Wednesday Blogs

58° - clear skies at 10am

More summer ARBs: CBS Radio's classic rocker WZLX/Boston is on fire - with their best 12+ performance in recent history. I can only imagine the target demo. And in Detroit - WCSX posted a half-point 12+ gain over spring. Very nice!

From my blogosphere:

David Martin reviews the numbers and notes the success of programmers Jhani Kaye (KRTH) and Brian Thomas (WCBS-FM). David writes: "It's not the format (song), it's the singer (the execution)." With apologies for abusing my privilege to quote - Dave adds:

"The winners mentioned in this post are programming their stations in real time. They are working in a living performance art. One of the oldest and last "live" performance arts. They understand. It's about going to work every single day totally obsessed with one goal - to commit great radio. All that's important is what comes out of the speakers, what's on the screens. Everything else is a footnote. Let me also remind you - as has been written here for some years now - it's not about radio, it's about audio. Period. Paragraph. The secret to success remains clear...you must create proprietary intangibles (innovation!)."

Dave's complete piece here. Another great read. Randy Michaels once referred to this obsession for great radio as a "sickness" - and that he was honored to be part of "the club". Me too.

Footnote: The "Z Channel" graphic lifted from a poster for a fantastic IFC documentary about one cable programmer's obsession. More here.

Ideas & Resources: Had an email a few weeks back from George Cook - with links to some more resources that came out of the 2007 NAB/R&R Convention - some since mentioned on this blog.

One terrific one I haven't yet passed along was the Mike McVay-moderated "75 Ideas in 75 Minutes". Download the powerpoint via McVay Media here.

Some of the powerpoint really needs the missing narration - but you can still get a lot out of it.

BTW: George Cook has a great blog: The GEOmetric Media Blog. I'll be adding to my blogroll here shortly. And thank you George!

Production Wizard: I missed mentioning on Sunday. Rick Kaempfer's Chicago Radio Spotlight interviews Bonneville/Chicago's Matt Bisbee - on radio, his career, promos and life. Read here.

I seem to recall a "Matt Bisbee" attending Columbia College/Chicago about the same time I did in the mid-70s.

The day job awaits. Have a great Wednesday!