Wednesday Blogs

From my blogosphere:

Long Live Rock. Quoting Lee Arnold Tuesday: "A cataclysmic event may just have happened yesterday in Rock Radio." The first PPM ratings have been been released from Philadelphia - and show a substantial increase in the shares for rock and classic rock radio.

Rock WMMR jumps from a 4.3 to a 7.9; Classic Rock WMGK 3.6 to a 5.7. Wow.

More: "Something that Rock Programmers have known forever was finally proven. Arbitron's diary system under-represents Rock Radio's Ratings." Read Lee's entire post here. (link repaired)

Added: Bob Seger helps Classic Rock numbers in winter Detroit Arbitron. The Detroit News story is here.

The NAB and streaming. They've been late to the party but are finally hopping on the bandwagon to fight increased streaming royalty payments to Sound Exchange. Jerry Del Colliano writes about the NAB and Internet Radio here.

Energizing Remotes. Here in Lansing a few months back, we livened up some bar remotes with Nintendo Wii gameplay and giveaways. This morning Fred Jacobs writes about another game that might shake up your remotes. Read here.

Continuing Education. Seth Godin writes "If you went to a doctor who told you that she hadn't read a scholarly article or taken any training since med school, would you stick around? What about a lawyer who doesn't read law journals or a dentist who never bothered to read up on the newest case studies?" Seth's entire post is here.

We all grow reading about the changes in our industry and what others are doing. And thats the very point of this blog.

Have a great Wednesday.

Bonding With The Workforce

Last Friday - we wrote here about a couple of classic rock stations getting their morning drive shows out to meet listeners. Excellent!

There's a lot more mileage in meeting and bonding with listeners at their workplace as opposed to inviting them to a bar or some other client-sponsored remote appearance.

With workplace visits, the station is invited by listeners - who are already on-site ; and its a great opportunity to convert non-listeners at the workplace into fans. They can't run when you're feeding them!

From around the dial:

KKPT/Little Rock gets out with "The Point 94.1 Office Patrol" - lunch and prizes. I just love the above graphic on their website!

In Hampton Roads, WAFX sends their morning team out to visit a listener workplace once a week with "The Fox Office Of The Week"...food, t-shirts, free music downloads cards - and $100 cash to the person submitting the entry.

KMGN/Flagstaff morning man Eddie Miller goes by the local BK each week and then delivers the "Mid Week Lunch Stop". WMMQ/Lansing rotates airstaff each week for the "Office Ambush"; delivering lunch from Qdoba Mexican Grill each week to an area business. Also teaming up with Qdoba is WNRQ/Nashville with the "Workforce Invasion".

In Knoxville - WIMZ has lunch from Wendy's delivered by an air talent plus a WIMZ Rock Babe! Photos here. Babes rock. WNNJ/Newton, NJ does the "Workforce Pizza Invasion" with food and freebies.

WODE/Easton, PA does a fully-catered lunch/live broadcast each week from an area workplace as part of their "1 O'Clock Back To Work Perk" promotion.

San Diego's 101/KGB targets construction sites (not everyone works inside) with "Free Lunch Fridays".

And this is cool: WEKL/Augusta visits area workplaces with a "Mayfield Dairy Ice Cream Break". Very nice! I scream for ice cream!

These things are so easy to do - food likely not much more than a trade for mentions - or your sales department can use as programming-friendly "added value". Help them help you.

Workplace appearances can do much to help loyalty listening to the 6a-7p daypart; where adult targeted radio stations get the bulk of their revenue. As PPM is introduced in the top 50 markets, the battle for workplace listening becomes even more critical.

I've read through the years that winning is 50 to 90 percent "just showing up".

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

left: still from live webcam - San Francisco Peaks/Flagstaff, AZ - this morning 8:20am Mountain Daylight Time.

Flagstaff: one of my favorite towns.

Listening to Seaver this morning on the Deep Tracks stream from WDRV. Playing right now: "Simple Man" - Skynyrd. Later: "Route 66" - Stones (which mentions "Flagstaff, Arizona" - heard just after I posted the above picture..weird!)

Imus (one more time): If you've watched any of the cable news channels in the last week - plus ESPN - the Don Imus situation continues to be the hot topic. It's Time Magazine's cover story this week with a story written between CBS Radio's suspension and cancellation.

Edison Media Research's Sean Ross here about life after Imus.

Heritage Station Salutes: About a month ago, we wrote about "The Station Music Expert" - and specifically "Downstairs" Dan Hansen at WKLH/Milwaukee - who features the 'ZMF Flashback during his shift - paying homage to the legendary AOR station in the Milwaukee market back in the 70s. Very cool.

Found WNCD/Youngstown doing the "Wizard Sunday Morning" from 8 to 10am. WSRD - aka "Wizard" - was Youngstown's original Prog Rock station back in the 70s and early 80s. The show on WNCD is hosted by "original Wizard Minion Thomas John". Another great example of getting real local.

Playlist notes: WDRV/Chicago surprised me yesterday (delightfully) with REM's "Its The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" from 1987's "Document". Not for every station and your mileage will vary greatly.

But the conversation about aging demos and newer music is a good chat to have. I remembering adding Def Leppard for the first time to a classic rock station playlist years ago with some trepidation; now the band is a core artist for many stations.

PPM For TV. I see that starting in September, Nielsen's version of the PPM will start tracking television viewership wherever it occurs - such as bars, restaurants, gyms, etc. Read it here. This should provide some interesting data!

Great Stories. Rick Kaempfer on Marilu Henner. Actress. Radio guest. Read Rick's stories about Marilu appearing on John Landecker's Chicago radio show here.

Hoping for a high of 50 here; have a great Sunday!

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

left: looking east from my home 8:30 this morning.

Here Comes The Sun. Perhaps spring is finally arriving here in Mid-Michigan.

Its Friday the 13th. What, me worry?

Promotions: WNCX/Cleveland kicks off its spring book workforce promotion on Monday with listeners winning a "20th Anniversary Work Shirt" and a chance at a $5000 each week for 4 weeks. The Work Shirt - a great idea!

WODE/Easton, PA kicks off their Workforce Payroll next Thursday with $99/an hour - plus a shot at an insurance-backed Million Dollar jackpot. Looks like they picked up some NTR revenue with the contest too!

WDVE/Pittsburgh conducted a "Hairband Idol" contest at local clubs. And they've got video on their website.

Out & About: The other day this blog mentioned a few stations getting out shaking hands and kissing babies. I see that WKLH/Milwaukee's Dave and Carole are doing their morning drive show live once a week at "their favorite businesses around town". A great way to kick off the book! Today they're at the "Crew Operations Center" of Midwest Airlines.

Thank You. To Lee Arnold and his kind words about this blog.

I-Man: On Wednesday I wrote: "I don't feel its going to be quite that easy for Imus this time".

But I never imagined it going this far.

Fred Jacobs sums up Don Imus this morning on his blog: "terrestrial radio has just lost another star it cannot replace".

Great words. I've always lived by this - and its nice to see in print: "Tell the truth, tell it completely, and tell it immediately." - Dan Edelman (via Dave Martin).

More here Sunday Morning. Have a great weekend.

Wednesday Blogs

Wednesday...already! Still waiting for spring here. Cold and very windy today. Added: now its snowing hard.

From the 'net:

Don Imus: Lots o' tongues wagging about the John Donald Imus, Jr issue in the past several days. A 2-week suspension starts next Monday for the veteran air talent.

In his Tuesday post - Dave Martin writes about the Imus controversy - and has offered his own take here on whether Imus should stay or go.

Jerry Del Colliano writes about "The Hypocrisy Surrunding Imus" in his blog this morning. Mark Ramsey offers up "Math with Mr. Imus"; I don't feel its going to be quite that easy for Imus this time - though I've been wrong before. Added: Fox News (plus now Inside Radio) reporting Wednesday Night 7pm ET that MSNBC has cancelled the TV simulcast of the Imus show.

Beyond Imus:

Fred Jacobs writes this morning about how Neilsen is now including 18-24yr old college students who live away from home in their surveys - while Arbitron is still struggling with "cell phone only" households. With our last move, the Kelley household here was cell-phone only for our first year; and we only acquired a traditional land-line phone packaged with improved broadband/internet service.

Demers Programming reminds us that this Friday is "Friday the 13th". Ozzy Osbourne will debut a new single online Friday. And Wednesday, April 25th is "Administrative Professional's Day".

Promotions: These two remind me of the classic "30 bars in 30 days": WMGK/Philadelphia is getting out to the suburbs with "Andre Gardner's Hometown of the Week" - once a week trips to pubs in the outlying areas of the metro...they get diaries too! (Andre: I was also a member of the "kid with radio station in bedroom" club).

Down in Little Rock - KKPT's morning show is doing a tour to find "The best breakfast in Central Arkansas". How cool!

Listening to KKPT on the web right now - a great sounding Classic Rock station.

And...if you haven't seen it yet - do check out our little roadtrip from this past weekend: WVIC to KRNQ. Have a good Wednesday.

No More Remotes

There's nothing much worse than being the talent at a remote broadcast thats destined for failure. I've certainly done a few in my career - and those that failed have done so for any number of reasons.

Some probably shouldn't have been sold to begin with. You ever have that feeling?

I read a quote from someone not so long ago that most remotes are simply bad commercials. Talking with a fellow radio professional last night, he observed that "nobody gives a **** about what jocks look like - and the days of cool broadcast equipment....you know the seven year olds have cooler stuff. Blue Ray game boxes. Like a Shure mixer and a cell phone compare?"

Emmis/Indianapolis has just decided put an end to typical radio remotes and focus on event solutions for clients.

See this flash presentation from Emmis.

That said - remotes remain a major revenue source for most small and medium market radio stations.

Has there discussion at your station about the requirements to make remotes successful. This includes what the station needs to do - and what the client needs to do. Too often remotes are treated too casually and just expected to work without a plan or strategy.

What can turn a remote into an event?

Dave Lange of McVay Media writes about remotes today here. Added: Dave Martin's take on remotes. Scroll down for "In all of art it's the singer not the song" in this post.