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.

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

72° - overcast/rain at 11am

Welcome to the weekend (close enough).

Fall Book Promos. Noting stations getting their on-air tactics together with forced listening "Workforce Payroll" promos in the plans so far for a couple stations:

WIMZ/Knoxville kicks off Workforce Cash this Monday - ahead of the book - with $100 an hour plus a chance at $1000 bonus each Thursday. P.S. to WIMZ: you might want to check the dates on those official rules - oops!

One of Tony Soprano's fav stations - WWUZ/Fredericksburg is banking a bunch of bucks on one day with a $500 an hour Workforce Payday on Thursday, September 27th.

More fall promotions in the days to come.

WVIC/Lansing continues "Chords For A Cause". Last month, I wrote here about the Eddie Money autographed guitar being auctioned off on-line.

This month WVIC has another guitar - this one autographed by members of Foreigner - to benefit another local charity. A great promotion and fine work by PD Joe Thomas.

SNL Radio. Westwood One adds Saturday Night Live audio and resources to its lineup. Details in the press release here.

I've always preferred access to raw audio to produce and customize as I wish on the station level. For use in station-branded bits and imaging. Hopefully its part of the package in addition to any "produced" features.

Real Time with PPM. Minute-by-minute results. Larry Johnson of Paragon Media writes:

"The minute-by-minute genie conceivably could be used by programmers to review the exact content during which people tuned out. While this has the potential to be a good coaching tool, it could also zap the stuff that Fans love. If programmers try to cut objectionable programming, they may be homogenizing content that generates Fans to the station."

Read Larry's complete piece - with reader comments - here.

Cool Promo for a Cool Cause

From Classic Hits WVIC - Lansing, MI:
click image for larger view

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.

Classic Rock FM Road Trip

As I mentioned in a post on Friday - this past weekend my two sons and I hit the road to visit relatives - and we documented what tunes we heard on the radio the entire way.

It's Classic Rock FM Road Trip #1 - WVIC to KRNQ. Song by song - station by station - mile by mile.

This likely means that I've got too much time on my hands. See it here.