Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

30° - overcast at 11am.
Where did all our snow go???

Good Morning. Another week where income took priority over the blog. Lots of catching up to do....

Listening. Bob Stroud's Rock 'N Roll Roots on WDRV/Chicago. All Xmas!

Still Reading: Scott Beddome's story of WQFM/Milwaukee; its battle against crosstown AOR WLPX - and Lee Arnold's Who promotion.

Thirty Chapters of "WHOoPLA: The Greatest Rock Radio Stunt Ever" posted here so far .

David Martin has also been reading WHOoPLA - and under "full disclosure" offers these words (here) on Lee Arnold: "In the previous century I served as valet, defense attorney and part-time concierge to the great Mr Arnold".

Explained: Lee Arnold spent time in Detroit as PD of WLLZ. And the VP of Programming for owner Doubleday was the one and only David Martin. Very cool indeed.

The last year has been great for radio books - both released and planned.

Chicago's Rick Kaempfer released his radio novel "$everance" this past year.

John Gorman in Cleveland just released "The Buzzard" and the story of his days at WMMS.

Now Scott Beddome's "WHOoPLA". All great works!

Looking forward in early 2008 for "The Radio Gypsies" - written by programmer Jay Blackburn ("JDB") - a novel-based-on-true-events "The Radio Gypsies". Written and already at the publisher.

And now JDB is writing a follow-up book and recruiting others to contribute stories to the cause...yours truly invited to contribute.

JDB - along with DJ and engineer extraordinaire Bruce Miller Earle - was recruited by broker/consultant Art Holt back in the late 60s and 70s to travel market to market to do turnaround projects. I'll save more for later - but there's many stories waiting to be told - most for the first time.

One JDB turn-around project was WSDM Chicago; and out of that WLUP was born. JDB describes the station as one he fell in love with.

HD Radio's New Campaign. Lots of words being written about a new campaign launched by the HD Radio Alliance. The campaign positions HD against traditional AM/FM. Yipes! That all from Fred Jacobs - one of the few ouside the Alliance to hear the commercials.

After reading Fred's comments - posted here on Thursday - I found that the link to the actual spots on the HD Radio Alliance website had become password protected. I can only assume the Alliance doesn't want anyone to hear them now. Huh?

Like Fred - I really do want to see HD Radio succeed. More consumer choice and more opportunties for programmers from the smart operators. However - I don't feel HD can succeed given the Ibiquity licensing fees.

Make the addition of HD in radios attractive to the manufacturers so it becomes "standard" - and then begin some smart marketing.

You can't sell HD like satellite radio.

Mark Ramsey sums up Fred's comments (and the reply from Alliance head Peter Ferrara) here by correctly concluding:

"The right thing for Peter and the Alliance to do isn't simply to reply to a blog post (although that's a good start), but to invite Fred and others who care about radio's future to serve on an industry board of advisors, just the way Arbitron does."

More later.