Wednesday Blogs

68° - cloudy/overcast at 6:35pm

Had an interesting new experience on the day job with a presentation before Michigan's House of Representatives Energy and Technology Committee. The process of informing lawmakers about changes in the broadcast industry plus hearing from their constituents is fascinating.

Topic: the digital television transition.

Back to radio:

Mark Ramsey. Mark tips us to a story in the Washington Post...quoting:

"...Yet the more I listened to the likes of Pandora.com, Last.fm, Slacker.com and all manner of music blogs and Web radio, the more I heard the sound of automation -- sleek, efficient recommendation engines scientifically selecting the music I am most likely to like, yet missing out almost on what radio once offered: a glimpse into the hearts and passions of personalities who knew what music was new and cool, voices that offered a guided tour of unknown worlds, and sometimes even a frontal assault of the unexpected."

The complete Post article here.

Lee Arnold. Received an email today from Lee regarding his latest blog post - a great one for any PD. Lee writes "Our stars always understood what I wanted from them because I told them what it was that I wanted. They always delivered." Check out the example Lee gave his air talent as well as the "million dollar takeaway" here.

Your Wildest Streams. Fred Jacobs writes about streaming - and the excuses stations have for not streaming - and of those who do stream aren't quite ready for prime time.

Read this and then spend some time listening to your stream.

Grand Openings. Author/Change Agent Seth Godin writes:

"Most overnight successes take a decade (okay, four years online)."

"The grand opening is a symptom of the real problem... the limited attention span of marketers. Marketers get focused (briefly) on the grand opening and then move on to the next thing (quickly). Grand opening syndrome forces marketers to spend their time and money at exactly the wrong time, and worse, it leads to a lack of patience that damages the prospects of the product and service being launched."

"The best time to promote something is after it has raving fans, after you've discovered that it works, after it has a groundswell of support. And more important, the best way to promote something is consistently and persistently and for a long time."

IMHO, there's a here lesson for radio. Read Seth's entire piece.

The day job awaits. More later.