Tuesday, February 5, 2008

My Little Blog...

....celebrates a birthday today. Its been a year! Just under 400 posts and nearly 13,000 unique users. Wow!

The story: I’d been contemplating a website (or blog) focusing on the Classic Rock format for a few years. Nobody was doing it.

Aside the blogs of format experts like Fred Jacobs and Dave Lange – and infrequent columns in R&R, little was written about the format in terms of trends, promotions, and programming.


After being laid off from my programming job just over twelve months ago, I logged into Blogger - simply out of curiosity - and four hours later a blog was born. Within a few days I was hooked; and made the personal commitment to post daily six days a week.

That held true until I resumed working full time in December.
Now its "almost daily" as I adjust to a new routine.


Beyond that there's been no plan. Just to post about the things that interest me as both radio geek and programmer. And sharing a bit of my life.

The blog averages between 110 and 150 unique users each day; half to two-thirds of those are "regulars" who login almost daily. I do appreciate!

There's been some unfortunate spikes - with over 350+ unique visitors on a single day. I write unfortunate as its been after I've written goodbye to friends and coworkers who passed away over the past year. Twice. 2007 was a rough year.


I've had a few unsolicited job inquiries from this site. But even more cool over the past year are the friendships. Old ones renewed and new ones established. Add the kind words of encouragement received over the past year has made it all worthwhile. Thank you.

The past year has been the first time I’ve been out of the biz since starting in high school. Ignoring for a moment the hardships my family endured most of last year, the time off was well spent simply to assess career and life.

When I do return to programming it will be with a fresh perspective from the day-to-day to the big picture. Meanwhile - I've been fortunate enough to fall into two situations with some industry-related work allowing me to sharpen some skills I can bring back to the radio industry. Whenever that happens.


Thats it. Again - thanks for your pings of support over the past year. Its been a blast for me!


6 comments:

David Martin said...

Dan,

Congrats, cheers, bravos!

All the best,

Dave Lange said...

Dan
Congrats on the anniversary - it's a great blog. Don't leave us readers as your job grows. Classic Rock FM has become a great resource to the format and rock radio in general.

Dave Lange

Lee Arnold said...

Dan,

Happy Birthday to you!!
Your insights, devotion, innate understanding and cheer leading of the Classic Rock Format has been an exercise of love. It's that love, along with your obvious programming understanding, that should be recognized by someone in the upper echelon of Radio management. With Rock radio (all format versions of) experiencing a renaissance (thank you PPM), I would hope that your knowledge and devotion will be rewarded soon. Keep up the great work.
Regards
Lee Arnold

Anonymous said...

what do you mean this is your first time not working since high school. Are you forgetting those years you were employed in Santa Fe? you call that work??????

Congrats Dan. Talk to you soon my friend.

Anonymous said...

Dan:

Discovered your blog about six months back and check in often.

You offer some dead on thoughts about whats important, serving as a good reminder for us working stiff program directors trying to juggle 3 or 4 stations at once.

Keep it up!

Kevin

Anonymous said...

great blog Dan. keep it up. thanks.