Monday Monday

47° - cloudy at 10:30pm

13 hours on the day job today. So nice to be busy again!

Edison Media. Sean Ross and the folks are blogging here about the ten best radio markets for radio - and begin the countdown with Louisville.

Sean notes a "heated" classic rock battle between Clear Channel's WQMF and Cox Radio's WSFR.

Over the summer, WSRF won the 12+ numbers; back in the spring it was WQMF. You have to love a battle like that. We'll have to listen tomorrow on the 'net!

Fred Jacobs. Fred writes this morning about The Eagles new album; how its distribution is anything but conventional; how the heritage band's album knocked Britney out of the top spot on the charts. Read here. Fred promises a related follow-up piece on his blog tomorrow.

Great quote. About the current recession (or "economic downturn") from McVay Media's Dave Lange:

"...a recession is the perfect time to build a brand. You will likely see less competition, less clutter around your message, and remember the audience is STILL THERE. Just because they may be holding their wallets a little tighter they are still looking for entertainment and we offer it for free every day."

Dave's blog is here.

Watching: The Closer tonight on TNT and hearing the familiar voice of actor Barry Corbin (saw him too!) - reminding me of one of my favorite radio stations that only existed in the TV world: KBHR/Cicely, Alaska.

KBHR - a part of the early 90s TV series Northern Exposure. Barry's character (Maurice Minnifield) owned the station that featured "Chris in the morning" - (played by actor John Corbett). Just a great series. And Janine Turner - the icing on the cake.

BTW: Barry Corbin is voice of 99.5/The Wolf in Dallas. MP3s of his imaging work here.

More tomorrow. Bedtime for Bonzo.

Product Placement + Middays With Dave Lange

57° - overcast at 9:35am

Good Morning.

Last night: My wife and I were watching the final season episode of "The Closer" on TNT - with her remarking about all the "product placement" in the show.

I was a oblivious to it - but she pointed out both a T-Mobile ring tone and a brand of cookie that I don't recall now.

What about radio? When I was with one large broadcasting company, there were many discussions about product (or advertiser) placement in short jock raps in lieu of long station promos. Makes a lot of sense in this day and age.

Then again - is this going too far? We report. You decide.

More from Dave Lange. On his blog he's posting the "5 Realities from PPM that apply to EVERYONE". This morning its Part 2 - and all about the importance of "At Work" listening.

With apologies to Dave for over-quoting:

"Even in the diary books we usually see the Classic Rock is #2 in At Work listening and all forms of rock do better than many expect at work. With the PPM Meter automatically recording listening, instead of relying on recall (Abitron's Gary Marince) feels we are seeing even more TSL from at work in PPM than we see in the diary- and he has all the data at his finger tips."

"If you've ever looked at the diaries it's easy to see At Work listening with that entry at the top of the page and a squiggly line all the way down to 5p racking up 25-30 quarter hours in 1 day."

"How much effort are you putting into at work listening?"

"In some markets mid-days is a daypart where we most often 'hard drive' it with the PD, VT talent or a production person doing the shift."

More from Dave here. An excellent read with some great suggestions; time well spent.

Its my feeling that (usually) outside of mornings - middays are the most important shift of the day for classic rock radio - in need of a live, living, breathing voice on the air talking to the at-work listener. Lots of interaction. Promotions geared for work crowd.

Listen to middays on WCSX or WKLH.

Just a few stations that come to mind that really get what middays should be.

Be inspired and create great classic rock radio.