Sunday Afternoon Odds & Sods

49° - light rain at 5:43pm. Left: downtown Lansing webcam. current image

Good afternoon from Michigan.

Late start on the blog today. I'm not quite sure why. I did wake early - for what is referred to in our house as a "Panera Run".

Panera a regional chain of excellent bakeries; a nice treat as the rest of the house awoke, especially on Mother's Day.

Promotions: Destination Zeppelin. Have seen a few promos for the new Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach, featuring the Led Zeppelin Roller Coaster. WAXQ/NYC here. KKFM/Colorado Springs here. Lee Arnold posted about Hard Rock Park here.

Second phase promos: WAOR/South Bend offering a "Flat Screen A Day In May". Here.

Gas: WTPA/Harrisburg is offering free gas here.

And from WBGG/Miami comes "Petty cash". Very cool name - and a very cool graphic. More here.

This is a very sleepy spring in terms of promotions, most likely due to the tight or non-existent budgets in the current economic climate. Fewer stations with "Workforce Cash". The "Harley Days of May" - once a classic rock staple, appears to be gone. Perhaps its time for change, but these promos appear to be replaced by nothing.

Around the blogs:

Seth Godin. Seth posts a great piece this morning (he says its ten years old) on "what every good marketer knows" that is very radio relevant.

Read here.

Wonderful stuff: Rick Kaempfer talks this week to the brilliant Ron Britian. Ron shares memories of WCFL/Chicago; and his own weekly "Subterranean Circus". It was my first real exposure to a lot of album rock...on a 50kw AM blowtorch!

Read Rick's interview here.

More tomorrow.

Bringing In The New Year with Classic Rock

26° - overcast at 9:45pm

Classic Rock Radio brings in 2008.

Countdowns appear to be the main event; but there's some other great features around the dial too.

In progress: CFMI/Vancouver kicked off a 500-song countdown on Boxing Day (that's the day after Christmas for us here in the States) and it runs through New Years Day.

KZOK/Seattle began a Top 1000-song countdown on Christmas Day - concluding on New Years Day.

In Scranton - WEZX/Scranton is in the midst of their Top 1007 countdown.

WAXQ/New York is replaying its Top 1043 songs of all-time (it did this over Thanksgiving) starting New Years Eve at 1pm.

Tucson's KLPX is spending the last day of the year counting down the Top 25 Classic Rock Albums Of All Time" as voted by listeners.

WAOR/South Bend is soliciting listener votes on their three favorite classic rock songs for a Top 30 Countdown on New Year's Eve. Voting by text message.

Check out WAOR's execution of the voting process here.

In Kansas City, KCFX is doing their top 1001 classic rock countdown. KZEP/San Antonio is all party songs starting at 8pm New Year's Eve.

WZLX/Boston does it live - live performances of classic rock favs by request starting at noon New Year's Eve. WTKW/Syracuse is bringing in the New Year with an A to Z marathon.

WABX/Evansville doing all requests ("happy YOU year") from Workforce members now through New Year's Day.

PD John Hager and WGRF/Buffalo celebrating the last day of the year 6am to 9pm by playing "the last cuts from Classic Rock's greatest albums".

Starting at 9pm its a commercial-free request fest with live reports from Buffalo's (and 97 Rock's) 20th Annual Ball Drop. Just like Times Square - but in Buffalo.

And on the first day of 2008 - John keeps the theme going with "by playing the first cuts from Classic Rock's greatest albums". All-Request starting at Midnight.

WKLH/Milwaukee is giving the airstaff New Year's Day off with a schedule full of syndicated specials - many of them encore presentations from the past year. See the lineup here.

Listeners Showing Off Their Racks...

75° - sunny at 1:52pm

No - not those racks.

Hmm...classic rock station. Heavy male demos. Hunting season underway.

Here's consumer-generated content for your website and an opportunity for your sales department to pick up some NTR dollars. A no-brainer.

See "Rate My Rack" from WBFX/Grand Rapids here.

See "Rack Of The Day" from WAOR/South Bend here.

Your mileage may vary given your region - but this is a great lifestyle promotion that a good chunk of your audience can get into.

More Cool Fall Promotions

72° - sunny at 1:40pm

Good Afternoon. Late post today; its been a busy morning.


Dave Lange. The fourth in his five-part series on The realities from PPM that apply to everyone is posted this morning. Today Dave writes about clocks and the realities of the Buzz Bennett standard. Read here.

Added: Dave Martin offers the last two of nine steps on getting your talent ready for the fall book. Here. And if you missed the first seven steps yesterday - click here.

Fall Promotions. Book begins (pause for deep breath) one week from today. Here's what I've seen the the past few days:

WAXQ/New York is repeating a promo they did in the spring - a variation on "The Workforce Payroll" - giving listeners an opportunity to become an "Honorary Music Director". Details here. I still want a Q104.3 ceramic coffee mug.

In South Bend - WAOR takes their twist on the Payroll promotion. Starting this Monday, listeners will have a chance to match their own pay for the day. More here.

Workforce Payroll in Portland - KGON executing the traditional Workforce Payroll promotion with $100 an hour beginning September 24th. Read here.



And - WMGK/Philadelphia is offering listeners a "laptop a day" - 9/24 through 10/19. Its a Dell, dude.

More promos to come!

Don't repeat this. Harv Blain writes here about a nameless station in a nameless market with a real bad fall promotion.

Have a great Thursday.

In The Game (without the play-by-play)

81° - cloudy/overcast at 1pm

Good afternoon from Okemos....

Football season has arrived - and there's a number of Classic Rockers that are flagships or affiliates of NFL and College teams.

The demos and lifestyle are a perfect fit.

And there's some Classic Rock stations using this great match to tie themselves to a local team each week - right up to kickoff - without any play-by-play rights!

In Philadelphia: "Bird" fans can get their dose of classic rock plus "the PERFECT AMOUNT of Birds FOOTBALL ANALYSIS + INSIGHT!" with WMGK's "Classic Kickoff" - live from a sports bar blocks from the stadium.

'MGK is telling listeners and fans to: "Stop by and see us before the game + by all means BLAST MGK IN THE STADIUM LOTS while you're tailgating!" Very cool.

WFBQ/Indianapolis was the flagship station for The Colts until this year. But the station isn't letting the lack of play-by-play rights get in the way this year.

WFBQ promises "the best Colts coverage" - with a pre-game show live from The Marriott in downtown Indy.

Up north - South Bend is home of The Fighting Irish - and WAOR has the "Blue Gold Hour" every Saturday Morning.

A "Notre Dame Pre Game Show with interviews, analysis and special guests!" - and hosted by WAOR's AM drive team.

KSHE/St. Louis is presenting "The Miller Lite Ultimate Tailgate Party" before each Rams home game - broadcasting live 3 hours prior to kickoff.

"Drink the coldest beer around and enjoy our "Taste of Tailgating" featuring the best wings, brats, pulled pork, and Philly cheese steak sandwiches!". Sounds like a real party!

And WZBA/Baltimore is hosting 3-hour pre-game tailgate parties for Ravens fans - raising money for a local charity too!

I'm reminded of a story that Randy Michaels told during a session of Dan O'Day's Radio Grad School more than a decade ago - about his early Taft and Jacor days - and AM radio wars in Cincinnati.

His station didn't have the play-by-play of a local team - but according to Randy you couldn't tell it on the air. They were all over the team the other guys had the rights to - with pre-game and post-game coverage - plus reporting and imaging through the week.

Randy said his station got a lot of diary credit from the competitor's PBP simply because they did a better job of imaging the station with the team!

Go that far with a classic rock station? Maybe yes. Maybe not. But its great inspiration of what could be - especially if the PBP is with an AM station in your market. Idea: "own" the team on FM.

A DVD and audio cassette of that Randy Michaels session "Positioning Your Radio Station" still available through Dan O'Day's website.

Have a great football season - and go Broncos!

More Winners..

85° - cloudy at 5:30pm

Late day post today; busy day catching up on a few things including PC maintenance - plus starting a new outside project.

Spring numbers: 12-plus numbers released yesterday. Lots of wins in the classic rock world.

In Harrisburg: classic rock WTPA is up over a share and a half. In the same market -classic hits WRVV is up more than a point.

In Peoria: classic hits WPBG (using "The Drive" moniker) up almost a point and a half - good enough for second place. Great sounding radio station I heard a few months back on a trek to Missouri.

Classic Rock also up in South Bend: WAOR moves up from 6 to a tie for 4th 12+. Across town, WZOW - playing "whatever rocks" - is also up nearly two points.

In Ventura County: KOCP scored big - up over two points and their best performance in recent history. More numbers today in the usual places.

David Martin. Dave blogs today about a great radio station food drive in St. Louis. "Christmas in July" - a fabulous idea!

Scroll down on Dave's blog for a great piece on Chicago's Steve Dahl - who alone keeps one Chicago FM station alive with incredible numbers. I get something/learn something from David's blog almost everyday. Here.

More tomorrow morning.

MId-Book Promo Check

Well almost mid-book. Today begins week #5 of the spring Arbitron.

I was really expecting to see a lot of "Harley Days Of May" promotions as I surfed through the stations. Did find a few: WGRF/Buffalo; KMOD/Tulsa; KSEG/Sacramento; WPYX/Albany; KRKX/Billings; WBXQ/Altoona; WGBF/Evansville; There's got to be others I missed.

Dude, You're Getting A Dell: "A Dell A Day In May" - WAOR/South Bend with a Dell laptop and 3-months of Comcast internet when the cue plays. Here.

No Repeat Work Week. WCSX/Detroit with this 9 to 5 contest featuring a song of the week worth $1000. Sometimes it plays twice for another chance to win.

Hi-Lo Jackpot. WMGK/Philadelphia brings back a promotion thats been around since (at least) the 1960s. Great graphics here.

Another Classic: "The Secret Sound" giveway. KJFX/Fresno brings back another one. Link. I'm waiting for a station to do a new twist on "radio bingo".

Ultimate Garage. Its a definite guy thing. WSKZ/Chattanooga has the goods. Here. Also saw one station doing a kitchen makeover...not quite a guy thing...but....

Best wishes for a great spring book!