Wednesday Blogs

60° - light rain/mist at 10am. Left: view from the day job window - a mixed office/residential area on the northside of downtown Lansing.

Good Morning from Michigan. Clouds/fog/rain - but quite warm this morning. A nice rainy fall day.

Around my blogosphere:

Listener Engagement. We've written about this many times over the last 20 months. This morning Fred Jacobs contributes more to the conversation this morning. With apologies to my friend for overquoting:

"A radio station social networking initiative is about engagement. It is about providing listeners with the chance to discuss, dig deeper, and get even more emotional about your people and your programming. Until now, the audience has been forced to remain passive, with the exception of showing up at station events. With social networking, they can get in the game, participate, and become more loyal and knowledgeable about a station and its brand."

"It's just a matter of providing them with the means to connect with one another. We see this at focus groups and Listener Advisory Board groups. Ten strangers come together to talk about your station, and end up in the parking lot, arguing and sharing their views about music, bands, and yes, your station. Many other consumer brands would kill to have the type of emotional connection that many stations have with their customers."

Would kill indeed! Very cool stuff! Fred's post here.

Telling It Like It Is. Mark Ramsey sums up the current PPM controversy/litigation in a few words:

"This is a case of the interests of the radio industry and its advertisers being hijacked by a small number of selfish parties who don't like PPM because PPM doesn't like them as much as diaries do. Pure and simple."

Mark's complete post here.

Webcasting: Monday's Edison Media-sponsored Streaming/Music Royalties was fantastic (although the audio quality a little less than ideal). If you missed, its archived here.

During the webcast - Attorney David Oxenford had some great contributions to the webcast and offered some great real world ideas for radio, especially the smaller markets to expand their reach and consumer convenience.

David mentioned making your newscasts available for listening anytime on the web...and stations that do local sports offering 3 or 4 area games through web streaming; since you can only do one on the air (of course, HD could change that!). High School sports typically means $ for small market radio.

It was time well-spent and kudos to Edison Media's Tom Webster for putting it all together.

Scratch. Pop. Click. Vinyl on the air. Randy Raley's doing it once a week...tracking an album on his classic rock station in Normal, Illinois. Very cool. Read about the adventure here.

Have a great Wednesday!

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

80° - light rain at 11:27am

Good Morning from downtown Lansing.

My 9-year old. For the past couple of weeks, he's been roaming around the house singing/humming "Carry On My Wayward Son"...courtesy of Guitar Hero.

Last weekend, I got him a CD of the Kansas album "Leftoverture"...perhaps he'll discover the rest of the album. My classic rock kid!

Even more PPM explained. Last week I passed along a link to Paragon Media Strategies - explaining the first ten of "20 More Things You Need to Know About PPM", as presented at the Morning Show Bootcamp.

Paragon's now posted narrative for another five of the twenty. Here.

Being an old album rock guy from the 70s - one caught my eye: "The art of the musical segue will be re-born in PPM. Keep ‘em listening, and don’t give ‘em reasons to tune out."

President of Radio. I've been following Fred Jacobs and his very clever and much needed session/discussion at upcoming Jacobs Media Summit. Fred has announced two more names for the panel; plus has published the entries for the 10th panelist (or "President"). Great stuff.

See the ideas here. Details on the session here.

Good Read: "Radio Law Is Meant To Be Broken (Strategically)". Edison Media's Sean Ross writes here.

Your station website. Earlier this week Broadcast Attorney David Oxenford posted a great piece on his Broadcast Law Blog regarding websites and localism. Copy and take to your next website strategy meeting. Here.

Bob & Tom TV. Randy Michaels and company brings some of radio's best to the tube via WGN America beginning in November. More here.

New AC/DC. Bob Leftsetz writes a great review here. Having read Bob's blog for several years now, I know his enthusiasm is genuine.

Have a great one.

Meeting David Rehr

81° - clear at 8:57pm

I be back. Earlier this week the day job brought me to the Michigan Association of Broadcasters' (MAB) Annual Conference - held at Crystal Mountain Resort in Thompsonville, Michigan.

I had a few cool moments spending time with broadcast attorney David Oxenford (we go way back to some New Mexico projects); a great night of award ceremonies (more on that with a separate post); and some quality time with NAB President/CEO David Rehr.

Mr. Rehr was to address the Tuesday lunch at the broadcasters' meeting. After arriving alone - and catching up on business with his laptop and cell phone outside the meeting room, he came in and spent a little time one-on-one with myself aloing with a few MAB members who happened to wander into the lunch room early.

The 3-5 of us were able to spend time talking about the FCC localism proposals, recording artist royalties and HD radio.

Rehr didn't offer anything beyond what you've read from him and NAB in the press already - but he did offer something very infectious: A very enthusiastic attitude and optimism over radio and television broadcasting.

I've never been with someone so hyped up over the radio (and television) business than David Rehr. I couldn't help but feel motivated by his unrestrained excitement over the broadcast medium.

I can only equate David's spirit to James Brown in the Blues Brothers movie.

Rehr talked about the fact that radio's reach has actually increased over the past few years. And it just reinforced what I've written about before here: radio's problems are primarily with Wall Street, not Main Street. Certainly radio has new media competition; it may never be what it was. But in terms of reach, it still leads the pack.

My take: perception may be reality. Our biggest challenge is changing perception. And its my take that changing perception starts within.

I just wish David Rehr had a chance to visit with everyone in the business. It would be a great start for change. We need a cheerleader. And David Rehr is certainly waving the flag for broadcasting.

And makes me proud to be in the business.

Lots of catching up to do...more to come.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

29 - overcast at 10:20am - below: looking down my street this morning; the last days of winter here in Michigan? Wishful thinking!

Good Morning from Okemos, Michigan.

Listening: My usual Sunday Morning fare. Bob Stroud on Chicago's WDRV followed by Steve Palec on Milwaukee's WKLH.

Music Rights for Radio. This past week Mark Ramsey posted a multi-part interview with famed broadcast attorney David Oxenford. Scroll back here.

One discussion revolves around the thought that radio could possibility charge the record industry to play their records.

While that might be the ultimate wet dream for many radio execs - I can't image it going beyond the selections the record industry would want radio to play. And would probably exclude anything outside currents and recurrents.

Face it: there will be records radio will want to play that don't require compensation from the labels - and that includes superstar new releases and gold. Like classic rock.

And if we elect to accept compensation from the record companies for playing the music they want (legal "payola"), does this really serve the interests of our listeners? Just asking...

And no, radio shouldn't be paying the record companies one dime. Likewise with radio-like streaming.

Its about the audience: Dave Lange writes here about air talent.

Radio Wars: Fred Jacobs writes about being local; and recalls bumper sticker wars in Detroit between WRIF and WLLZ. Read here.

Radio Stories. Rick Kaempfer's Chicago Radio Spotlight shines on WERV/Aurora, IL PD/OM Matt DuBiel this week. Here.

And last Sunday Rick highlighted the radio career of comedian Dobie Maxwell - who had his first radio job here in Lansing at my former station. Read here.

Belated congrats: To Milwaukee's Lee Arnold for recently celebrating one year streaming his progressive rock WORJ.COM; and for being awarded a trademark on WORJ. Happy ® to Lee!

Wednesday Blogs

82° rain - a downpour at 11am - nice!

Last day of the spring book...

From my blogosphere:

Day of Silence. From what I've been able to read this morning, it appears yesterday's effort generated plenty of consumer action.

Bridge Ratings offers the first of a two-part release on the day's impact here (scroll down on page). Jerry Del Colliano offers his thoughts on the day of silence here. Update: Latest RAIN coverage, including links to press articles here.

Performance rights: Clear Channel is asking independent musicians to waive their rights to performance royalties for consideration of airplay- and its something the Future of Music Coalition (FMC) isn't happy with.

Attorney David Oxenford recently discussed the Clear Channel offer on NPR's Morning Edition - and offers more on his blog here.

My take: Clear Channel is doing the right thing - its a win-win for both broadcaster and artist. You cannot enjoy the benefits of promotional exposure and fairly collect performance royalties for that exposure.

Perhaps the real issue with any coalition or licensing organization might be one of control.

HD Radio. McVay Media's Dave Lange writes "We all know the saying Hindsight is 20/20 all too well. As I keep looking at HD Radio there are so many things that we, as an industry and Ibiquity as a producer, could have improved on."

Read Dave's complete piece - plus comments from some guy in Michigan - here.

Harland Williams. We wrote here a few months back about actor/comedian Harland Williams and his daily afternoon drive show on Denver's KRFX.

Last week the Rocky Mountain News ran an interview with Harland - discussing how the radio gig came about and how its put together. Read here.

Mark Ramsey with Seth Godin. Mark has his full interview with the Agent of Change - discussing radio's future - both audio and transcript - on his blog here.

Buzz Marketing. Fred Jacobs offers up some examples of some great buzz marketing campaigns on his blog here. Good read!