"There is only one success: To be able to spend your life in your own way." Christopher Morley

"Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority." Thomas Huxley

"Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past." Thomas Hobbes

Today's image: Mystery Morning In The Palouse by kevin mcneal. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Submitted for your consideration, a case study in real-time, to wit:

You have a major talent working for your company. The talent is a market legend of thirty years making, respected by the industry as an accomplished, innovative performer; he has consistently produced top five ratings in the diary. For the past year the performer has been assigned to a morning drive shift after years of success doing afternoon drive at another station in your cluster. Performance in morning drive, as measured by the new PPM methodology, is significantly different and less competitive than that exhibited in previous diary created data. Management decides to take the talent off the air while assuming the obligation to pay the talent for the next two and one-half years of the performer's contract.

Of course, the reference is to Chicago media star Steve Dahl. He did his last show for CBS this past Friday. While CBS has, to my knowledge, not made any comment on the decision (a wise move since most covering their equity only know what they read), we have the penchant for transparency of Steve Dahl himself to thank for a bit of back story. Steve made mention of the meter during his last show, suggesting music programming did better in the meter numbers and was less expensive programming.

We now come to the issues of this business case.

1. Did management make the right decision in assigning Steve Dahl from afternoons at its Free FM talk station to mornings on its music intensive Jack FM station?
2. Did management provide those resources necessary to ensure the probability of success in the highly competitive morning drive environment? (The counsel of a mentor, Paul Drew, comes to mind. Did Steve have a "better than even chance to win.")
   
3. Once PPM data was in hand what corrective measures did management take to improve performance? Was Steve provided the direction, dedication of resources, deemed requisite to move the needle and improve performance? Were sellers provided the direction, support needed to build revenues needed to generate an acceptable profit?
   
4. If we stipulate continuing to do mornings on WJMK was not an option, what other options were prospectively available to management without regard to the election to pay and not play? Is it not management's responsibility to explore any and all options to retain Steve Dahl including those beyond the conditions and scope of the existing agreement?

Clearly, management decided it was better to have Steve Dahl off the air and paying him than on the air in some other assignment.

Many have said the larger-than-life personality was not a good fit on Jack FM, the bold contrarian move of putting a high profile talent on a jockless station risky from day one. While it is perhaps convenient to argue that Dahl failed to improve the station's ratings performance, it should be kept in mind that Jack FM has failed to achieve, sustain ratings success of any significance where it counts. Recent meter numbers would have us believe the station's biggest win is outside of prime, 7p-12Mid. One has to at least consider the logic that Steve was released from breakfast duties as part of an effort to somehow "help" Jack FM. The single most credible, attractive attribute of any jockless station continues to be the low cost of operating which is not insignificant. Putting Dahl on Jack FM changed this jockless economic model.

My sense is the real failure here is one of leadership. No matter the numbers, sales should have found a way to generate revenues. It is hard to argue there exists a more sales friendly talent than Dahl.

Given the option of creating the next successful music intensive format or finding the next killer talent, one is best served by electing the former. The latter is a far more complex mission, one in which finding becomes the easiest part of things, however, the rewards of engaging killer talent are almost without equal. The play's the thing so said Shakespeare and in this case the play is a killer talent, Steve Dahl.

As a practical matter, CBS is making a wager. They are willing to bet Steve will gain employment elsewhere, ultimately releasing them from their financial obligation. They are suggesting it is the best decision for the company to continue paying Steve to not be on their air or to have him working across the street. The alternative which management should properly consider, it seems fair to offer, being to retain Steve Dahl, putting him to work in a productive and effective manner on one or more of their stations. This will require the hard work of thinking, of engaging the imagination and most of all, it will demand creative leadership.

Stay tuned.

Previously, on Steve Dahl and the diary versus the meter, here.

As always, your thoughts are welcome. Thank you for stopping by.

"What the business thinks it produces is not of first importance. What the consumer thinks he is buying, what he considers 'value' is decisive." Peter Drucker

"Limiting one's pursuits to one lone avenue without benefit of change or diversion can result in a form of vapidity which sometimes deadens imagination." Edwin Uhl

"The virtue of imagination is its reaching, by intuition and intensity, a more essential truth than is seen at the surface of things." John Ruskin

Today's image: Ordinary magic by IrenaS. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Good reads: Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin [Amazon info]. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell [Amazon info]. Fiction, worth reading, again: The Road by Cormac McCarthy [Amazon info]

Live ammo: You have a talent working for you. A well known talent with a history of thirty years in the market. The talent has consistently delivered top ratings for decades under diary measurement. Since the introduction of PPM the talent has failed to show the same winning numbers. The most recent monthly numbers show the talent is ranked 20th in demo a year after being moved from afternoons on one station into a morning drive shift on another station. You have two and one-half years remaining on the talent's agreement, an obligation of approx three million dollars. You play or pay the talent? In the case of CBS they made the decision last week to pay the talent, Steve Dahl, rather than continue to play him. Your thoughts? Back to blog about this Monday.

"The future ain't what it used to be." Yogi Berra

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." Niccolo Machiavelli

"That which the fool does in the end the wise man does in the beginning." Richard Trench

Today's image: 0092 by emiliebjork. Great shooting. Thank you for sharing.

"How much potential out there
is being ignored?

How much raw talent remains uncultivated
and ultimately lost because we cling
to outmoded ideas of what success looks like
and what is required to achieve it?"

The words are those of Dr. David A. Shaywitz taken from his review of Outliers, the new Malcolm Gladwell book. Read the good doctor's review, The Elements of Success, here via WSJ. [Amazon info] Highly recommended.

How much potential inside your organization is being ignored?

My sense is 2009 should be the year that you and your team commit, entrust, confide in a game-changing mission - one that is laser focused on bringing out the best in others.

Mission not initiative, since the latter is much too small a word to embrace this opportunity.

A mission to help, assist, encourage, abet, incite, spark and otherwise do everything within your power to enable people to make real, measurable progress in reaching their potential.

The secret to growing your business in 2009 is being obsessed now, daily going forward, with growing your people.

"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has got there first, and is waiting for it." Terry Pratchett

"I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained." Walt Disney

"Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk." Doug Larson

Today's image: Looking Downtown by James Neeley. Amazing. Thank you for sharing.

As I was saying...

The press of daily affairs has been such that there has simply been no time for blogging.

Please accept my apologies and my sincere thanks. Your emails and other contact have been encouraging. The conjecture, priceless (e.g., Maybe he's dead?). In answer to many, let me say all here is exceptionally good, never better.

On with the show.

Stuff the cool kids are talking about: In the spirit of Madtown hero Dave Winer (we locals claim he is only taking a really long extended holiday in Berkeley) let me provide some jumps. To connect the dots here, it was Dave who famously said "People come back to places that send them away."

Flogos - Promotion and NTR magic.

Michael Rosenblum - You need to be reading this guy. He's only reinventing video. One of the last big things he invented was for Al Gore, Current. Michael is brilliant and playing at the top of his game. Check out the writing and videos on his blog. Repeat, daily.

Yahoo! Jerry Yang stepping down creates one of the biggest potential game-changing moments in the online world. The big two could become the big three in the USA. The early buzz and Vegas odds say News Corp prexy Peter Chernin would be the ideal successor. As ever, Kara Swisher has the story covered, including review of the suspects, via ATD here.

Moms v Motrin: Over the weekend we witnessed an interesting real-time experiment in social media. Moms took on Big Pharma using Twitter, YouTube, blogs, other SM tools. Motrin never had a chance, the moms won. It's an object lesson. Grammer Girl offers a good overview, What People Forget About Twitter here. How Twittering Critics Brought Down Motrin Mom Campaign by Michael Learmonth and Rupal Parekh via AdAge here. Related videos, check other blog posts via BuzzFeed. #motrinmoms tag on Twitter search here. Here's proof positive the Motrin meme has achieved escape velocity, the parody has begun. Check out this video mashup, Getting a boob job seems to be in fashion, via YouTube here. Finally, what's your Twitter strategy?

Philly fresh: Mel Taylor, who makes his living by helping media create local online revenues, checks in to advise the new site devoted to live music and local bands is alive in beta. Check it out here. Congrats and cheers to Mel and all involved. Are you reading Mel's blog? Jump on over here.

My bookmarks - Not sure if you are aware but in the left column is my running collection of bookmarks (my del. icio. us). These are items I'm reading, sharing with clients and friends. Two stand outs this early morning: Steve Gillmor's timely piece on Microcasting merits your attention. Timesman David Carr knocks the cover clean off the ball with his writing on dead tree guys firing top talent. A very relevant and disturbing trend in media.

Back with more tomorrow. Thanks, appreciate you stopping by.

"It doesn't matter what people think about you or your company. What matters is how you make people feel about themselves and their decisions in your presence." Tom Asacker

"No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant." Horace

Today's image: Francia - Holanda by arrozpide. Great shooting. Thanks for sharing.

Execution, not excuses
Third in a series

Thoughts on next steps for media CEOs. Ten things you must do now to prevail in 2009. Here now, the seventh of those ten. Previously: first in this series here, second in this series here.

7. The play's the thing, so said Shakespeare. It seems the majority agrees, content is king. The primary mission of every media company remains the same, find out what the market wants and then give it to them. What has changed is the accelerating shift in production and consumption patterns from a once purely producer-centric, linear world to a new consumer-centric, multidimensional mediascape. Cory Doctorow speaks to this shift when he says "Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about."

We are moving from a world of print, radio and TV to an environment of text, audio and video. The technologies of delivery are becoming increasingly transparent. Further, technology obviates place and time as we once knew it. We have indications that viewers demonstrate they care about the content without regard to the method of delivery. Product over provenance. The viewing of a recent SNL sketch starring Tina Fey as candidate Sarah Palin provides a practical illustration. A significantly larger number of viewers watched the sketch online (and continue to do so) than watched the actual NBC broadcast. Similarly, the overwhelming majority of folks who heard about or saw the Katie Couric interview with Palin did not first hear of it or see it at its real-time origin, on the CBS Evening News. These examples suggests content remains king. Content that was in demand was simply consumed in more than one place and at more than one time. The now well known comment by a college student is relevant here..."If the news is important, it will find me" (thanks to Timesman Brian Stelter). Let me suggest a paraphrase...If the content is good enough, it will find me.

Media firms must develop, produce, purchase or otherwise offer content that consistently creates demand sufficient to fuel a revenue engine that serves to produce a profit. Content must be made available as discoverable digital assets. CEOs need to shift strategic focus from import only with the addition of export. It's becoming less a game of either, or and more the new game of and. We agree with the wise counsel of Dave Winer - "People come back to places that send them away." [via] My sense is the most successful in the business of media will be those known to consistently provide proprietary intangibles which create sustained demand. This requires more than knowledge and trade craft, it demands the wellsprings of imagination and creativity. As George Gilder recently said "The real source of all growth is human ingenuity and entrepreneurship, which often thrive in the worst of times - and are always surprising...Knowledge is about the past; entrepreneurship is about the future."

All that's important is what comes out of the speakers
and what's on the screen(s).
Everything else is a footnote.

Web video phenom Gary Vaynerchuk often says "Content is king but marketing is queen, and the queen rules the household." Next, we'll consider marketing and what media CEOs must do to prevail in 2009.

V O T E