Alice's Restaurant Still Rocks....

28° - sunny at 10:38am

Welcome to Black Friday. No I did not get to the mall at 4am; I actually slept 'til 9.

If any PD or GM has their doubts as to whether their Classic Rock station should be airing Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" on Thanksgiving Day - here's some totally unscientific data to ponder.

To preface: over the past week, I've written about special Thanksgiving Day programming stations around the country were offering - and that includes those stations that have promoted the airplay of Arlo's 1967 18:20 masterpiece. Writings on this blog are indexed by search engines such as Google and a few others.

On a normal weekday - this blog typically receives 85 to 125 unique visitors. Saturday and Sunday about half that.

Yesterday a holiday, I was expecting weekend visitor levels - if that much.

Surprise: the "unique visitor" numbers were more than double their usual weekday levels. Most were first time visitors too. All new cume!

And the search engine "keywords" that brought them here were all a variation on "Alice's Restaurant" on station XXXX.

A small example of those searches is on the right. Pretty cool to see!

It's something to think about when putting together plans for next year's Thanksgiving Day programming - especially if you were a classic rock station and passed on airing Alice's Restaurant yesterday.

Happy Thanksgiving From "The Boss"

well...sorta!

Have A Great Thanksgiving!

More Thanksgiving Programming

49 - overcast at 10:50pm

Welcome to Tuesday; My youngest celebrating his 9th birthday today - family festivities earlier this evening.

Longtime readers of this blog see a new post everyday; it just didn't happen yesterday with the day job in the way. Saturdays continue to be optional.

Cox Radio CEO Bob Neil: "Meeting - we don't need no stinking meeting".

OK - Bob didn't actually say that. But after Arbitron CEO Steve Morris suggested a meeting with its radio customers over PPM issues, Neil did tell All Access:

"Arbitron doesn't get it. We don't need a meeting. We need a clear plan on how and when they plan on hitting their sample targets. The time for meetings, delay tactics and spin is over. It's about giving radio and agencies what they've paid for: Good data."

Also on All Access: Cumulus head Lew Dickey said that no meetings were needed and that the ratings giant simply needs to "deliver the goods" and that "we are rooting for them to get this right". There's so much to be gained from the data PPM can give the industry. We all should be rooting for them to get it right. Its our future.

Meanwhile - I've written here before that with most people carrying a cell phone or a Blackberry-like device - and perhaps an MP3 player too - I can't imagine anyone wanting to wear an additional tool like the PPM on their person. But thats just me.

This morning McVay Media's Dave Lange wrote about using cell phones instead of the PPM device to collect listening data. A great read here. Hey, people carry cell phones already; give 'em a free cell phone is a great incentive to carry a device to record listening!

More Thanksgiving Programming: KPUS/Corpus Christi kicks off a "Second Helping" Weekend starting Wednesday Night at 6pm - with 2'fers all weekend long.

On Thursday, WDRV/Chicago is doing a "Turkey Day Triple Play" with 3-fers all day long.

WCSX/Detroit offers up Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" 4x Thursday; plus a 4-hour Bob Dylan documentary. See the schedule here.

WMGK/Philadelphia is serving up Alice's Restaurant ("all 18 minutes and 20 seconds of it") three times on Thanksgiving Day.

WROQ/Greenville, NC (Rock 101) is doing a whole lotta Led Zeppelin - featuring the bands "101 biggest songs A to Z" on Saturday and Sunday.

More here Wednesday; thanks for the ping!

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

41° and mostly clear at 11:50am.

This weekend: WBLM/Portland is doing a Beatles A to Z. Adding to the cool is a Beatles "almost A to Z" video collection on WBLM's website. Another idea worth stealing. Check it out here.

Thanksgiving. Finding out what classic rock stations are doing for Thanksgiving programming coming up this week.

In San Jose: KUFX is doing their Beatles A to Z (with selected solo works) - it kicks off Wednesday at noon. Thursday at noon the station will interrupt the A to Z for Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant".

KSLX/Phoenix is putting Arlo's Alice into heavy rotation on Thanksgiving Day...playing it at 8am, noon, 5pm and again at 8pm. The station also kicks off Classic Rock Z to A on Monday, November 26th.

In Buffalo - WGRF is playing Arlo's Alice twice on Thursday; then starting Friday Morning at 6, its 24 hours of nothing but Beatles! 97 Rock also airing the Led Zep syndicated Mothership special.

WKLH/Milwaukee is serving Arlo's Alice once on Thanksgiving Eve - and again Thanksgiving Morning; plus all day Thursday its "classic album sides".

WKLH also running two Led Zeppelin specials - The Mothership and Song Remains The Same.

More Thanksgiving specials to come.

Arguing Arbitron. A follow-up to what we wrote here. WSRT/Traverse City GM Charlie Ferguson comments on Arbitron's response over his complaints on the sampling and recruitment efforts in his market.

"Mr. Mocarsky's statement that 'the sampling rate is so high in Traverse City' is truly laughable. When three diaries were thrown out and the book reissued in Traverse City, WSRT/WSRJ went from a .6 rating in Persons 12+ to a .4 rating -- a drop of 33%! In our Female target demos, the ratings dropped over 21%."

"When ratings-driven revenue accounts for 40 to 45% of a stations total sales, the value of three little diaries in our size market is overwhelming. The remarkable honesty of the majority of media people is outweighed by Arbitron's obligation to provide reliable ratings data that both buyers and sellers can use with confidence."

Charlie's comments were published on All Access this past Friday. He also has an additional issue with Arbitron with the way averages can be calculated with ARB software by agency buyers. We'll see how this all plays out.

Radio Stories. Today Rick Kaempfer's Chicago Radio Spotlight shines on WLS/Chicago afternoon personality Roe Conn.

Read here.

And - from the "video comes back to haunt department":

Getting The Vote On....

It is an election day today. Here in our town - its city council and some bond issue stuff. But the real races are taking place in Buffalo, NY!

WGRF/97 Rock is holding the Classic Rock Elections! Station listeners involved as they vote for positions such as:

• "The Governor of Guitar" (Eddie Van Halen vs. Jimmy Page)
• "Head of the ATF" (David Crosby vs. Ted Nugent)
• "County Coroner" (Ozzy Osbourne vs. Alice Cooper)
• "Canadian Ambassador" (Rik Emmett vs. Geddy Lee)
• Plus more seats up for election.

97 Rock also running races for Governor - including:

• New Jersey (Jon Bon Jovi vs. Bruce Springsteen)
• Florida (Tom Petty vs. Ronnie Van Zandt)
• Michigan (Bob Seger vs. Ted Nugent)
• Others including Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York & Texas
  

That's right: Ted could be both Michigan's Governor and head of the ATF! Too funny!

Also on the ballot - a yes/no proposition: "Shall Classic Rock include artists who emerged in the 90's such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots and Alice In Chains?" A question often pondered by Classic Rock Program Directors!

It all sounds like great listener fun and making something extraordinary out of an ordinary election day. More brilliance from PD John Hager!

See the complete ballot online here.


Another election: New York's WAXQ is gearing up for Thanksgiving Weekend - soliciting listener votes for their favorite classic rock songs of all time. 1,043 songs over five days Wednesday through Sunday. Check out the concept and look at some past top song lists here.

And what are you doing for Thanksgiving?