarra - 100% Tempranillo) is available for under $10; highly recommended. As close to stealing as one should ever get.

Lovin that chili: Fred Winston updates his classic chili recipe. Check it out here.

Not appreciated: The folks at WBBM Channel 2, Chicago, decided to put up a little blue-and-orange countdown clock on the screen to count down the days, hours and minutes until the Bears play in the big game. "It wasn't appreciated by people watching the Hallmark movie of the week" said Carol Fowler, ND at the CBS O&O. Pulled outta prime. Phil Rosenthal has the story in the Trib here. Meanwhile Chicago radio star Steve Dahl blogs the bowl here as only he can. Bravo Steve, well done!

Congrats & Cheers: Arbitron gets MRC seal of approval, onward! Reggie Rouse named VP Urban for CBS Radio.

The readers will see you now: Gary Kamiya writing in Salon, The readers strike back...

"There's an old New Yorker cartoon in which a Führer-like figure, standing onstage in front of a huge "Triumph of the Will" crowd, says, "I think I may say, without fear of contradiction..." That pretty much sums up the elite media's relation with its audience before the Internet. We all need to be contradicted when we're wrong -- and we're all wrong a lot. The Führer is dead -- long live the people!

And yet, it's too easy simply to celebrate the downfall of the elite media and glory in the toppling of the gatekeepers. Yes, they -- we -- could and can be smug and arrogant. Yes, we should be summoned to account when we screw up. And yes, the online revolution has made it easier to do that. But to be part of an elite doesn't mean you're divinely anointed. It simply means you have some aptitude for what you do and have spent years learning to do it, and so you're probably better at it than most people. Not smarter, not a better human being -- just better at your craft. This is true of football players, surgeons, chefs and auto mechanics -- why shouldn't it be true of journalists as well? Forget the word "elite": In our laudable all-American haste to trash bogus royalty, let's not forget there's a completely different category. It's called professionalism."

"But the pell-mell rush of information flooding across a million screens has made it too easy for readers to forget that the info-byte they just swallowed was a handcrafted object.

Pro athletes have a saying: "Respect the game." It may be too much to expect the mouse-wielding masses to embrace that credo. But a little respect would go a long way to restoring the heft of the written word, its shape and dignity. And in an age of weightless information, that would be good for readers and writers alike."

Read the entire piece here. Kudos Gary! Well reasoned, well written. Thanks to Romenesko for the tip. I certainly respect and appreciate Gary's thoughts on unfiltered forums. Comments here are moderated not to avoid conversation including alternative povs but to avoid lawyers. Trade forums are populated, in the majority, with posts by noms de plume. While I understand most firms prohibit open participation by employees the result is too often the freak show of rants and drive by bashings keystroked by persons unknown. The ability to hide behind one (or more) identities seems to bring out a kind of bad behavior clearly absent when one is required to properly sign the writing. 21st century graffiti, the kilroys are here, online, social grace and decency be damned. Still, the conversation goes on, good thoughtful comments are being heard above the noise made by the fools, idiots and the occasional playful, if snarky, wit of pranksters.

The right pov from the Wright guy: B&C writer John Eggerton tells us...

"NBC Universal Chairman Bob Wright tells B&C that this is the last business cycle where an old-line media company can afford not to have at least 20%-30% of its business in digital. But he also says the digital component is not yet sufficient to boost the bottom line of companies with only "average" performance in traditional businesses."

Read the entire article here. Thanks to LR ace Steve Safran for the tip.