"A Great Program Director understands that radio is a ratings driven business and delivers winning numbers to the sales department." A Great Program Director

The PD job description can be reduced to six words: deliver numbers to the sales department. When all is said and done the PD either delivers the numbers or they don't. If they don't deliver they need to move on. Too often time is wasted in discussions that are nothing more than the rationalization of failure, what amounts to graduate level "dog ate my homework." Management is responsible for producing results not excuses. The PD that fails to deliver the numbers puts the entire enterprise in harms way. The GM that accepts ratings failure puts the future of the entire enterprise in jeopardy and limits the creation of wealth for the dictum of teaching holds true: "what we allow, we encourage." Go for greatness, nothing less.

The sail to Sydney: Ron Fell updates his KGO Radio blog here and here. Thanks for the mention Ron.

Photo: hereiskaty

Good shot, thank you.







"Everyone is interested in two businesses. Their own business and show business." David Mamet

The great genius Mamet was on Charley Rose last night. A shame Charley was fighting a cold and not into the interview. Mamet's new book is out. Bambi vs Godzilla. Amazon info here. The Mamet quote, while certainly true, reminds me of something Buzz Bennett was fond of saying, equally true, to wit: "Everyone has the right to program."

The great Fred Winston is doing the John Landecker show this afternoon. While John is away Fred will play. Should be fun, don't miss it if you can. 3-7pm today. Check out the stream here. In the meantime Fred blogs about donuts here.

The sail to Sydney - Day Nine: Ron Fell checks in from the Pacific aboard the Queen Mary 2 here. 2,600 passengers, 1,300 crew; we learn the largest suite is 2,250 square feet, the smallest cabin (known as "Superman's changing booth") is 87 square feet. Good stuff Ron!

Dante Chinni: "...if your concern is being trapped by the worldview of the MSM editors, how is the worldview of the crowd on one website really better?" Dante writes about social-networking and Digg via CSM here.

400 year death spiral continues - video edition: dead tree guys $81 mil, FM with pictures guys $32 mil. That's how Borrell Associates closed the book on 2006 local video advertising. The local print folks beat the local TV folks. Borrell suggests video advertising will be one-third of all local online ad dollars by 2012 (second behind paid search). More from Borrell here. (Thanks to Cory at LR for the tip)

Find music you never knew you liked: Listening to The Hype Machine today. Kudos to Anthony Volodkin! (My thanks to Michael Hirschorn for the tip)

Jimmy Guterman: "...this year’s Grammy Awards show—frequently hyped as a showcase for new performers—kicked off with the reunited Police playing 'Roxanne,' a song they first recorded when Jimmy Carter was president. That’s before the core pop-music audience was even born." Read Jimmy's observations on the Grammy Awards, music sales and the music biz via paidContent 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."

Photo: Thomas Hawk
Falling in Love

Outstanding shot, thanks

"Today is not yesterday. We ourselves change. How can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed, is painful, yet ever needful, and if memory has its force and worth, so also has hope." Carlyle

Word is Chad and Ryan Steelberg, the founders of dMarc, have left Google. Good luck guys. The downtown buzz...is Judy Barry leaving WSJ?

Congrats & Cheers: David Kennedy joins Interep as CEO.

Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy: The Greatest Generation Gap Since Rock and Roll. Emily Nussbaum offers up an interesting read. She would have us believe "The future belongs to the uninhibited" and..."In essence, every young person in America has become, in the literal sense, a public figure. And so they have adopted the skills that celebrities learn in order not to go crazy: enjoying the attention instead of fighting it—and doing their own publicity before somebody does it for them." Bravo Emily! The piece rocks. Read her New York Magazine article here. (Thanks to Rex for the tip)

The sail to Sydney: Ron Fell checks in from the Pacific on board the Queen Mary 2, here and here. (Closed circuit to Ron: please ask your mathematician pal about the "P versus NP" problem, his take on Stephen Cook and Leonid Levin. And what of the Hodge Conjecture? My sense is these qualify as math porn.)

Photo: terrace closed for winter
by IHP

Love that shot, thank you!

Ron Fell's Queen Mary 2 adventure, the sail to Sydney, continues, read his "Day Two" post here.

Never did I believe that Ron would fail to exchange his adult beverages for Coca Cola product; No contest - Ron is blessed with the social skills of a world-class diplomat - the ocean liner's staff never had a chance.

Timing issue: "...there's no question that a Fox Business Channel is coming" That's the word from Georg Szalai and Paul J. Gough writing in The Hollywood Reporter. Best guess is a Q4 debut. The story via Reuters here. (Thanks to Romenesko for the tip)

A Great Program Director: Not a week goes by without someone contacting me about the Great PD monograph. Usually folks are wanting a copy to replace an older or misplaced one. Sometimes they have seen a copy and want one of their own. My friend, the media research maven, Roger Wimmer has the text posted at his site here. I have decided to do two new printings of the monograph. One 8.5 x 11 similar to the ones printed earlier and another poster size printing, perhaps numbered, framed and signed with a dedication. My thought is the poster size prints would be available for sale with proceeds benefiting a good cause or two. Should you want a free 8.5 x 11 print just use the contact me feature in the left column of this page and provide me with your mailing address. Printing and mailing sometime in March. (My thanks to the CBS manager who suggested a new printing).