"There is no such thing as a good script, only a good film, and I'm conscious that my scripts often read better than they play." Alan Bennett

"The cinema is not a craft. It is an art. It does not mean team work. One is always alone; on the set as before the blank page." Jean-Luc Godard

"We are all actors now...Everyone in America now explains a moment in their lives by saying, 'It was like a scene out of...'" Peggy Noonan

Today's image: Thinker by Ron Fell. Thank you so much Ron!

With the books rolling out there is lots to think about. Kudos to Rick Martini and his Fresh 102.7 FM team on a fine showing. Back in the threes (and #8 25-54A, #7 25-54W) where those 7th Avenue guys belong. Joel Hollander greenlighted Fresh but will not be remembered for it. Cheers to WSKQ #1 25-54. Congrats to Z100 #2 12+ repeating that 4.6 Winter posting and to K-Rock #14 to #5 25-54 men. WAXQ #2 25-54 men.

Buzz: Hearst to acquire UGO.com for over $100 Mil. UGO.com is a collection of sites targeting young men.

He's back: Dave Winer offers up Why Feedburner is trouble, day 2. You decide.

Dems on CNN: For all the fuss about the game-changing YouTube questions, the answers were just more of the same. These are not debates but candidate press conferences. Too short on substance. Not enough interaction between candidates. C+ to MC Anderson.

Back to the future: WCKG, Chicago from Free FM back to the original Reid Reker branding The Package. Congrats to Steve Dahl, the evangelist of this move. (Stever's take on Tammy Faye here.)

Bonus: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy - Clay Shirky. Thanks to Hugh for the tip.

"This talk is in three parts. The best explanation I have found for the kinds of things that happen when groups of humans interact is psychological research that predates the Internet, so the first part is going to be about W.R. Bion's research, which I will talk about in a moment, research that I believe explains how and why a group is its own worst enemy.

The second part is: Why now? What's going on now that makes this worth thinking about? I think we're seeing a revolution in social software in the current environment that's really interesting.

And third, I want to identify some things, about half a dozen things, in fact, that I think are core to any software that supports larger, long-lived groups." The entire writing here.

Let us now praise editors: An excellent writing by Gary Kamiya via Salon. My thanks to programming ace Tom Teuber for the tip...

"The truth is, you have to learn how to be edited just as much as you have to learn how to edit. And learning how to be edited teaches you a lot about writing, about distance and objectivity and humility, and ultimately about yourself...The art of editing is running against the cultural tide. We are in an age of volume; editing is about refinement. It's about getting deeper into a piece, its ideas, its structure, its language. It's a handmade art, a craft. You don't learn it overnight. Editing aims at making a piece more like a Stradivarius and less like a microchip. And as the media universe becomes larger and more filled with microchips, we need the violin makers." Read the entire writing with letters (comments) here.

The Greatest Hits of The '60s, '70s ... And '80s? Sean Ross writes about WCBS-FM, the oldies format and that pesky question of eras here. Bravo Sean, well done! Cohort replacement is a beautiful thing.

Congrats & cheers: Jay Gould and Aaron Cohn on their now out of beta WikiYou. Farday Media on today's launch of their very cool new sidebar Particls.

"Every valuable creative idea (concepts and perceptions, not artistic expression) must always be logical in hindsight. If it was not, we would never recognize the value of that idea. It could only seem a 'crazy idea'. We might catch up with it in twenty years time - or never, for it might truly be a crazy idea." Edward de Bono

"Life does not stand still. Where there is no progress there is disintegration. Today a thousand doors of enterprise are open to you, inviting you to useful work. To live at this time is an inestimable privilege, and a sacred obligation devolves upon you to make right use of your opportunities. Today is the day in which to attempt and achieve something worth while." Grenville Kleiser

"Men and women love inertia. And to my way of thinking, inertia is the silent killer of most businesses and, in some cases, entire industries as well. Inertia in business, both up and down the chain of decision making, is no different than inertia in other aspects of one's life; it has to do with protecting one's identity, immediate self interest and inter-personal relationships." Tom Asacker

The efficacy of out-thinking the competition to win is rarely, if ever, considered. First, thinking is hard work. As George Bernard Shaw famously said "Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week." It is tempting to substitute analysis for thinking and it is wrong. Edward de Bono writes...

"We have always depended on analysis not only to solve problems but also for our source of new ideas. Most people in education, science, business and economics still believe that the analysis of data will give us all the new ideas that we need. Unfortunately, this is not so. The mind can see only what it is prepared to see. That is why after a breakthrough in science we look back and find that all the needed evidence was available a long time before but could be seen only through the old idea (Kuhn's paradigm shift). There is a desperate need for the sort of 'idea work' or conceptual effort that Einstein provided in his field and Keynes in his. We know this is important, but we are content to let it happen by chance or genius because our traditions of thinking hold that analysis is enough...The brain has to use existing patterns and catchments. When we believe that we are analysing (sic) data we are really only trying out our stock of existing ideas to see which one might fit. It is true that if our stock of possible ideas is rich then our analysis will be adequate. But the analysis of data will not by itself produce new ideas." (I Am Right, You Are Wrong)

Tom Asacker is correct when he says inertia is a silent killer. My suggestion is inertia and analysis are a very dangerous combination. They lead us to see reality not as it is but as it was or as we wish it to be. Again Edward de Bono...

"Perhaps the greatest dangers are those of arrogance, complacency and the ability to defend that arrogance and complacency. An acknowledgement (sic) of inadequacy is a prelude to change. A defence (sic) of arrogance is a denial of any need to change...The arrogance of logic means that if we have a logically impeccable argument then we must be right" (ibidem)

Congrats & cheers: Michael Walsh new Interep prexy and COO.

Buzz: Facebook to Mr Softy for $6 billion? John Battelle's take on why Mark and his team (after passing on Yahoo's $1 billion) ain't sellers, here. The Scobleizer pov here w/comments. Kudos to John and Robert.

Report card - video: Nielsen-Netratings June, uvs. YouTube 51 mil, Google Video 18 mil, AOL 16 mil, Yahoo 15 mil.



First day at school - CBS-FM: My friend Rick Sklar said it best about new stations "Listen in four weeks." While it is unfair to judge any format initiative on the first day there are almost as many opinions on the CBS-FM debut as there are about which is the best slice in the city, which is the true or best Original Ray's or whether one really need go to Brooklyn for the finest burned meat. Allan Sniffen has devoted a board to the flip here. The Sean Ross First Listen is now on offer here. Dan Kelley gives his pov including some tunes he would have included out on the first day here. The Daily News writer David Hinckley on the change and the first day.

Failing to take Sklar's wise counsel we punched up the stream and played it in the office all afternoon and into the evening. The tech errors were to be expected but early on someone put audition audio of the phone bus on the stream and we were able to listen to callers being coached on their shout outs. The duration of this error was such that one wonders if no one was monitoring the stream or those that were thought someone else was already on it. The stream returned with Jack. A cache clear and relaunching the player brought back the main channel stream.

Between phone calls and meetings I was able to get a good sense of the first hours and they were not bad. The production, advertised as some of "the best work from across the company" was disappointingly average. It was good to hear Ziggie back doing the vo. The drops with city celebs including Senator Clinton are a good idea and deserve better staging (there's a solid branding element in there). The music log was not as strong as it needed to be on the first day. My thought being the station should have played more to the core and featured the best testing tunes not now being heard on other stations. Era, tempo and construction (sound) balance needed work, the log could have been cooked much better. The station's music was different but not different enough as played. The talent sounded up and good. The web page and player were, again, ok. Top of the page banner art icons need work. Aretha and Bruce - ok. Doobies - maybe. Rick James - no. Paul and John without Ringo and George?. Missed opportunity. Kudos for having something up and bonus points for putting up the videos, a nice touch. Not playing Hit the road Jack? A significant missed opportunity, shame. Playing Jack for a chump in his last hours - "who is Bob Shannon?" - priceless.

Overall, I give the first day an A for concept and a C+ for execution. It is certain to get better each day. Congrats and cheers to all involved. I'll wait four weeks before listening again.

Bonus: A collection of quotations on creativity, lateral thinking and problem solving here.

Photo: day dream by rabbilydia. Very cool image. Thanks!

"The successful producer of an article sells it for more than it cost him to make, and that's his profit. But the customer buys it only because it is worth more to him than he pays for it, and that's his profit. No one can long make a profit producing anything unless the customer makes a profit using it." Samuel B. Pettengill

"Great opportunities come to all, but many do not know they have met them. The only preparation to take advantage of them is single fidelity to watch what each day brings." Albert Dunning

"The life each of us lives is the life within the limits of our own thinking. To have life more abundant, we must think in the limitless terms of abundance." Thomas Dreier

Inertia: Tom Asacker makes a cogent argument reduced to one word. During our discussion at the airport the other evening Tom offered this insight - the solutions to the biggest challenges facing broadcasters are being suppressed by the considerable powers of inertia. Bravo Tom! He's right on the mark. It's the conventional wisdom, the accepted best practice, the things we do because we have always done them, these represent too many of our self-imposed limitations. The press of daily affairs too often pushes us into performance by rote. The danger is to continue doing something long after its best used by date. To perpetuate habit for no good reason. We must dare to question this industry genetic blindness. Game-changing innovation requires that we achieve what amounts to an escape velocity, that certain sustained burst of well focused new activity needed to break free of bad habit and begin to set good, effective habit. If you have not spent some time on Tom's blog you should. Check out his writing: a clear eye. Highly recommended.

Congrats & cheers: Gwen Piening, Linda Compton, Christine Merritt, Dennis Lyle, Gary White and colleagues on their achievements in bringing to life the Midstates Broadcast Management Futures Summit. Dan Mason and his WCBS-FM team, Jennifer Donohue, Brian Thomas, and staff on doing the right thing and in the process making history. Welcome back! Check out the special launch day audio and listen live here.

The obvious: Tomorrow is Friday the 13th