Political Fun in Denver

With the Democratic National Convention in town next week, Denver should be abuzz with politicians, tv, show biz, music and other celebrity-types.

Classic Rock KRFX morning drivers Lewis & Floorwax are taking advantage of the party by offering listeners cash prizes for getting the famous on the air with "Political Cellout 2008".

"If you can get them on your cell phone, and on our show, you'll have a chance of scoring cash, and our eternal respect and admiration."

An idea that can be adapted for other big events that might be happening in your town!

See more at The Fox website here.

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

64° - cloudy at 10:10am

Good Morning from Okemos and welcome to the weekend.

Winter Arbitron. Numbers still rolling in. The Big Story in the last day has been in Tampa - where Cox's WHPT rose from just over a 2 share to almost a 5 and a half.

This growth via the addition of Bubba The Love Sponge in AMD. All Access headlined the news with a line about "worst to first".

AA reports that Bubba "took top honors in Persons 12+, 18-34, 18-49, 25-54 and 35-64, unseating crosstown WFLZ/TAMPA rival MJ from the top spot across the board in a very tight race."

My take: Bubba's strategy appears to be right out of the old Randy Michaels playbook.

In Kansas City, KCFX continues to climb. 12+ demo shows the heritage classic rocker climbing book-by-book. The station up over a point and a half since Spring '07.

Contributing to that growth somewhat has to be the flip of KYYS to AAA; but KCFX is a great sounding radio station nonetheless with an airstaff that really talks to its listeners.

In Denver - the race is pretty tight between Clear Channel's KRFX and Entercom's KQMT. Looking at 12+ there's only two tenths of a point between the two.

The Fox (KRFX) just did a "no repeat April" while KQMT has reportedly tightened up its playlist in recent months. I hope to look at how deep The Fox went with music in April here soon.

WKLH/Milwaukee is up a tenth of a point while crosstown WQBW remains flat.

Noted: Someone on the radio engineering list I subscribe to observed an interesting "race" in 2008 Radio Hall of Fame nominations. In the same category are Dr. James Dobson (Focus on The Family) and....Howard Stern. Miles apart but both have made their impact on the industry.

Also in that same category (national) are Bob Costas and Dr. Laura. Voting is now open here.

Jay Mitchell. He's back with a new post after a long absence - but he's been a busy guy. I should have - but didn't realize this - Jay is also publisher of the Small Market Radio Newsletter.

While I haven't seen SMRN personally in years, I can highly recommend for any medium and small market broadcaster....each issue filled with programming, promotion and sales ideas.

Jay's blog is here.

Hello Phoenix. In the email this morning was a note from Mike Mallace, GM of KAJM and KNRJ.

Mike grew up in Chicago and started in the business about the same age I did - and during his high school years worked at the same suburban radio station (a few short years after I did). Mike blogs about radio, media and life here.

More here over the weekend.

Nightcap

72° - partly cloudy at 9:42pm

Good evening from Michigan. Spring weather appeared to finally arrive today as we hit 79 today.

Few odds and ends from around the 'net:

David Lee Roth. Found an MP3 online of David's isolated vocal tracks from Runnin' With The Devil. Enjoy: link.

Later: sent the DLR link to friend and production pro Roger King at KRFX/Denver who then told me they were all over it in January (err.."VAN-UARY")...and shared these sweepers.

Dr. Pepper and Axl Rose. Mentioned here last month. And now from Ad Age comes the story behind the story. It all started with a couple of rock 'n rollers working at Pepper's parent company. Read here.

Radio History. I was going through my bookmarks tonight and found one I marked years ago. Some great stuff here from a name you know if you're a longtime reader of this blog.

More. Jay (J.) Blackburn - retired programmer/GM/owner - now has his website setup for his new novel "The Radio Gypsies".

This past Monday, I received my copy from Jay and spent the entire night reading. More on that soon.

Check out Jay's site here.

Sunday Afternoon Odds & Sods

48° - mostly cloudy at 1:19pm

Happy weekend from Michigan.

Listening. This morning to Bruce Springsteen's first album as I'm ripping music to use on my soon-to-come internet station. I've forgotten what a great record 1973's "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J." is.

My internet station - purely a hobby - remains nameless, but formatics are coming together in my head. Still determining whats practical for a one-man band. Still 2-4 months away from debut.

PPM Lessons. In this week's FMQB, Arbitron's Gary Marince talks about branding, focus, call letters, music and more. A great read here. Quoting Gary:

"It’s all about anticipating what the brand promises and delivers. Bottom line, listeners will tune to your station at their convenience. If they tune to the station in the middle of a four spot break, and they know through experience that they’re very close to hearing their favorite song, they will stay with the station through the commercial break. So it’s not the minute-by-minute analysis and programming that made the audience hang through the commercials, it is the brand and the expectations people have for the brand."

April Fools Day. Before you plan anything for Tuesday, read this from Radio-Info's Dana Hall.

No Repeat April. Heard from friend Roger King on Thursday. Roger is production director (or some title like that) at Clear Channel's KRFX/Denver.

Roger was in the midst of putting together imaging for a "no repeat April" - with the station promising not to repeat any song 10a-7pm weekdays for the entire month of April.

I asked if that meant lots of "deep cuts". The reply: "deep and wide, baby!".

Spring book begins Thursday. But you knew that.

DJ Update. Rick Kaempfer (pictured) catches up with Bob Skafish for an update on his (almost) new job as afternoon driver on Chicago's WDRV (97.1 The Drive). Plus updates from Scott Childers and Wendy Snyder.

Read the Chicago Radio Spotlight here.

Spring cleaning this weekend at the Kelley home. Time to get back to it.

Horton Hears The Who

From Denver's KRFX (103.5/The Fox) - click here to listen to the bit. Very cute!

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

31° - sunny (yeah!) at 1:10pm

Welcome to Friday; the end of a long week for yours truly. Just not enough hours in the day this past week. And winter has worn its welcome - spring won't come fast enough.

KRFX/Denver. PD Garner Goin celebrating the 70s with a very well-produced "Rockumentry" airing weekdays (this week and next) 10am to 7pm mountain time. Check it out and listen online here.

The station also featuring "Babes of the 70s", along with 70s music videos. Very cool. Its "events" like this that get people talking about your radio station.

Listening right now as the station is into the year 1976. Great imaging, great sound. Do give it a listen. Be inspired.

Concerts. The Police kicking off another leg of their reunion tour - seeing a lot of station tie-ins. Tom Petty (with Steve Winwood!), Mark Knopfler, Jethro Tull, Peter Frampton touring this spring and summer.

And yesterday I received an email press release that Foreigner will be hitting the road starting in mid-March in a tour sponsored by.....AARP. Cool for the AARP, but doesn't that make you feel just a little bit....old?

Lee Arnold. His daily ritual is 99% like mine; the only difference is that I read his blog and I'm honored to have him read mine.

Lee's morning routine here.

Change. Mark Ramsey with a brief comment on radio's slow move to change:

"You need to understand that, at its center, the definition of your day-to-day must be radically changed. How far are we from this understanding? Just witness how many stations still don't stream.

Note how many lack a listener database, let alone a "community." See how many don't email their listener base because they don't have enough listeners to bother or enough staff to execute. Until these issues are dealt with, it's hard to face our future."

Mark's post here.

More to come over the weekend.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

40° - fog at 10am Left: via Randy Raley's blog. Just too weird to pass up. More here.

Listening: My usual Sunday Morning fare. Bob Stroud/WDRV currently playing "Some Velvet Morning" (1968) from Nancy Sinatra and (the late) Lee Hazelwood. Video here

Velvet Morning one of my favs - a moment when pop met psychedelia. I see on Wikipedia that Vanilla Fudge covered it; I'll have to dig it up - I can only imagine.

Reading this morning: Jerry Del Colliano's INSIDE MUSIC MEDIA^TM - posting on Friday about Christmas Radio and the PPM success of WBEB/Philadelphia and KODA/Houston. Jerry writes:

"My own personal program director's people meter located right here in my gut tells me that audiences like it when radio stations create a feeling of something special."

My gut too - and this relates entirely to what I wrote last night regarding special programming - be it A to Z, a Top 500 Countdown - the clever stuff coming from John Hager in Buffalo - all that.

Jerry adds:

"Imagine what radio could really do if it tried harder. In fact, imagine what terrestrial radio could do if it tried harder the other 46 weeks a year. Betcha the ratings would soar among existing radio listeners."

"Trying harder" will never be a directive from the home office. It takes initiative at the PD level to make it all happen. Perhaps extra staff time. If it doesn't start with the PD - then where?

And GMs: you do trust your PD to do the right thing, yes? Empower them - or replace them with ones you can.

More: The Legendary Bill Drake - from the year end issue of R&R via Jaye Albright:

"Whoever puts the best on the radio wins. Obviously today you’ve got iPods, satellite and all kinds of goodies. There are some good programmers, but some lousy-sounding stations—and some of them have incredible signals. There doesn’t seem to be that fever anymore."

"I know when we were doing it we were like a brotherhood. We went in to win and did whatever it took. We were totally, absolutely dedicated. It doesn’t come across on many radio stations now. A lot of people just don’t know what they’re doing. Of course, that’s always been true, thank you, Jesus."

Great Audio. KRFX/Denver PM driver Shark recently spoke with the legendary Barry Fey about the concert business - music - and Led Zeppelin.

Recorded on the 40th anniversary of Led Zep's first show in America - in Denver. An act added as a favor to an already "sold out" show. Listen here. Great stories you'll love hearing.

Lee Arnold's moment of epiphany. A great read here.

Have a great Sunday. Tomorrow the start of another great week.

Sunday Night Odds & Sods

39° - rain at 5:53pm

A great plan but a sleepless night: last night was the Christmas Party for my wife's employer; and the dinner/party included rooms for the night in the hotel/event center.

But with a significant freezing rain/sleet fall it meant they'd be clearing the nearby roads and event center parking lot during the course of the night. Backup signal beeps. Lots of scraping. Barely any sleep; caught up on snooze time this morning.

WCSX/Detroit. In the process of counting down the top 94 albums of all time. The station has a great spread on their website featuring Top 10 lists from station staff. See here.

Ringing In The New Year. KCFX/Kansas City will be counting down the 1001 Greatest Classic Rock Songs of All Time. The station is currently soliciting listener suggestions for the list - see here.

KLPX/Tucson is getting ready to present the Top 25 albums of all time - as voted by listeners. Its set up very user-friendly on the web with a drop down menu of well-known albums the listeners can choose from. See here.

KRFX/Denver in the middle of Classic Rock A to Z. Production wiz Roger King always does a great job imaging Fox's A to Z. Listen online here.

CDs For The Troops. Covered a similar promotion here back in August. Now - in time for the holidays, WLAV/Grand Rapids is collecting music CDs - both new and "gently used" - from listeners - for our troops overseas. A great promotion. Check it out here.

My brother. Daytime job he's a graphic artist for a Chicago-based toy company. At night he programs his own online TV station. Sort of. Check out "WTV" here. WTV short for "Willinois Television". All for fun.

Jeff and family reside near the IL/WI border north of Chicago; thus "Willinois". Great use of Flash video sequencing; perhaps an idea for a radio station website!

Classic Rock Promotion Update

58° - overcast at 8:10am
Left: KRFX/Denver promoting AMD show podcasts Great photo!

Good Morning!

More summer ARB: In his Newsletter this morning, Tom Taylor writes: "I’ve now talked to several people who’ve peeked at the hush-hush pre-pre-currency People Meter numbers for New York, and they just smile when you ask about how well WCBS-FM could do in electronic measurement."

I gotta believe that many of Clear Channel's New York stations will benefit too - if what format-specific PPM performance demonstrated so far in the Houston and Philadelphia holds up.

Back to Tom Taylor - he notes Opie & Anthony didn't have a good summer book in NYC - the other WXRK dayparts outperforming the morning show. I keep asking: where is this show pulling any big numbers?

More cool promotions from classic rock radio:

Hottest Mom. WAXQ/New York has five grand for the hottest mom. A promotion that will drive traffic to the station website to submit and vote on pics submitted by listeners. Presented female-friendly (avoiding a "MILF" twist); check it out here.

Who Are You? We've written before here (and later here) about this web-based promotion that lets the listeners share their personal stories with other listeners.

Now WCSX/Detroit is joining WGRF/Buffalo (where we first saw this) and KZOK/Seattle with this great promotion - one your sales department can benefit from too (think "listener profile").

Speaking of WGRF/Buffalo - here's something I think I've seen before. Great ideas are meant to be "borrowed" !!!

See PD John Hagar's version of this promotion here. WGRF/97 Rock certainly has the market heritage to pull this off.

Personal note: Read that WVIC/Lansing-Jackson, MI PD/PMD talent Joe Thomas is out after a late Monday format change. WVIC dropped "classic hits" in favor of "soft rock". "soft AC"

Joe was my cross-town competition when I programmed here; and one of the first to shoot me a kind email after the budget axe cost me my job earlier this year.

Joe's a class act - and I wish him and the others affected from WVIC the best of luck in securing a new gig.

AM Drive in Denver & Classic Rock Websites

59° - fog at 9:10am

Good Morning from Okemos

KRFX/Denver: Fox AM drivers Lewis & Floorwax are on vacation this week - and filling in for them is Jack Blades. That's Jack Blades of Night Ranger/Damn Yankees fame.

Very cool. Jack chatting with his friends - just heard him talking on the phone to Frank Beard of ZZ Top.

btw: Great bench/locker room audio from last night's Colorado Rockies win via KRFX sports guy G-Man.

Might be wrong - but Blades sounds tracked - not that it matters to the listener. And Mr. Blades apparently has a bit of freedom with the playlist!

Last week Alice Cooper spent some time in the KRFX studios with PM driver Shark. Kudos to PD Garner Goin.

Wondering if Joe Walsh has done any AM drive vacation fill-in anywhere in recent years??

Hysterical....me? How I felt "the morning after" following my rant late last night about one station's listener club email "strategy".

Thanks to Dave Martin for the mention on his blog this morning.

Classic Rock Station Websites. Fred Jacobs wrote yesterday on classic rock radio websites and the potential for social networking. Fred blogs:

"Creating social networking opportunties for Classic Rockers, for example, is a slam dunk. They may come from different walks of life, but their one common thread is their passion for the music. And they love to talk about it."

"Just conduct some Classic Rock focus groups, and watch the fun. Even after the groups are over, and the respondents have been paid off, there's always a small group in the parking lot, continuing to debate whether Abbey Road or Sgt. Pepper's is the better Beatles album, or whether Keith Richards or Joe Perry is the superior axman."

Read Fred's complete piece here.

PPM + Fall Promos and Programming

73° - sunny at 10:45am

Good Morning from Michigan.

Left: from WQBW/Milwaukee. A small but great example of tying promotional efforts to current events! Fun too.


PPM and Stopsets: Inside Radio reporting of a "strategic shift" at Clear Channel's Houston cluster FMs - going from three stopsets per hour to two. Based on PPM research.

A letter to advertisers from Clear Channel notes "research with PPM shows us that people are listening through the commercial breaks."

IR adds that "Less Is More" inventory minute limits remain firmly in place, but stopsets will grow from a maximum of four minutes to five. They're also reducing station promos to one minute per hour, adding the inventory back to programming.

Added: Mark Ramsey offers commentary on the Clear Channel move here.

Programming note: KHYT/Tucson moves Opie & Anthony to overnights 3-6am. Just guessing its a "contractual obligation." Where is this show working in morning drive outside (perhaps) NYC?

Promotions: Seeing lots of on-air listen-to-win with Springsteen, Van Halen, Ozzy and Mellencamp tickets.

All "ready made" for classic rock radio; promotions you can't go wrong with.

Speaking of Concerts: KSHE/St. Louis is giving three listeners a chance to become KSHE's "official station photographer". One winner each at three upcoming concerts receiving concert tix and a photo pass. Details here. Easy to set up ($0) and very cool for listeners.

WPYX/Albany is giving listeners a chance to win $1000 by designing a billboard promoting the station's morning show. Here.

KRXO/Oklahoma City will be kicking off their "At Work Workforce Payroll" with $100/hour - plus a chance for an additional $100 bonus if a payroll winner knows "the three things".

Special fall programming: The long-term payoff with strong programming features is far greater than contesting. Its all about strengthening the brand.

KRFX/Denver kicks off "The History of Classic Albums" - presenting the essential classic albums of the last four decades in chronological order. More here.

WBLM/Portland is putting together classic rock's "Top 500" albums of all time. The station has listeners, staff and local celebrities submitting top ten fav lists. See here.

And tonight: WDRV/Chicago is celebrating the life of Jimi Hendrix - on the 37th anniversary of his death - with a one-hour special.

Presented at the end of the day (11pm) for the diehard Hendrix fans; format/music credibility made all day long simply by promoting it.