Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

36° - overcast at 11:15am. Snow earlier.

Good Morning from Michigan. Busy week between the day job and house guests. Its all good.

I'm late to the party here on the blog - but earlier this week I was following WLAV/Grand Rapids' Kevin Matthews who made the committment to stay on the air until the Detroit Tigers won a game.

After losing their first six, Matthews vowed to stay on the air until the team won a game. The Tigers finally won a game 36 hours later - and Kevin generated some great buzz and local press. Fred Jacobs describes this more in-depth here.

Classic Rock WLAV is in its second year of carrying the Tiger network along with a sister AM station. Night and weekend games are airing on the Classic Rock station with the remainder on the AM.

Listening this morning: To Bob Stroud on WDRV/Chicago. Tangled Up In Blue from Dylan playing right now. This morning's theme on Rock 'N Roll Roots is "colors".

As usual, its then on to Steve Palec on WKLH/Milwaukee as he features ELO this week on his Rock 'N Roll Roots. I'm reminded again of what an awesome job Steve does with sound bites and production elements.

Edison Media/Arbitron Study The Infinite Dial 2008: Radio's Digital Platforms. Survey says Online listening at an all-time high. Work hours (10a-3p) are the prime hours for online radio. Radio use still beats iPODs/MP3 players/satellite 3-to-1 or more.

Observation: quoting Fred Jacobs from this past December (again): "So how can a medium with this kind of reach be struggling so mightily? Just asking."

Edison/Arbitron study notes HD Radio still has awareness problems. See complete study here.

Back to streaming: Mark Ramsey concludes that "radio is better when its on the radio. Not online". I disagree. Its apparent that at-work online listening is important to the audience. A matter of convenience. Same product but another delivery method.

I do agree with Mark to the extent that radio station should offer more online audio options (in "chunks"), but in addition to their over-the-air streams. Mark's complete piece here.

Great interview: Triple A Radio's Mike Lyons interviews Emmis VP Programming Jimmy Steal on the launch of WXRP/New York. Read here.