"I have to be wrong a certain number of times in order to be right a certain number of times. However, in order to be either, I must first make a decision." Frank N. Giampietro
"You have not done enough, you have never done enough, so long as it is still possible that you have something to contribute." Dag Hammarskjold
"A trifle is often pregnant with high importance; the prudent man neglects no circumstance." Sophocles
Today's image: untitled by Hanna L. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.
Doing the homework for an upcoming talk and noticed more than one canard needing attention. Allow me to take this opportunity to disabuse you of three patently false notions. With apologies to Adam and Jamie let's get on to some myth busting...
1. The youth no longer listens to radio (alternatively, youth listening is in serious and irreversible decline).
Busted. Not supported by the facts. One example. Radio programming ace Brian Kelly has gained reach among Milwaukee youth improving his 12-17 cume persons rating book after book. The most recent numbers, Fall 2008, show Brian's 103.7 KISS FM posting an increase in teen cume rating of over 36% compared to the earlier Spring numbers. Further, Brian's team continued to deliver exceptional adult numbers. #1 Adults 18-34, Adults 18-49, Women 18-34, Women 18-49 and Women 25-54. This is only part of the story. 103.7 KISS FM captured the highest share of Women 18-34 of any station in the nation delivering an incredible 25.6 share. Those Gen X and Gen Y women are obviously tuned in and happy. But it's the combined performance of 103.7 KISS FM and sister station 99.1 WMYX that is truly amazing. Brian Kelly has built much more than two successful radio stations, he's built and leads a team and they're on a mission to create killer radio from scratch every single day. Clearly, it's working. Word to the wise: take notes.
2. College students have no interest in or involvement with creating radio.
Busted. Facts counter the argument. Exhibit A: WSUM FM, the student radio station at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Hundreds of students are seriously engaged and involved in playing radio. In fact, there's a waiting list to participate. Best of all, the station sounds great. Don't take my word for it, listen in, they're streaming, here.
3. CBS is making a major strategic error in LA. The abandonment of talk on FM and the debut of a new Top 40 music format.
Since I was not invited to be a party to the discussions concerning the business objectives of CBS Radio in LA please permit me to speculate. Having given this matter considerable thought, Dan Mason and his team have come to believe that they have a better than even chance to win, to be in a better economic position because of the changes.
But wait, there's more. Some experts are suggesting talk is the single best long-term strategy for winning on FM and some LA market watchers are claiming that KISS FM is practically invincible. In their view CBS is walking away from the future of FM and taking on a fool's errand. Let's take these down in separate responses.
Busted. While the "all music formats on radio are dead" meme is said by advocates to be stuff born of pure critical thinking, it ain't necessarily so. Please see #1 above. Music radio is very much alive and well and profitable. The gang that's pushing to get music off of FM stations, those calling spoken word programming the only true salvation securing radio's future are promoting a thesis that's too clever by half. Among pubcasters this flawed notion is taking on the authority of a pragmatic sanction (i.e., industry consultants and thought leaders supported by the research demanded we do it). Music isn't what's getting radio into trouble or putting it in harm's way. My sense remains that responsibility is one of leadership and a massive failure of imagination.
Busted. Incumbency is irrelevant. One need only recall the events of 1986. KISS enjoyed a 10 share and unprecedented success. Emmis launched Power 106 becoming the new market leader in less than one year. The sheer idiocy here is calling the new CBS music format a loser or a failed strategy when it has not yet been heard (as of this writing). Let's agree to follow the counsel of my longtime friend Rick Sklar and give the CBS gang the benefit of being on the air for a month before beginning to listen critically. Let's also agree to let the audience and advertisers weigh in before making any declaration.
Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend. See you next week in a brand new show.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Thursday, July 24, 2008
"None are more liable to mistakes than those who act only on second thoughts." Luc de Vauvenargues
"Problems always appear big when incompetent men are working on them." William Feather
"Patience is bitter, but its fruits are sweet." Jean Jacques Rousseau
Today's image: Dreamy World by dhahi alsaeedi. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
The Slow Growth of HD Radio. The assiduous Tom Webster of Edison Media Research reviews the bidding and makes a suggestion...
"HD has to start with great, new digital brands first, with distribution over HD receivers AND online, and at least some of these have to be big, high profile national shows. Radio's goal should be compelling digital brands for the future, and in that context HD radio is just one means of distribution...The solution is not a programming issue but an HR strategy issue."
Bravos to Tom. He's right, it's not either/or, rather it's an issue of AND. Read Tom's entire post here. Thanks, Tom. Let's keep the conversation moving forward.
Let me suggest we run with Tom's concept of "big, high profile national shows" AND continue local innovation (e.g., The gifted programmer Mark Pennington and his award winning offering - RIFF2)
The national creative is getting better. My thought is it still lacks the power of localization. It needs the local tag, that specific and very local "door buster" to drive retail. It's what Rob Walker calls "the Desire Code...(his) name for the complex factors, rational and otherwise, that spark us to make particular purchase decisions." [via]. It's what Douglas Atkin refers to saying "The time has arrived for brands to take their place among others as new iterations of community in contemporary society." [via]. The first tribe of wireless has the ability to create communities from scratch practically overnight. Nothing subtle about this, what's needed now is full on, in your face, retail selling, take the gloves off stuff engaging the Reptilian brain. Let's agree to stop playing around and commit every industry resource to a full blown initiative of Manhattan Project or Moon shot scale. Let's agree to put every advantage available into play and create our own future. It's analog, it's digital, it's online, it's wireless in every configuration. Every platform matters.
Doc Searls: The new business of free radio. Doc understands the big picture as few do. Have to disagree with his notion of towers being less useful in the future. As it pertains to analog, agreed but HD Radio offers the potential of a unique depth and richness of practical apps. Wireless wins.
Stay tuned: I'm willing to wager that branding wizard Kelly O'Keefe and team have something special up their Radio 2020 sleeve.
Now, on the N=1 Tech desk: The uber-cool tech maven Dave Winer. Thanks to a wee bit of script this blog now features a preview of Dave Winer's TechJunk, Hot Product News for Tech Innovators. Check it out, left column. Use the link and put it in your reader. Thanks, Dave!
Summary judgment: Song of the Summer of 08 - I Kissed a Girl, Katy Perry [YouTube]. After conferring with radio programming aces Brian Kelly and Mark Edwards, advantaged, as well, by the considered opinion of pop music aficionado Austin Johnson, it seems fair to pronounce Katy the winner.
NPR API, the back story: Steve Gillmor delivers the goods with NPR's Dennis Haarsager, Zach Brand and Daniel Jacobson via The Gillmor Gang here. Kudos to Steve for a good show. Bravos to Dennis for his refreshing and exceptional leadership. Highly recommended (the show and Dennis' leadership)
Run that by me one more time: WGCI is a top ten no show in the 12 to death pre-currency Chicago PPM data. Here's the 12+ ranker. 1. WGN 2. WDRV 3. WBBM-AM 4. WTMX 5. WUSN 6. WLS-FM 7. WVAZ 8. WLS-AM 9. WLIT 10t. WLEY, WOJO. 25-54 pers, WDRV #1, WTMX #2. The headline news for me was reach. 12+ cume - WDRV #1. WLIT #2. WTMX #3.
Congrats & cheers: Early happy birthday wishes to the one year old My Damn Channel (7/31). Web 2.0 ace Rob Barnett and his gang of co-conspirators are writing their own sheet music. It sounds, and looks, mighty cool. Facebook signs search and advertising deal with Microsoft (MySpace has a somewhat similar deal with Google).
Closed circuit to Google: I'm lovin my iGoogle but what's up with the slow loading of GMail? Seems to be getting even slower, more often than not requiring a reload prompt..."This is taking longer than usual. Try reloading the page." Is it a bug that is part of the iGoogle "experiment"? Have anything to do w/Firefox 3?
It's a social thing: Best line of last week, Jason Calacanis..."FriendFeed drinks Twitter's milkshake." My thought is last summer Twitter was white hot, this summer it's FriendFeed that's clearly on. Twitter fail?
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
"Though constantly looking at people, one rarely forms new impressions of them, impressions implying the registration of novelty rather than the confirmation of prejudice. At only a few stages do we actively sketch a picture of someone - on first meeting, after a long absence, in the course of a furious row, after an illness, something to break the laziness of photographic habit." Alain de Botton
"One can look at seeing...one can't hear hearing." Marcel Duchamp
"We build up whole culture patterns based on past 'facts' which are extremely selective. When a new fact comes in that does not fit the pattern we don't throw out the pattern. We throw out the fact." Robert Pirsig
Today's image: 2 of Spades by jaylara. Excellent. Thank you for sharing.
Marin Alsop the gifted music director of the Baltimore Symphony told Charlie Rose last night she wants her legacy to be "...a culture of joy about making music."
She also suggested the same orchestra, playing the same maps, in the same hall led by five different conductors would produce five perceptibly different performances.
She's right.
In my experience the same performers, working in (basically) the same format, at the same station led by different show runners, EPs or program directors produce perceptibly different performances. Moreover, I have witnessed or been involved many times when stations with the same staff, same format go from worst to first in the ratings by changing leadership.
The six word job description of a leader is get the best out of others.
Marin says that one needs to "enable them" and that means one must be sincere, authentic, committed. She told Charlie believing in people was key.
She's right. Check out the video.
Nobody likes it but the listeners: The vogue subject matter some are writing, opining about and beating to death is the false notion, the canard, that the youth are no longer listening to radio.
Total nonsense.
Exhibit A: Brian Kelly's 103.7 KISS FM.
Here is the station's five book cume rating trend, 12-17 persons...
49.1, 49.7, 50.4, 50.0, 55.4
55 out of every 100 teens in Milwaukee tuned in to one station, Brian's radio station, at least once a week this past fall.
That's up from 49 in the fall of 06.
Up.
But wait, there's more. 103.7 KISS FM posted a 35.5 cume rating with 18-34 persons. A full third of all Milwaukee 18-34s said they listened to one station, KISS, during the week. Congrats and cheers to Brian Kelly and his amazing staff on another killer book.
Closed circuit to Radio CEOs - Part one (of I don't know how many in a series)...
That's one of the things missing in most outfits today.
Catch your station people doing something right.
No matter how bad things are and, I know, things are not good this January, someone at some station in your group is hitting the cover off the ball. Are David Field and Weezie Kramer showing Brian Kelly the love? I'll bet you that's one of the biggest reasons why he is still getting his mail in Milwaukee and not in Chicago, LA or New York.
It's about leadership. It's about the Radio CEO understanding their legacy to be "a culture of joy about making great radio." Some words are very powerful, thank you very much and I'm proud of you have their own weather systems. Catch people doing something right. Show them that you care. "Action today!" as Churchill famously said.
Game on.
Set the wayback machine for November, 1958, Louisville, Kentucky...
RADIOPULSE
4:00-5:00 PM, Monday - Friday
Station Men - Women - Teen - Children - Total - AQH Rating
WAKY 28 51 49 5 133 9.9
WINN 39 77 13 5 134 4.0
WHAS 35 89 6 7 137 2.4
WKLO 37 78 16 7 138 3.4
WAVE 37 80 8 7 132 2.6
WLOU 37 75 13 6 131 0.8
The guy holding down afternoons on WINN was Johnny Martin, my dad. Not bad for a PD with an airshift.
During my talk last week to the sales team at a client TV station, the one line that generated an email from almost all attending. Thank you very much.
Getting and staying focused on top line delivers one of the very best ROIs. When you've got top line working the bottom line takes care of itself. Hint: Ensure your sellers aren't doing their best selling in the building.
Bonus: Seth has written something you need to read. Only two years left...
"So stop thinking about how crazy the times are, and start thinking about what the crazy times demand. There has never been a worse time for business as usual. Business as usual is sure to fail, sure to disappoint, sure to numb our dreams. That's why there has never been a better time for the new. Your competitors are too afraid to spend money on new productivity tools. Your bankers have no idea where they can safely invest. Your potential employees are desperately looking for something exciting, something they feel passionate about, something they can genuinely engage in and engage with.
You get to make a choice. You can remake that choice every day, in fact. It's never too late to choose optimism, to choose action, to choose excellence. The best thing is that it only takes a moment -- just one second -- to decide."
Thanks, Seth. Bravos! Wonderful! Read the entire post here.
Bonus 2: Radio programming ace Michael Fischer tips me to another Seth post, Workaholics...
"A workaholic lives on fear. It's fear that drives him to show up all the time. The best defense, apparently, is a good attendance record.
A new class of jobs (and workers) is creating a different sort of worker, though. This is the person who works out of passion and curiosity, not fear."
Read Seth's post here. Thanks, Michael! FUD is deadly; decide to be optimistic and go for greatness! Make something happen. Patton said it, quoting Bismarck (quoting Napoleon) "L'Audace, toujours l'audace" Audacity, always audacity.
Congrats & cheers: Robert Scoble joins Mansueto Digital to launch FastCompany.TV - smart, very smart. Release here.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
"My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging." Hank Aaron
"You can't win until you learn how to lose." Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
"When you lose, you're more motivated. When you win, you fail to see your mistakes and probably no one can tell you anything." Venus Williams
Today's image: Late Fall Rose by Fred Winston. Great shot. Thanks for sharing.
Great Program Directors deliver numbers to the sales department: Kudos to programming ace Brian Kelly and his team on another exceptional performance. 103.7 KISS FM posted #1 Teens, #1 18-34 Women, #1 18-34 Men, and #1 18-34 Persons. The station delivered a 50.0 cume rating with Teens and a 40.5 cume rating with 18-34 Persons (so much for the continuing myth that the youth market ain't listening to any audio that's wireless). Moreover, Brian's two stations KISS and 99.1 WMYX were both in the top five 25-54 Women. CHR and Hot AC done right are winners, Brian and his team understand how to do just that (as too few others do). Brian Kelly delivers, again, he's the goods.
The unlimited (almost) bandwidth of youth is the answer: Doc writes about Facebook and time spent. My sense is this is a cohort issue. Doc goes on to suggest bringing down the wall. I agree. Further, as has been written here before, they need to get into the export business and out of the import business (as only access).
"The big challenge for Facebook, as it has been for AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and everybody else who ever ran a walled garden, is to make their “platform” something that sits on the Net and the Web, not something that substitutes for it. Facebook’s mail, for example, is a substitute. If there’s a way I could get Facebook mail with my IMAP or POP client, I’d rather do that. (Can you, by the way? I doubt it, but I dunno.)" Read Doc's entire post here.
The play's the thing: Michael Rosenblum asks..."It's called The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. But it's not called The New York Times with Tom Friedman. Why is that?" My thought is to quote PJ "In all of art it's the singer not the song." This is especially true with the first tribe of wireless. Talent-driven radio programs (and stations), generally, tend to be more successful, consistently, than those that offer up some bland generic brand. Steve Dahl provides a good exhibit that makes this case. Steve continues to deliver great numbers book after book and does so on an otherwise dead radio station. The audience is tuning in for Steve, they are loyal to Steve not to the station. Years of numbers have proven this to be a fact. Steve is a star, an artiste, he has developed a following that has little (and one could make the case - nothing at all) to do with the radio station around him. He remains a success against all odds and that is one definition of rock star talent. The play's the thing. Moreover, Steve has proven the efficacy of the format, he has confirmed the validity of spoken word on commercial FM. The problem at WCKG is not the format, the problem is execution combined with a massive failure of imagination. It's about casting, providing direction, creating a positive creative environment, setting a stage for greatness. It's a leadership problem.
There is a significant delta between personalities and disc jockeys and yet another between disc jockeys and announcers. Voice actors v. announcers, a grand canyon of difference. The same holds true with TV talent. The reader v the rock star. Almost identical story line-ups (excepting soft), one show wins, one shows loses. Like you I have sat in focus group sessions and watched as one reader gets dialed up and another dialed down delivering the same story. One weather guy wins another loses. At the end of the day, all other things being equal, people listen to and watch those they like (and in some cases those they love to hate). There is no logic to any of these decisions, these preferences and behaviors. People are not rational, they don't do things for any reason but their own.
Personally, I prefer working with rock star talent, they dramatically improve your chances of winning. When I hear that a certain talent is "difficult" it's music to my ears. Typically, it means they care about their work. "The rocks go with the farm" as my friend Larry Bentson is fond of saying. Great talent is a pleasure to work for. They can't be managed, they demand to be led. Read Michael's post The "Talent" Trap here. Bravos Michael for continuing to offer up interesting subject matter of merit.
Almost related: on the day job we have done a number of perceptual studies on the media sales process. One of the most interesting findings is that the highest "rated" media sales professionals are consistently those that are "most liked" without regard to any other single attribute, skill set or variable. All things being equal or even unequal media buyers buy from the people they like. This finding is consistent in market after market. You could say the same about bloggers. There are bloggers and then there are Bloggers. While I might not always agree with Dave Winer his blog is, consistently, a good and smart read. Same with Dr Dave and Michael Rosenblum. Agree with them, or not, they provoke you to think! Bandwidth well spent. I must admit to being one that enjoys Michael's "Burn it to the ground" thesis because he dares to question practice too far past the best-used by date. The bonus is he offers up an intellectually honest and practical alternative.
Kudos: Jess Lee, Google Maps Project Manager offers up Southern California fire maps here.
Congrats & cheers: Salman Ullah the Google corp dev ace leaves to found a venture firm, Copper River Partners. Scott Herman named EVP, Operations and Michael Weiss hires on as President of Sales, both for CBS Radio.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
"There is no great trick to doing research. The problem is to get people to use it - particularly when the research reveals that you have been making mistakes. We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost - for support, not for illumination." David Ogilvy
What American accent do you have? Find out - take the short quiz here. No surprise, it seems I have the neutral or "no accent" most often used by newscasters. Being a former broadcast journo this appears to be a reasonable reading.
Hearing in the US Senate today on the 700 MHz auction. More info and access to live webcast here.
MarketWatch scribe Jon Friedman interviews Charles Gibson...
Charlie is spot-on. Read the entire piece here. We are close to the day when we compare all measured media by reach. Radio's move to PPM is a smart move for a number of reasons but most importantly it reveals the strength of the medium - reach. Once we get a good grasp of reach we can move on to some measure of engagement.
Bonus: Outstanding use of video by Avril Lavigne. "When You're Gone." Thanks to programming ace Brian Kelly for the tip. If you can watch this and not be somewhat moved please do consult a mental health professional.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
"Are you having fun?" Larry Bentson
My friend and former partner would ask me that one question at some point during each and every occasion we talked or met. He still does to this day. Our successful privately held company did business in over 600 domestic communities. We started or acquired a number of companies. A great many deals were considered, some reaching the attention of the board. Those that did merit board attention were always interesting. At some point in our deliberations about funding a startup or a possible acquisition Larry, chairman of our board, would ask us "What's the fun factor here?" Larry's litmus test being...is it going to be fun for all involved?
The fun factor
In my experience, the fun factor usually plays an unheralded role in every great success. When people are having fun at work amazing things tend to happen. When people are truly engaged in a mission, excited about their work, committed to a cause rather than a job, their performance consistently rises to unexpected result. This happens when a team believes they are doing work that matters. They're emboldened, in part, because they're having fun.
Stars are born: Great to see Gym Class Heroes on Leno last night. Readers of this blog will recall it was last year when programming ace Brian Kelly (Entercom/Milwaukee) turned me on to those lads. Brian is the programmer and pop music evangelist who broke the band's first hit last May. In the coming weeks that track looks to top the charts. Brian Mansfield, writes the story, Gym Class Heroes put 'Chokehold' on charts, via USA Today here. Congrats and kudos to Brian Kelly on his well deserved national ink. Bravos to Gym Class Heroes on a good show last night!
Think Brian Kelly is having fun? He is and it shows, he's winning. His stations sound great, they jump out of the speakers and it sounds like his team is having fun. Ten to one they are. And bravos to Brian for being bold, for having the audacity to put a track on the radio just because it sounded good. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what Great Program Directors do - they lead, they make things happen.
Are you having fun?
400 year death spiral continues: 2006 Web ad spend beats dead tree guys in the UK. More via BBC here. Katharine Q. Seelye writes Drop in Ad Revenues Raises Tough Questions for Newspapers via NYT here. One of my favorite economists Mark Fratrik (BIA) gets quoted. Excellent job Katharine - bravo!
Please Google me some radio and TV ads: Miguel Helft writes Searching for Ads Offline via NYT here. Good writing Miguel. Great pic Rick! The race to crack the code continues. Microsoft, Yahoo and Google being the big players here and while all are sure to get there my sense is Google and Microsoft will lead Yahoo's fast follower. Detroit radio seems a perfect market to test prime avails. In February national was off 27%, local down 6%, about two million dollars missing from the market. My bet would be Google could make that $2 mil up with the right inventory. FYI - Fig's outfit gets a mention in the article. Hey Fig, turn around 2 large in Detroit and be named the winner.
This environment has created a special olympics mindset wherein Detroit stations can be said to be winning if they are only down 5% when the market is down 8%. Nonsense. Down is down. It has to stop being about beating the market and start being about growing your business. It has to stop being an intramural blood sport (i.e., radio v radio) and start being about radio v all others. Stop the self-destructive silo warfare and get into the big game. There's a bunch of money out there but you won't find it looking in exactly the same places where you found it before. You've fished out that part of the lake, leave one person on shore at that spot and move the boat! Start with this - how much does it cost you to create an avail?
My readers know that I'm a Google fan. I feel their pain in this initiative. The sales departments of broadcast shops have changed little since 1970. The majority of those changes would be tech related: better mission systems, fax machines, email, ppt, laptops, cell phones, pdas, pdf, voicemail, better non-spot and vendor, desktop publishing created better leave behinds/pitches, better training available (thanks RAB), better research and improved seller access to customized research, better competitive monitoring and station web inventory. The twx machine is gone. Most sellers still get messages from clients on little pink papers. Broadcast sales still involves relationships and face calls. The sales dept remains the last throw back in the enterprise. Albeit a better tech empowered throw back. Better tools does not equal better selling and the national shares of ad spend would seem to confirm this notion. We have a leadership problem. All Google needs is a broadcaster with nothing to lose. Earlier scribbling on broadcast sales here, here and here.
P.S. My former partners continue to own one of America's finest cable companies. It remains, in fact, the nation's largest privately held MSO. And, yes, I'm told they're having fun.
Bonus: Irrational Public Radio
Bonus 2: They're back, JibJab's latest What We Call The News Anchor crushed by graphics, now that's a killer line, one of many, check it out.
Congrats & cheers: Microsoft Live team debuts Deepfish mobile browsing, jump in here.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
"We have more power than will; and it is only to exculpate ourselves that we often say that things are impracticable." La Rochefoucauld
The inconvenient truth: Almost daily we hear, see or read something that suggests today's teenagers are using media in dramatically different ways. True. We are living in a dramatically different media world. Nothing stops technology and the velocity of change is incredible, at times even difficult to fully grasp. What has not changed is the teen appetite for new. Like those who went before them they make the hits and make them fresh daily. The container always less important than the content, the technology becoming transparent. Their iPod, cell and computer compliment their other audio and video behaviors. First generation wireless is actually alive and well. It is not, as some have suggested, that teens no longer listen to the radio, they do. It is that not many in the trade are dedicating themselves to committing great radio for the youth market. There are notable exceptions. Brian Kelly is making it happen. He's the goods, one of the best radio programming chiefs working today; Brian's stations are fresh, engaging, arresting, entertaining and just plain fun to listen to. For those who may harbor the illusion that teens no longer listen to radio may I present the facts. Exhibit A: In the Spring 06 Arbitron, Kelly's station, Milwaukee's 1037 KISS FM (WXSS) delivered a 57.8 teen cume rating. In fact, a trending of each Fall sweep since 2003 reveals his teen cume rating has increased each and every year! MySpace. Station site. But wait...there's more. His team has cool vids on YouTube, to wit: this 100K+ views video and his latest "Tix in a box." Brian Kelly gets it, check out his stuff. All that's important is what's on the screen(s) and what's coming out of the speakers, everything else is a footnote.
Congrats & cheers: Jay Rosen launches AssignmentZero. "Pro-am journalism opens on the web" Bravo! WaPo's Joel Achenbach blogs the backstory here. Another music site debut, check out slacker.com here.
Your copier remembers: AP tech writer May Wong writes Your New ID-Theft Worry? Photocopiers via Wired here.
Things may appear larger than they really are: Today, many years ago, the great Bill Hartman and I took the shuttle to the city for a meeting at 90 Park. Our suggestion was to stop playing music and take WBZ 100% spoken word, 100% talent driven service, information and entertainment. Our proposal was 100% rejected. It was the brilliant Jimmy Yergin who weighed in on our side "The twelve hours you are doing talk is killing the twelve hours you are playing music, the reverse also holds true. Your successful evening sports talk program is killing your midday music show." Our corporate "angels" (as Bill called them) said as long as WHDH and WRKO were playing music we needed to play music and besides AM stereo was going to change everything and make us equal in fidelity to those FM stations. It was the story of WKTU and WABC that got the attention of our angels. Back in the day Mediastat issued a monthly ratings report. WKTU, an FM station playing disco, became #1 in the monthly report. The considered opinion of our corporate team was disco was the new rock n roll, WKTU's success a watershed. Tastes in popular music had been reset. It was 1955 all over again. Some execs at ABC jumped to the same conclusion and changed the music approach of WABC. Acting to preempt others ABC changed their Chicago FM from rock to disco; if ABC's WLS was to be hurt by an FM station it would be by their own FM station. The myth of first mover advantage. Being first is not important, being the first to get it right wins the race.
Bonus: My $100 Million Dollar Secret by David Weinberger
Monday, February 19, 2007
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